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Voice recognition software has come a long way; this writer could also read the work aloud into the computer...

...although the process of typing a handwritten draft in oneself is a GREAT opportunity for the first revision, one I wouldn't miss.

This person types for pay ... and needs to be told that there are people out there who type for pay? Oy.

*gives a sheepish look in the direction of her Latin dictionaries*

Writer's Digest (in spite of all my issues about their full-page ads for the pay-to-publish industry) has lists of ads in the back for people who type manuscripts. The rates vary, but will usually run a couple of bucks per page.

Some scanning programs are able to recognize handwritten words and transcribe them into typed Word documents. Do your research, you might be able to find one of these beauties. You could write to your heart's content and have your spouse-creature feed the pages whilst you cook. Best wishes!

Would KY object if there are squirrel ghosts ?

If you can't type your book without injuring yourself, then you'll have to manage your schedule or find some other means ... but unfortunately, your health is not something that the agents will be prepared to break that important a rule for. Unfamiliar handwriting is just not that easy to read - especially for a whole book's worth of material: eighty thousand words or more in handwriting is enough to give anyone a headache, even if the handwriting is perfectly nice.

I fear it's a contest between your sore hands and the agent's sore eyes, and agents being only human, it's their own pain that will carry the day.

Let's hope you sell the book for millions and can quit the transcription job, but in the meantime, don't give yourself such bad RSI that you can't even hold a pen, and good luck in finding a solution.

Just out of idle curiosity, do you really think that writing a dozen or so fulls by hand is easier than typing it all up once?

Elektra, I was wondering that, too!

If you've worked your way up to ice at night, that pain in your hands is not just typist's cramp; it's repetitive strain injury, of which carpal tunnel is the best known but surprisingly the least-common form for writers. You need a diagnosis and treatment before you end up with the inability to work full time. The Irving J. Selikoff Clinic at Mt. Sinai in New York is particularly good. Any physical therapist or chiropractor trained in Active Release Technique can also probably do a world of good (you can find one by going to the Active Release Technique website). You might drop in on an RSI (repetitive stress syndrome) support group; these are people who tend to do to a lot of research about their condition. Sorry to be alarmist, but ice is not a treatment, and nerve damage doesn't go away if you keep hitting your fingertips against a keyboard without changing anything else. The good news is you often CAN reverse it.

Suck it up and/or bite the bullet, dear writer.

No one gets out of this one.

Try hammering your million words of drek and first three novels out on a K-Mart portable with white out and carbons the way I did. You'll regard the click of a keyboard as music for the rest of your life.

This is the silliest question, I've read to date. I can't believe this wasn't a nitwit alert here. Come on! You type other people's work for a living and think it is ok to find someone out there who is going to take your handwritten manscript to print? WTF?!

As the poster of this question, I have a few details that I left out that may answer some comments.

I'm poor. I can't afford to pay anybody else for anything. I can't afford any extra software. All my money goes to basic daily survival.

Beacause of how many hours a day I spend typing, writing by hand is actually a relief, especially with this fantastic fountain pen I received as a gift. Also, I can't spend more than half an hour writing a day anyway.

I do the best I can with the situation at hand (pun intended). I was mourning the by-gone days of when all manuscripts were handwritten and wanted to see if there was any other choice besides getting a new job.

Sigh. It's hard being a nitwit...

Then again, there's that hand written submission by Frank McCourt that ended up in the hands of the legendary Molly Friedrich.

I wouldn't risk it. The odds are stacked against you.

I was going to suggest taking a vacation to type up your ms, but since you can barely pay the bills working full-blast, that option's probably out.

Any kind-hearted friends/family members who'd be willing to help you out?

Any chance of getting a new job with better pay and less typing?

Have you tried give-away organisations like Freecycle? If you keep your eyes on them, you might be able to get hold of a free scanner or some software, which might save your poor suffering hands. Or possibly some hand braces, which will support your hands while you type, and reduce the damage.

Do read up about RSI and do the exercises; I know more than one person who's got it, and one of them literally became unable to hold a book open. Full-blown RSI is awful. You need to take care of yourself.

Beg or borrow, sweet-talk friends into typing for you, copy-type with two fingers, but don't risk disabling yourself. You want to be able to keep writing for a very long time.

On the plus side, many people believe that there are artistic advantages to writing out a first draft longhand, so maybe some good will come of this early disadvantage.

