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 John Dalmas: essays on writing
Writing Science-Fiction and Fantasy
Some Basics
Absolutely Essential
Breaking into the SF & F Market
Publications of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
It's Okay to Use Prologs
Manuscript Format (NEW)
What do you mean, draft? (NEW)
!!!Absolutely Essential!!!
If you ignore everything else I say here, heed this: to develop the ability to write well, write. Write a LOT. Thinking about it isn't enough.
Caveats
This is not holy writ, not even what I just labelled "absolutely essential." Somewhere out there are (a very few) inexperienced individuals who can write well enough to sell first shot. (But they too are likely to improve with experience.) The best I can give you is a mixture of knowledge and informed opinion. File it in the back of your mind, and factor it into your decisions where it seems appropriate. Your decisions are for you to make.
Science Fiction, or Fantasy?
Science fiction and fantasy get lumped because (1) both involve speculative worlds that may resemble the familiar universe, but in which some things are different; (2) many readers read both SF and F, which sometimes are hard to tell apart; (3) they tend to be published by the same companies; and (4) usually they're shelved together in bookstores.
Be familiar with both SF and F, and have a good idea of which you most want to write, then focus on it at least until you've had some successes.
Learning to Sell
Read a Lot
Read a lot of whichever genre you select, especially early on, but don't neglect other reading. SF & F authors tend to enjoy reading both history and science. Some have degrees in one or the other. It's all grist for the writer's mill.
But why read a lot of SF or F? Conventional terms and concepts have grown within SF in particular, to express certain story needs and ideas, terms and concepts very useful in communicating to readers. Consider: In the very numerous story universes of science fiction and fantasy, there are all kinds of ways you can have things happen. But you have to communicate them with words, and make them real to the reader. "Faster than light" travel (FTL), for example, has been rationalized in various ways. You can adopt or adapt one of those ways—one set of explanations—for your story, or you can come up with something different. But that something different may require that you set it up for the reader, which can require more words—more space in the story—than you care to give it. While if you use conventional terms and stay within their bounds, you need not elaborate; your readers will know what you mean and be content with it.
Books on How to Write
There are numerous books on how to write fiction (and some on how to write SF specifically). I own at least a dozen, picked up over the years, and have read others. None are essential, and a few are misguided, but probably all can be useful. I particularly recommend two: The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner, and The Craft of Science Fiction, edited by Reginald Bretnor. Unavoidably such books (or essays in Bretnor's collection) reflect their writer's personality. For example, Orson Scott Card is more than a fine and thoughtful writer; he is passionate about his views. Naturally, in his book on writing SF, that passion is reflected in his advice and in what he considers important, and you can argue with it. But it's well worth reading.
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There are also valuable books on the business of writing. As you go along, you'll probably want to pick up some of these. One you really should get is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Handbook, of which more later.
Formal Instruction
Most science fiction conventions have writers' workshops, and over twenty-plus years I've participated as a coach in scores of them. (More about this later.) Some aspiring writers who've submitted manuscripts lack basic writing skills. If you feel you might be weak in some of those skills, consider signing up for a course in creative writing at a local college. The instructor may even tell you to take a course in English composition, first. That may be good advice, saving you time, frustration, and grief.
You may also hear about creative writing courses offered through your local Parks & Recreation Department, or some equivalent. Some of them I'm sure are well worth while. However, one I know of was taught by the holder of an MA in creative writing. When asked about proper manuscript format, she not only didn't know, she insisted there was no such thing, which reflects poorly on (1) her education, (2) her inexperience, and (3) a tendency to speak without thinking.
When a publishing house buys a novel, even a very polished novel, its staff puts a lot of work into converting it into a good book. Proper manuscript format grew out of the needs of copy editing, production mark-up, typesetting etc. To purchase a manuscript with seriously deficient formatting creates a lot of extra work, cost and aggravation for the folks who'll have to prepare it. But that's not what happens. What does happen is, the editorial assistant who handled it will put it in the self-addressed stamped envelope you enclosed, and mail it back to you with a rejection slip. Or, if you didn't enclose an SASE, will toss the manuscript in the trash. Neither, I trust, is what you'd hoped for.)
Your story may be brilliant, but if they don't read it, they'll never know. And they're unlikely to read something in a format that's going to create problems and extra work. There are too many others waiting to be read.
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I called a college English department and spoke to the chairperson of the creative writing faculty, volunteering to speak to their creative writing students on writing for the market. I was told very politely, even apologetically, that they weren't interested in "writing for the market"—that they taught their students to write "literature."
