This is how you format your PAPER Contest entry!

I've seen discussions here and eslewhere go round and round on the preferred use of Dark or standard Courier typefaces. Writers, critiquers, agents, screening readers, and editors have weighed in somewhere here and there. Some readers say Dark Courier works great, others say it's too dark, looks like all bold text. It boils down to whether printing with an inkjet printer (standard) or a laser printer (Dark) and how dark the output default of a printer is or is set to.

HAH I write with my own blood~!

HAH I write with my own blood~!

So that's what it takes to win Gold, eh?

HAH I write with my own blood~!

So that's what it takes to win Gold, eh?

It has to be on a contract though ... with da Debil !!!

haha

I had some issues, but put them on the other "format" thread.

Do most of us here use the separate TITLE page? (I've been missing that, myself)
Does anyone feel the impulse to use heavier than 20 weight?
Is "dark Courier" vital to use?

It's bad to have to wonder, like there's some sort of "inside info" or "inside track" in a contest.
I speak aloud every outsider's natural paranoia: Does everyone else know or do something I should know or do?

Do the savvy insiders practice Voodoo ... while beginners waste their efforts on mere Hoodoo or juju ???

Do most of us here use the separate TITLE page? (I've been missing that, myself)
Does anyone feel the impulse to use heavier than 20 weight?
Is "dark Courier" vital to use?

I did, always.
No, never.
I think it looks better than Courier/New or Times New Roman.

HAH I write with my own blood~!

So that's what it takes to win Gold, eh?

Haha that and writing on parchment made from my own skin! XD

To Soulmirror:

I think you have to have a separate title page? So Joni can take it off and put it aside while KD gets the ms without any ID on it. I can't remember too well anymore, but I'm pretty sure that's why I had a title page.

I think by 20 weight you mean paper? If so, I just used regular.

I used Courier New. Haven't heard of dark courier before... sounds cool tho haha

I used standard printer paper (at work!). As I am from the UK, I enclosed a SAE with an international reply coupon (with my name printed on the back) paper-clipped to the SAE. The SAE was paper-clipped to the manuscript.

I never sent a personal letter--just the manuscript, the SAE, and the international reply coupon--I figured they were't gonna be interested in who I was until I won.

Click here to see a .pdf of my example.

Interesting, Brad. You put a lot of space at the top of the first page that KD will see of yours. That means you have 4-5 fewer lines to get your spec element in. I use the whole page on the first page, no more top white space than the rest of them.

Not arguing with success.

BTW, I was so green, my first HM was the first story that I ever submitted anywhere, and I had the page numbers centered at the bottom. I know I know, but just to show that minor deviations will not hurt you. I'm sure that KD tries to overlook everything she can, knowing these are amateurs, and focus like a laser on the story. She has mentioned that when she gets a proper manuscript that she is slightly favorably impressed that someone bothered to follow it.

Prisoner

HAH I write with my own blood~!

I was imprisioned by a faceless people for a crime of which I had no knowledge, and certainly did not commit, but what of that. In me spare time I have been persuin' me hobby which is writin' a great prison novel.

In the beginnin' I wrote with an ink composed of parts of me own blood, however this would not make an acceptable carbon, so I aquired an electric typewriter.

I am proud to be able to present you with the first edition of me saga of eternal torment, profusely illustrated, titled, "Leather Thighs".

~Firesign Theater

Huh. Interesting. I don't think I ever used a title page. It never mentioned it in the rules, just the cover page, then to have the title and page number on top on the subsequent pages after that.

Course, I'm formatting my next entry now, so maybe I will try the title page just for kicks. No harm right?

LaShawn (who's getting back into the forum now).

I'll sing it from the roof tops, colour me converted: once you get past the crackhead weak periods in Dark Courier (or at least the questionable version I could finally get to download in my whacked Vista pc, and can be made reg'lar via italics) and the shroomed-out floating "g" ... Dark Courier is cooler (even the name: they should've called it Nazgul or Dark Rider or sumthin')

I use Courier 10 Pitch.

while we're on the topic of fonts, are serif fonts better than sanserif? I figure serif fonts look more like they came out of a typewriter, which is a more professional look, but it could also have something to do with uniformity in character spacing.

It is my very limited experience that most editors prefer even character spacing. One of the more published writerly types will need to pipe in for a definite yes or no.

Guess I'm screwed. None of my three word processing programs have Dark Courier font.

Guess I'm screwed. None of my three word processing programs have Dark Courier font.

Are you using a Windows based computer?

The font can be downloaded for free from HP.COM

Also, I think K.D. doesn't mind Time New Roman, though I am not sure if other markets do.

Just plain courier is good.

Thanks, Brad. I have a Windows-based computer, and didn't know that. I used Times New Roman so maybe at least K.D. won't mind.

It doesn't even need to be Windows based. Dark Courier font files work just fine with OpenOffice under Linux, too, although I prefer the on-screen look of Courier New.

I'm with you Alastair. Courier New or Courier 10 point.

Dark Courier was invented so that later HP LaserJets could have the original thick lined Courier font of the very first original HP LaserJet. I learned about Dark Courier at the 2004 Clarion workshop and used it for quite a while, but eventually gave up. It produces good dark print on my HP LaserJet 4ML, which is good, but the microspacing is larger and it ends up that fewer characters and words end up on the page, which makes your page count run long. This has the disadvantage of some markets thinking you are writing too long / over their word count limits some of the time, when in fact you have not, and I got tired of arguing with editors.

So I am back to submitting with Courier New 12 point.