Oh, and I don't know if it works this way in the States, but in the UK you can often get cheaper treatment for things like RSI if you go to an osteopath's or physiotherapist's training college and let the students work on you under supervision. Hopefully things won't get that bad, but just in case they do, it's a way to save money...

OP, get out of the victim mode and into solutions. You're working doing transcriptions all day but you call yourself poor. Go ask for a raise or get a better job. Are you missing the irony that you type for a living but say you can't afford to pay someone to type your manuscript? What about a trade?

If you are in pain, the best thing that could happen to you is you realize this may not be the best job for you. Your health is everything.

a lot of RSI experts don't like to see wrist braces worn while typing; it's just propping up weak muscles instead of strengthening them. for the same reason they often don't like wrist rests: ideally one should be strong enough to hold up one's own arms and keep the wrists in neutral position. better to get into the gym and strengthen the arm and back muscles, plus abs, for posture. try wearing wrist braces while you sleep -- often that helps a great deal. there's a lot of difference of opinion in this field, obviously. feel better! Oh--if you have trouble holding books or turning pages (yeah, it can get that bad), any doctor or physical therapist can certify you to get free books on tape from the Braille Library. Amazing.

For people who have wrist pain while typing, I always recommend two things that have helped me a lot.

(1) Buy a split (ergonomic) keyboard. They're not that expensive, and they'll put your hands into a much more comfortable position.

(2) Learn Dvorak, an alternate typing method. You can set your existing QWERTY keyboard for Dvorak input and switch back and forth at will. Sure, it takes work to learn a new layout, but not all that much work. It took me 15 minutes a day for a month or two, while typing QWERTY most of the rest of the time; you can do it in weeks if you switch cold turkey.

I used to get sore wrists all the time, even with the split keyboard. Not anymore!

Okay ... so tell me ... what am I going to do with all that pink paper with dancing goats all 'round the boarder NOW?

Okay, question. I use justify margins because the ragged right edge makes me crazy. Should I turn it off before submitting? Or is it just when the author draws it to your attention in the query that you don't take them seriously?

I was thinking this site is very helpful to those writers who struggle in a severe way with interactions with people due to an illness... this is why i come to this site... and Miss Snark is really good at saying things clearly and straight without confusing things in some type of politics or agenda... she simply says what many people thihk but rarely say... i know most of the people that struggle in this way are considered nitwits and i suppose many are; but it's not always that...

I don't understand your insistence on uniformity. Many creative people consider themselves unique; using colored paper and different fonts is probably just their way of expressing that. They don't want to be like everyone else. Some go down in flames as a result of that credo, I am sure. Maybe you could put all the oddballs in a separate pile and read them on a day when you are imbued with an extra dose of patience(or gin). As for the industry standard -- Underlining the title of the book was the standard until word processors and computers allowed for the use of italics. Now really, how could justified type be that annoying?

Oh, Don't forget including an 8x10 glossy of the author, autographed in advance for you're viewing pleasure.

wrath: she just said, do not under any circumstances ever justify when submitting. edges must be ragged! and really think, you shouldn't be talking about your margin usage in the query anyway.

Miss Snark just got herself a new category: format. That's pretty funny. Although after I send this message, I'm going to have a second look at format. Borderline OCD will do that to ya'!

I wonder which category gets the most hits? And will there ever be sub-categories?

sha'el, save them for sending thank-you letters to your fans.

never woulda thought that about the right hand margins...hmm. Miss Snark, thank you for another pearl of insider knowledge!

Colored paper? Really? Some people's children...

Put it this way, wrath. As a reader, justified right margins make ME crazy.

Unless you have proper print production software (like Quark or Pagemaker or something of that ilk), justified right margins make the spacing between all the letters and words on each line go all haywire. It's difficult to read when the amount of space between words is jumping all over the place. Which is exactly what Word or any other ordinary word processor does.

If Miss Snark says don't do it, don't do it. If you gotta have the margins justified to make you happy during editing, that's your own affair. But turn them off when you submit.

Wrath--

There is a reason behind the "raggad right" rule. When you're reading pages upon pages of manuscript copy, it is MUCH easier to read copy that is not right justified. Books are formatted for readability--the letting is adjusted by somebody who knows what they're doing (hopefully). The word processing programs I've used simply don't format justified text well.

Proper formatting, like proper grammar, is invisible. Don't do anything that calls attention away from the most important thing: your writing.

