Submissions Style Guide/Formatting
Style guide for story format.
Submissions to: admin at springfieldwritersau.weebly.com (replace the "at" with the @ symbol and remove spaces)
Subject line: 2020 Misbehaving Anthology. Author Name. Story Title
Email body:
Story title and approximate wordcount
Author name and a short, 100 word or less biography.
Please submit in Microsoft Word doc or docx format.
Page Header: (Right aligned) Author Name / Story Title / page #
(Do this by using the Insert -> Page Number feature in Word, then add the Author name & story title to the left of the page # that appears automatically)
Top LEFT
Real & pen-name (Single line spacing, left-aligned)
Address & contact details
Email & phone
Top RIGHT aligned: approximate word count to nearest 50
Story Title – 2/3 down the page & centred (use the Header 2 Style in Word and set to Centred)
Margins 1.5 cm.
Body of story. Set your "Normal" Word style to: Times new roman. 12pt. 1.5 line spaced. Indented paragraphs by 1cm. Left Aligned
Exception – first paragraph of story or when you change scenes, first line of paragraph is flush left. Create a second "Normal - Flush left" style by copying the Normal Style and changing the indent to 0.01cm
If you have to indent other lines eg: for spoken poetry, or a letter from one character to another that you'd like inset further from the left margin, create another copy of the "Normal" style and set the indent to 3cm.
DO NOT USE TABS to indent anything.
No spaces between paragraphs. (Exception – add one extra line between scene changes and put a centred # to indicate scene change)
General text style:
Text dashes:
‘All the children, who have returned from camp, deny they were naughty.’
not
‘All the children who have returned from camp deny they were naughty.’
We'll also begin the anthology with a disclaimer letting readers know the book is in Australian Spelling.
Any questions, just email [email protected]
Submissions to: admin at springfieldwritersau.weebly.com (replace the "at" with the @ symbol and remove spaces)
Subject line: 2020 Misbehaving Anthology. Author Name. Story Title
Email body:
Story title and approximate wordcount
Author name and a short, 100 word or less biography.
Please submit in Microsoft Word doc or docx format.
Page Header: (Right aligned) Author Name / Story Title / page #
(Do this by using the Insert -> Page Number feature in Word, then add the Author name & story title to the left of the page # that appears automatically)
Top LEFT
Real & pen-name (Single line spacing, left-aligned)
Address & contact details
Email & phone
Top RIGHT aligned: approximate word count to nearest 50
Story Title – 2/3 down the page & centred (use the Header 2 Style in Word and set to Centred)
Margins 1.5 cm.
Body of story. Set your "Normal" Word style to: Times new roman. 12pt. 1.5 line spaced. Indented paragraphs by 1cm. Left Aligned
Exception – first paragraph of story or when you change scenes, first line of paragraph is flush left. Create a second "Normal - Flush left" style by copying the Normal Style and changing the indent to 0.01cm
If you have to indent other lines eg: for spoken poetry, or a letter from one character to another that you'd like inset further from the left margin, create another copy of the "Normal" style and set the indent to 3cm.
DO NOT USE TABS to indent anything.
No spaces between paragraphs. (Exception – add one extra line between scene changes and put a centred # to indicate scene change)
General text style:
- Quotation marks: Single for dialogue. Double for quotes within dialogue. eg: 'He said "bugger off" when I asked him if I could borrow his saw,' John said.
- Single spaces after period and colon.
- Ellipsis: 3 dots, no spaces before, between, or after:
- for pauses in speech or text, and dialogue fade-outs. eg: ‘I don’t think…’ she said.
- speech broken up by action beats eg: 'I don't think...' she whacked the tennis ball back to me '...he'd like that.'
Text dashes:
- M-dash (2 N dashes) NO spaces between: (Create an M Dash with Cntrl+Alt+Minus sign)
- to set off parenthetical statements eg: Sometimes a sentence requires explanation—like this—in order to work.
- cut off speech eg: 'But what if—' The crash of the cymbals interrupted her question.
- N-dash (single) NO spaces between: indicating connections eg: The Sydney–Newcastle road
- Hyphen:
- link compound words (check in Macquarie Dictionary)
- Hanging hyphens: clarify meaning eg: five-year-old’s toy, father-in-law, bad-tempered man, one- and two-storey buildings, re-signed (signed again), but resigned (relinquished), re-cover (cover again) but recover (retrieve)
- Commas
- Serial/Oxford commas applicable, especially when clarification needed. Just be consistent. eg: ‘blue, green, and red’ - NOT ‘blue, green and red’ OR 'Coming to the party are his parents, the queen, and Daniel Craig.' NOT 'Coming to the party are his parents, the queen and Daniel Craig.'
- Use commas for clarity of meaning eg: ‘While we were swimming in the ocean, exploding fireworks illuminated the harbour.’ NOT ‘While we were swimming in the ocean exploding fireworks illuminated the harbour.’
‘All the children, who have returned from camp, deny they were naughty.’
not
‘All the children who have returned from camp deny they were naughty.’
- Semi-colon:
- Two clauses that could be treated as two sentences, but are closely linked in meaning. eg: A bloody knife was in his hand; he must be the murderer. OR The boss is arriving; he could be here tomorrow.
- Internal punctuation for lists that require commas as well eg: Prize winners came from Melbourne, Victoria; Kings Cross, Sydney; and Brisbane, Queensland.
- Colon
- Contrasting, amplifying and contrasting preceding clause. eg: We were worried: they were several hours late. OR There were hundreds of lollies: enough for all of us.
- Series of items, eg: She kept several pets: dogs, cats, and budgies. (A colon is not needed when prefaced by expressions like ‘including, such as and namely’ eg: There were several people absent, including those who promised they would come and many members of the organisation.
- Italics:
- foreign words (do not italicise foreign words in common use (check dictionary))
- titles of books, newspapers, magazines, movies, songs and stories (unless cited in an anthology)
- Names of ships (do not italicise HMS or HMAS)
- Apostrophe (if you're not sure, please go research as the possessive and plural possessive can be tricky)
- Nouns whose singular form ends in s do NOT need another s inserted after the apostrophe: the compass’ size (NOT compass’s size),
- Personal names, even those ending in s DO need another s inserted after the apostrophe: eg: James’s book, Jones’s poems (NOT James’ book, Jones’ poems)
- Missing letters eg: C’mon, don't, hasn't, you're.
- Capitals
- Story/book/movie titles should be capitalised (but not prepositions or articles unless the first word) eg: The Catcher in the Rye
- Proper nouns, placenames eg: John Michaelson lived in Brisbane, Queensland.
- Office titles should be capitalised only if directly before the person's name eg: Queen Elizabeth II, or Lord Laverton, Mayor Jones. But a description should not be capitalised eg: the queen, the lord of the manor, the mayor of Brisbane.
- Shortened titles: No full stops eg: Mr John Jones (not Mr. John Jones). Dr John Jones, (not Dr.), Qld, Pty Ltd,
- Acronyms: No full stops (usually capitals but lower case for familiar ones - eg scuba, or sonar - (with an initial capital if a proper name)
- Numbers: write out in full if less than 100 eg: ninety-eight, ninety-nine, 100, 101 (unless author decides digits would be jarring to the reader for numbers over 100)
- Spelling - try to use Australian spelling as much as possible, unless there are certain words you KNOW USA readers loathe.
We'll also begin the anthology with a disclaimer letting readers know the book is in Australian Spelling.
Any questions, just email [email protected]