Note that 'professional' format is Courier font, double-spacing, one-inch margins on sides and bottom, 1.5 on top. This is what editors would like to get for submitted manuscripts, makes for easier markup and length estimation, also their eyes get used to reading that way. (The rule of thumb is "anything that makes the editor's job easier gives them less reason to reject you.") This reliably comes out to around 250 words (a word averaging six characters long) per page.

Note that Stephen King or Anne Rice could submit on old shopping bags in red crayon. Note also that no rule prevents you from writing in any font or format if it's easier on your eyes/saves paper/you think it's prettier.

Me, I've taken to always writing in professional format because a) it really is easier to mark up that way, especially because in my rewrite phase I often cross out whole sentences and phrases, and scrawl in something else, and b) then I don't have to reformat the whole mess if I submit it to a professional market.

What Theo Said.

On my machine, Word defaults to "manuscript submission" (no I do not mean porn) setting. I don't average 250 - more like 232, because I tend to user longer words.

Note that an editor will NOT read a single spaced printout in tiny pitch, and I don't blame them. My eyes go ballistic at the thought...

Note that an editor will NOT read a single spaced printout in tiny pitch, and I don't blame them.

Seriously. I can't bear teeny tiny type in LJs -- let alone something I'd be reading hundreds of pages of.

Reformatting takes me three minutes top.

Typing or reading in that format, however, is unpossible for me on the computer screen.

I suppose I could write a macro so I could buttonize the process.

"Manuize" or "Readble"

Actually, not a bad idea...

PMM, if you use Word styles instead of typing everything into "Normal", it takes two seconds to change the output format.

Onscreen, it's easiest for me to read single-spaced paragraphs (courier, size 10) with an extra space between paragraphs. On paper, the traditional manuscript submission format is easiest to read.

BTW, I have registered for NaNoWriMo under my "Sophia P." pseud.

PMM, if you use Word styles instead of typing everything into "Normal", it takes two seconds to change the output format.

For various reasons, I prefer to keep styles off on this machine. It's a personal preference. Word has some style bugs I'd rather not deal with if I'm not getting paid to deal with them.

For me, given what I do for a living, it's quicker and easier to just make myself a button or two to automate the process.

Can we have a hearty round of Word SUCKS!

Thank you, children.

On my machine, Word defaults to "manuscript submission"

Now, in manuscript submission format, it's courier 12pt, not 10, right?

As for my screenplays, professional screenplay format is SO important to get right, I finally broke down and bought one of the two screenplay writing programs.

Even creating specific styles for the various screenplay elements in Word, your screenplay will page out too long, by up to twenty pages, which is a massive difference.

Screenplays theoretically pace out at a minute of screen time per page, so if your format is off, not only will it not time out right, what you thought was a full length screenplay will wind up barely filling ninety minutes.

And if you only wrote a ninety minute story, you're going to wind up with about an hour and fifteen minutes worth of movie.

Oh, I'm totally with Plei on the "make it easy on the eyes of the writer first" reality. I've just been writing on the computer for so long now - first novel, The Goldsmith, was done on a Xerox 850 word processor and the nest three and half were done on a Wang - that I can no longer make anything look right that isn't man-sub formatting.

One of the things that happens sometimes at writers group is that some of our writers - Rosie, Bea - write in the small print single space format. And watching them having to go back halfway through every tenth line because they've lost their place? Oy. It does break the flow of the read.