Also, Dark Courier tends to use too much ink for my taste with a inkjet printer. I used to have my students submit their papers using Dark Courier, but 90% of them use inkjet and not laser printers, and it is just too heavy. I personally prefer laser printed manuscripts, but if you are using inkjet, you can get very high brightness paper (100+) which makes inkjet text just snap off the page.

Dr. Phil

I just tried the electronic submission process for the first time. I read over at sff.org that KD is seeing 30% of the electronic submissions come through with personal information. The uploading process warns repeatedly against that.

I wonder though, how many people have made their submissions completely anonymous? Microsoft Word saves user information in two places. Only if you use a programmer's editor could you know for sure. In my old Word 2000 you can get rid of it under File Properties under the Summary tab and under Tools Options User Information. Best to replace the default User Information with other information, since blanks will get filled back in with the old information on saving the document.

If you didn't do this I wouldn't sweat it. The instructions say user information featured in the document will get you disqualified. The user information that sneaks in even if you've deleted it from the document you can see, well, you can scarcely be blamed for that. It's hidden, not featured.

Could KD ever be tempted to find that information? I doubt it. Could she if she tried? Yes. I bet 99% of entries have a username in the file, hidden somewhere The entry form also asks for profession and age. Maybe those are artifacts of the program they are using. I told them, though I imagine it's optional. It isn't in their selection criteria. Story is all.

Best of luck all! I'm on to my next story.

Prisoner

Good point, Prisoner. I notice that the other day, when looking through my files. If I just click on them (not open them) the bottom of the file-folder screen lists all the information about the file, including the name of the author--big bad no no!

Could KD ever be tempted to find that information? I doubt it. Could she if she tried? Yes. I bet 99% of entries have a username in the file, hidden somewhere The entry form also asks for profession and age.

I doubt we need to worry about that. KD wouldn't want to go out of her way to find out information that could DQ a story. Then she'd be honor-bound to actually DQ it, even if it was a riproaring story that she would be proud to send to the judges! By the same token, a lot of the eventual WotF winners (including some of those in volume 26) have gone through critiquing processes at critique forums like Baen's Bar. She could DQ a hell of a lot of them if she registered and poked around for a little while. But, really, there'd be no reason to do that and all kinds of reasons not to. A good critique forum will take a badly executed story with a great idea and polish it into something wonderful, so it'd be a bad idea to do anything that would discourage the use of such forums for stories entered into the contest.

Thought I'd post KD's suggestions for formatting an electronic entry from the SFF forum:

1. Turn off Track Changes

2. Check the spelling of your title

3. Double space the manuscript (!)

4. Delete your name EVERYWHERE

5. Do not put an extra blank line between paragraphs unless you want to indicate a change of scene.

6. Use your tab key, not extra space, to indicate a new paragraph.

She also mentioned previously that you should read your manuscript all the way through because some of the errors she has found aren't in the first few pages.

I wish everyone good luck! (So long as it's not better than my luck. )

Hello all, new member here. I have always wondered if having your pen name on your manuscript is permissible.

Dark Courier was invented so that later HP LaserJets could have the original thick lined Courier font of the very first original HP LaserJet. I learned about Dark Courier at the 2004 Clarion workshop and used it for quite a while, but eventually gave up. It produces good dark print on my HP LaserJet 4ML, which is good, but the microspacing is larger and it ends up that fewer characters and words end up on the page, which makes your page count run long. This has the disadvantage of some markets thinking you are writing too long / over their word count limits some of the time, when in fact you have not, and I got tired of arguing with editors.

So I am back to submitting with Courier New 12 point.

Also, Dark Courier tends to use too much ink for my taste with a inkjet printer. I used to have my students submit their papers using Dark Courier, but 90% of them use inkjet and not laser printers, and it is just too heavy. I personally prefer laser printed manuscripts, but if you are using inkjet, you can get very high brightness paper (100+) which makes inkjet text just snap off the page.

Dr. Phil

Can you believe an electronic market actually made issue with my use of Dark Courier? I mean really! It didn't disqualify, but they said it wasn't following standard manuscript format. Guess I'll stay with truetype courier.

Oh, and about pen names in the document. Why take the chance? Will the editors know it isn't your real name? How? If you're published under it anywhere, it becomes your identity as an author. The only one who cares about your real name is your mother, possibly the TSA, and the Birther movement if you become President and they judge you the wrong hue.

When in doubt leave it out.

Prisoner

Hello all, new member here. I have always wondered if having your pen name on your manuscript is permissible.

For WotF? Or in General?

For WotF: no names anywhere. The competition is supposed to be judged in complete anonymity. Don't put a name in the filename, don't put a name in the header, don't use a byline. Your name (real or pseudo) shouldn't be on the story anywhere.

If you're subbing by snail mail, this very thread has the PDF that shows you how to do it (essentially: use a separate cover-page.)

As a general rule (both to WotF and other markets - but always check with a specific market), your real name should appear at the top left hand corner of that page (with your address etc.). If you're using a pen name, that can appear as your byline.

BUT ONLY ON THE SEPARATE COVER PAGE IF IT'S WotF YOU'RE SUBBING TO!!!. (Yes, I used all caps and multiple exclamation marks!)

If you're subbing by the e-sub system, you should NOT include a cover page at all. There's a form on the e-sub system that takes all of your details. Among others, it asks for your first name, surname and offers a field where you can enter a pen name if you use one.

Hope that helps.

Thank you prisoner and nodehead for your quick responses. This info is very good to know, though it won't help me this quarter: that cursed ship (with pen name in tow) has already set sail! Well, C'est la vie. . . on to Quarter Two!