Ditto wrath's question.

When you say "right hand justified margins", I'm assuming you mean full justification, right? (Because it would be loopy for someone to submit their manuscript with text justified to the right.)

Why is full justification such a big deal? I'm curious.

What about font? I'm sure as hell not using Comic Sans or Palatino, but is there anything wrong with plain Times New Roman? Do I have to use 12-point Courier?

Ditto Alison-c's response. When you spend a major part of your day reading, the irregular word spacing brought about by full justification is a low-level irritant that reaches higher levels the more hours you put in reading. It also makes it very clear you haven't put in any time researching what the requirements are. But I have to agree, it doesn't seem to be as bad as the other two.

Oops! Concession required. Sorry Miss Snark. Poorly justified type, squished or spacey, can be most annoying.

When I began the ms I played around with typesize, line length, (I even had a two-column format, landscape orientation for a while, just to see what it would look like as a book...what a dreamer!)and font style, but I was using Quark at the time and had better fonts than those in Word. I was a typesetter.

What I ended up doing in MS word was make the margins wider, line length about 6.5 inches, 12 pt Garamond font and fiddled with the character spacing a little. Do Not Try this at home. I'm not even using the approved font; I like Garamond (a little smaller than Times) or Century Schoolbook (larger than Times). I noticed a comment awhile back that only Times Roman should be used. Hmmm. I don't use justified type for the ms, but I think it can make a business letter look really nice. Obviously, my stuff's going to get tossed on format violations. Failure to conform is my cross to bear.
Goggle-Typesetting

Now really, how could justified type be that annoying?

Dear Me Said:

Most editors, teachers, professors, and others who read zillions of pages of typescript find it easier to follow the flow if the right margin isn't justified. Take my word for it.

A fully justified page may look nice and neat and orderly, but those of us who read it do not prefer it. Why make us cranky and give us a head ache?

You may feel free to irritate a pixie. We're small and often thought of as insignificant. Don't irritate editors, agents or professors. ... Just don't.

Sheesh! some people are so









stubborn!

Anonymous said...
sha'el, save them for sending thank-you letters to your fans.

I have fans?

Okay, who else out there besides me is secretly breathing a sigh of relief over never having committed these sins? I KNOW you're out there.
Oh, and pixie princess with the pink paper and goats, give the stuff to the nearest 13-year-old girl you can find; she'll turn in all her homework written on the stuff and drive her teachers crazy for weeks. (I know; I'm a teacher. The worst was that black paper and silver ink fad about 10 years ago.....)

The only exception I know of is for certain kinds of poetry and then only for the poetry, not the query letter or any text that might explain away your motives for what you wrote.

Three things there are that can never come back:
The arrow shot forth on its destined track,
The appointed hour that could
not wait,
And the helpful word that was spoken too late.

Thanks for the advice pixie, but you are years too late.

Dangit, and me with a new box of crayons for naught!

sha'el -

Yes, you have fans!

Another thing to avoid: author-photoshopped 'cover art'. Bad idea.

We still use underline because it's easier to see during the manuscript stage. But with the wonderful thing called Find & Replace, it doesn't matter much which one the author uses.

My middle name is italic...I use it to death. I never underline (I have heard that recommendation - but not directly from an agent or editor)
My agent never asked me to underline.
My Putnam editor never asked me to underline.
My copy editor never asked me to underline.
And my first page proofs did not contain underlining.
I do not know what they do at the printers - as bebe said maybe some smaller publishers have other conventions but regardless they are easy to find and replace - Each publishers style varies slightly.

I read story submissions onscreen for our zine and we request traditional manuscript format because it's easier for tired eyes to pick out the details. When I'm in the middle of my slush, you really DON'T want yours to stand out because of formatting. At that point it's just annoying.

Good writing trumps all, but good manners will only help your chances.

Double spacing after a period isn't required anymore? Geez, am I behind the times.

I don't know about smaller publishers. I've only worked at major publishers.

By manuscript stage I only mean between when the editor sends it to copyediting for the first time and when the designer gets their hands on it. There's lots of things we Find & Replace for at that point—replacing italics with underline is one of them. Then the designer changes it back later. But we're going to do it no matter which one the writer uses, just to be safe. So that's why it doesn't matter much.

I just sent a PDF today, they're great.

BUT what if agent says "send it in email" and makes no mention of the format? Is PDF ok at that point?