Not a good sign. Nonetheless, if you're a hopeful amateur, a year of creative writing at that or some other college, would probably improve your skills importantly. But be aware that there'll be things they may not teach you, and you'll probably be exposed to some artsy prejudices. The basic criterion is not how artsy you may be; it's the story you have to tell, how well you tell it, and—the formatting that greets the editorial assistant when she sees the first page. You want it to say "I am business-like, not "aren't I cute?"
Live-In Workshops
There are nationally known live-in science fiction and fantasy workshops you can apply to. In the more prestigious, you have to show evidence of promising ability before you're accepted. To serve as instructors, they invite gurus with a record of commercial and artistic success, and the thrust is to produce writing that is both commercially viable and artistically strong. If accepted, you attend for two tightly-scheduled weeks or so, are lodged and take your meals on the premises, get tough assignments, are rigorously critiqued daily, and get close personal attention from the gurus.
The two such workshops I'm aware of are Clarion East, in Michigan, and Clarion West, I believe in the Seattle area. I suppose there are others, and there are probably scams as well, so if you're looking for an intensive, live-in workshop experience, do a little research first.
Such intensive workshops—any workshops in fact—can have a flip side: I've heard of workshops that got out of hand, with thoughtless or arrogant participants verbally beating up on other participants. That can kill a workshop. The resident gurus have the elevation, authority, and responsibility to quash bullying. If they don't deal with it, respond with honest bluntness.
On the other hand, a good attitude and a certain thickness of skin are necessary, because the perceived flaws in your work should and will be pointed out, and that can be uncomfortable.
One-Shot Workshops
A number of workshops are offered free of charge here in the Northwest, at science fiction conventions. Each is a one-shot deal about two hours long. To participate, get in touch with the convention a few months in advance, have them send you the necessary information, and follow instructions. They'll ask you to send a sample of your writing to the person in charge, who will pass it on to the pros who'll do the critiques. Then you'll get together at the convention and they'll go over your piece with you.
Tell Google to find science fiction conventions, or have it give you the website of one you know about.
Regarding "free of charge": there may be a small fee for photocopying, and for mailing the copies to the pros.
In the Inland Northwest there is RadCon at Pasco WA in February, MisCon at Missoula MT in May, and InCon at Spokane WA in October. In the coastal Northwest, conventions are numerous, among them NorwesCon in Seattle in April, and VikingCon at Western Washington University, in—August I believe; along with OryCon in Portland, RustyCon in the Seattle area, and in some years V-Con in VanCouver, Canada. (Those are just the ones I get to occasionally.) Their websites should tell you who's in charge of their writers' workshops.
As for the pros—most are kindly souls but frank. Even non-abrasive critiques can sting, but they can also alert you to the areas you need to work on, and provide tips on how to handle them. Actually handling them, of course, is up to you. You're quite free to continue making the same old deadly errors, if that's what you want to do.
Writers Groups
There are more and more bootstrap writers groups that get together monthly, biweekly, or even weekly, to read and critique each others' manuscripts. The blind leading the blind? Not usually. If the group subscribes to, say Writers Digest, and there are members who attend workshops, your writing will very likely improve, perhaps dramatically. So ask around. When you hear of a group that sounds promising, find out if you can sit in on a session as a guest. Do the critiques make sense? Or do they beat up on some designated victim? The group I belong to doesn't stand for sadistic or insulting critiques. On the other hand, oooing and aaahing, or simply not commenting on weaknesses, strengthens bad habits. If the critiques are frank and not demeaning, consider asking to join.
There are also groups whose only purpose is to puff up the leader. I know of one led by an individual with no visible talent, who forbids critiques or suggestions by anyone but himself, and is a fount of erroneous "knowledge." If that's the sort of company you crave, have at it. But if you want to improve your skills, I recommend you avoid groups like that.
Workshops on the Web
I've had no experience with workshops on the web, but I'll bet there are some good ones. Visit some, and ask around.
Reference Books
Learning more about writing and marketing is always a good idea. The library is a good place to start, and you'll find books you'd like to own. It's well to familiarize yourself with the current issue of the annual Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. I also suggest you own The American Heritage College Dictionary, with its many usage notes; Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms (a study of the nuances of meaning to help you chose the most appropriate of several synonyms); and Roget's Thesaurus as a finder of lost words; being old, I use mine a lot. There are various versions of Roget's thesaurus, and I've owned most of them. For me, Harper Collins' 5th edition, edited by Robert L. Chapman, is the best and most inclusive.
A good book on English composition is useful, and for some writers a necessity -Strunk & White's for example, or the excellent but less well-known Style, by Joseph Williams, published by the University of Chicago Press. I recommend owning both. You might be surprised at how useful they are. And simply reading them isn't enough. Use them!