I have not once had my agent or editor obsess about my formatting (fonts, spacing, pagination, paper...). They Do want my manuscript in MS word but other than that it is the biggest subject of adversarial interest on writer message boards and yet of the very LEAST interest to editors and agents.
Worry about writing well.
Not formatting. IMHO

That kind of obsessive, controlling perfectionism makes you seem high-maintenance.

Fol-low the damn di-rec-tions.
Fol-low the damn di-rec-tions.
Follow follow follow follow,
Fol-low the damn di-rec-tions!

pdf.s suck ***.
It's a totaly crapshoot if the version that you write with is compatible with the person who's reading it. Plus they're huge.

just stick with RTF's. This world would have a lot less aggravation and violence if everybody just used rtf's and Microsoft didn't try to push new bloated programs on the public every 3 years.


btw, if you take an rtf file and change the "rtf" to "doc", microsoft word will open them no problem. Try it. ;)

Why would you need to be a control freak about the formatting of a manuscript that's going to be read off-screen? Agents don't while away the leisure hours by reformatting e-mailed manuscripts into funny fonts and posting them to all their friends and yours. As long as it's legible, the font is not important enough to get controlling about. It'll make no difference to the quality of the writing, which is all the agent will care about; if the book is accepted, it'll make no difference to how it's typeset. This is not worth making a stand on.

Anon 1 is right; making up your own rules makes you look difficult. Suppose the agent happens to have a rare form of astigmatism that makes them incapable of reading Century Schoolbook? Are you going to deny them the chance to put it in Times Roman if they wish? Suppose they're long-sighted and have broken their glasses; are you going to prevent them from increasing the font size to make it easier to make out the words?

The point of picking a legible font is that the agent finds it legible, not the author. The agent is the one who's going to be reading it. As such, they're entitled to arrange the reading experience for their own convenience. You don't get a say about the brightness adjustment on their computer screens, or the way they arrange their desks, or whether they can reformat a manuscript if it helps them read it. The point is to get the words read. You're a writer, not a designer. Let it go.

How would an agent go about marking up a pdf file for revisions? Or is the submitter too savvy to need any revisions?

I've always worked in "traditional" publishing up until recently, and couldn't understand all this concern over formatting and .doc verses PDF verses RTF, etc... Couldn't understand why it was so important to single space, rather than double space after a period (no page numbers). All this detail, when all my life I've simply submitted simple documents in times roman, 12 point to publishers and never heard a word about it. No complaints at all. I received thank yous from them all and it went to print. Simple!

And then the other day I had to submit something to an e-book publisher who wanted RTF, not .doc ... 0.5 indent (not using tabs) and a slew of other details that took a long time to figure out. It was an extensive list of details I wasn't prepared to deal with considering the only requirements I've ever seen have been "submit as a word attachment".
But more than that, after viewing other e-publishers I saw they all wanted different formatting, with explicit directions.

Now I guess this is pretty common when it comes to e-publishing, and I think I understand what everyone's talking about...but I doubt I'll do this again soon.

"pdf.s suck ***.
It's a totaly crapshoot if the version that you write with is compatible with the person who's reading it. Plus they're huge."


This is specious on nine different levels. PDF readers are free.
.PDFs are backwards compatible. PDF files are smaller than word docs, not larger. Respectfully, you are passing judgement on that which you do not understand.

"That kind of obsessive, controlling perfectionism makes you seem high-maintenance"

Yep. Using the second most common document format in the country is a pretty good indicator that an author is obsessive, controlling, and high-maintenance. There you go. With crystalline logic like that, it's amazing Adobe remains in business. You wouldn't think there were that many Type-As out there.

Suppose the agent happens to have a rare form of astigmatism that makes them incapable of reading Century Schoolbook?"

I don't even have words for this gem. Just a helpful tip: You many want to lock your keyboard up before you open your bong-of-the-month shipment.

"What if terrorists are secretly encoding viruses into Acrobat in an effort to wipe out agent PCs and literacy in America."

You got me. I'm so short sighted.

"The point of picking a legible font is that the agent finds it legible, not the author."

Kit, why would a font designed for readability only work on the eyes of those those living outside the 212? Dude, it's easy:

1. Think
2. Write

"You're a writer, not a designer."

Wrong on both counts, Skippy. But thank you for an ill-informed diatribe encouraging me to be less professional in my use of templates and technology. Because you and Orion are absolutely correct, professional presentation simply CAN NOT co-exist with good writing. They are mutually exclusive and I sold my soul to the one with the shiniest glimmer.

"How would an agent go about marking up a pdf file for revisions?"

Well, the agent COULD open up the revision tool that comes standard with .PDF, but I was thinking more along the lines of using the .PDF electronic sample pages or a partial. Not a full, 2Bedited submission.

Pat (Orion) is right.

I used automatic hyphenation on my manuscript. Neither my agent nor editor ever mentioned it.

Therefore, it came as a complete surprise to me when Nathan Bransford mentioned in his blog not to hyphenate manuscripts. Sure enough, a week later, my manuscript came back to me from the copyeditor with every single end-of-the-line hyphenation corrected by the copyeditor by hand.

Follow whatever rules the agent's site lists. DO NOT rush to identify yourself as a potential pain-in-the-ass control freak. You'll have plenty of time to do that later :)

Did everyone who isn't Dwight get that the 'rare form of astigmatism' thing was a joke? Or should I use emoticons next time?

LOL Ryan. Ah yes, but the joy of epublishers (who are a law unto themselves) is that they may demand weirdness like 16pt Garamond and 3.17 cm margins. You still do it of course, but only if 'follow the damn directions' is written on your computer screen in red Sharpie--and not with the feeling that this is a good omen.

I got it.

Also, pdfs do suck.

Arrrgh! Maya, I can't believe the copyeditor hand marked all of those eol hyphens!? I copyedit everything electronically and autohyph is a no-brainer easy option to turn on or off depending on what the pub wanted---why oh why did the publisher/whoever send the ms in hardcopy to be edited by hand? I'm astounded. Really. That's so Gutenberg.

This is a silly argument.

In my days publishing scientific papers, I once got my hands (and eyes) on the copyeditors markup of a technical paper for the journal of FUEL (one of the biggest publications in my research field)
AND it was covered in style marks and punctuation changes. A PDF would have been useless. Fonts were useless.

Those copyeditors and typesetters made the journal of FUEL look like FUEL. The same thing happened with the American Institute of Chemical Engineer's Journal. They have their style, you give up yours .

Follow the intructions and quit wasting time over stuff that means nothing.

Follow directions.

I think anon 1 is onto something. Maybe all of this is just a test to see if the author is capable of following directions. Or perhaps the test is to see if the author is a pain in the ass.

Sky, the copyedit is because a hardcopy is provided to Production with all the annotations for style and layout. If the hardcopy keeps the EOL hyphens, the proofs will include those hyphens *even if* the hyphenated words are in the middle of a line because that's what the original manuscript had.

Kitty -

I believe "damn" throws off the meter of the Yellow Brick Road song because of the voice-drop that accompanies the syllable. Probably drawing out the "di-" into two syllables instead would make it flow better.

Follow the di-rections
Follow the di-rections
Follow, follow, follow, follow
Follow the di-rections

If Garamond or Courier
Your man'script will sell hurrier
because because because because because
The di-rections was what they was -

(horn segue:
a reba da booba da boo)

You want to sell your story,
Then follow the di-rections!

I think "dwight" proved himself to be the original author who so adores .PDF files and, simultaneously, one of those dreaded tough-to-work with people.

Sarcasm, insults, and the assumption that his way is best and anyone who disagrees is a moron. Yeah, I'd want to work with that.

Second reads!! What the hell; nobody ever told us about that one!!

I figure it's only a matter of time before writers start submitting their manuscripts on flash drives so they can send a multitude of formats in order to be certain that one is acceptable.

Of course, some will then expect the flash drives to be returned. ;)

Getting it printed is a waste of money; the standard pile o' pages is much more convenient for agents. It's seldom a good idea to try and redesign something for the convenience of a stranger when you've no experience of how they do their job; there will be things you can't anticipate.

Worse, it'll look as if you've tried self-publishing the book first, which has a bad reputation among professional publishers, because so many self-published authors write bad books and self-publish them when they fail to sell. It implies a long list of rejections, even if that isn't the case. Just go with the standard form. It works.

Follow the damn directions!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for replying like this, Miss Snark! I work for an academic publishing house (a lowly editorial assistant) and I can't tell you the number of times I've spent hours ripping staples or yanking bindings out of manuscripts.

Staples.Are.Evil.com.