Eventually you'll also want a good encyclopedia. And while employed as a copy editor, I found The University of Chicago's A Manual of Style indispensible.
Over the years, you might add a few basic science textbooks. I also find the Oxford English Dictionary (bought used for $99) very useful for its historical insights. Mine is in two huge microcopied volumes read with a large reading glass. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, and The American Medical Association Family Medical Guide are very useful. I have shelves of biographies, books on history, and miscellaneous other references.
Some writers would consider my reference library deficient, but it's served me well.
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Breaking into the SF & F Market
Few large mainstream publishers accept unagented manuscripts, but the situation is happier in SF & F. You can wrap up your SF or F book proposal, along with a synopsis and sample chapters (properly formatted), enclose a brief, matter-of-fact covering letter and an SASE, and mail them to the appropriate editor at, say Damfyn Books. (Writer's Market will give you the address, and some tips on what Damfyn wants.) I believe that so far only three major SF&F book publishers: Del Ray, Dutton, and Warner Aspect, have stopped considering unagented manuscripts. All the SF and F magazines are open to unagented submissions, so most doors remain open to newcomers.
It's possible, however, that some other SF and F book publishers will follow the examples of Del Ray etc. Which brings us to the subject of Agents. A genuine agent can get your manuscript considered at publishers that wouldn't open a one-page query letter from an unagented writer.
Literary Agents
Here I'll talk about genuine agents, who make their money by making money for their writers.
What do literary agents do, and why? Let's look at it from a publishers viewpoint. Publishers don't get paid on the basis of how many manuscripts they evaluate at some expense. Their profits depend on the sale of books. Millions of individual books. A publisher accepting unagented manuscripts might receive 1,500 novels a year and publish 50 of them. So to publishers, agents provide a filter that greatly reduces the number of unsuitable manuscripts they'd otherwise need to spend time on (and that meanwhile take up space). Also, consider that an agent who sends a publisher sub-par manuscripts, or manuscripts clearly inappropriate to the publisher's book line, loses credibility and influence there. Bad for the agent, bad for his writers.
To authors, on the other hand, an agent is someone who gets their manuscripts considered by acquisitions editors at publishing houses. An agent may also suggest writing projects. In general your agent is interested in seeing you successful, because the more money you make, the bigger are her 15% commissions. Makes sense, eh? Beyond all that, an agent does the negotiating, checks the contract clauses, and explores foreign and subsidiary rights—things the writer may feel uncomfortable with or inadequate to. Besides, if the senior editor at Splendid Books gets irritated, it's normally with the agent, not the author. And a senior editor is probably less apt to pressure an agent, especially the agent who also represents author Big-Name Gotbucks, whose work the publisher lusts after. (Actually most editors are polite within reason.)
The problem in getting a real agent is—getting a real agent. They want clients whose books will make money for them if not immediately, then in the near future. They have families and landlords and retirement portfolios to feed. Meanwhile when a newbie author is taken on, the account may be assigned to an assistant or junior partner.
Some agents get more money for their clients than others do. They're better negotiators or gamesmen, and on top of that, attract big-name authors. Some agents specialize in SF and F. They tend to develop a sense of what individual editors like, how to talk to them, and who is looking for what. Also they're usually well qualified to judge the saleability of your manuscript, and are reluctant to send out something they doubt they can sell. They will not represent something they think will embarrass them professionally. They can't afford to. Their reputation is important to their success.
There are directories of reputable agents: agents who make their money by getting money for their writers, not from their writers, and harvesting their 15% commission. At least two of those directories are of associations of agents. A good list tells you the kinds of books each agency says it's willing to handle. Tell your web browser to take you to literary agents or authors' representatives, and get a sense of the scene.
The surest way to get an agent is when you get a call from the science fiction editor at Damfyn Books, saying he wants to buy your novel. Tell him great; you'll have your agent get in touch with him promptly! Then call a reputable agent right away and tell him what just happened. The odds are, he'll take you on.
It helps to have one already in mind.
Meanwhile you need that first saleable manuscript. That means write, write, write! Get your work critiqued if you can, then whip it into shape, mail it off to a publisher—and begin writing the next one, because you'll probably have to wait months, perhaps a year or more, to hear back on the first. A publisher's reading stack (called "the slush pile") is large.
Barracudas
Up till now I've used adjectives like genuine and reputable in writing about agents. There are others appropriately called barracudas.
Let me put it this way: In general, magazines have to sell ad space to stay financially afloat. So you can see ads by "agents" who are "looking for talented new authors." (Translates to chumming for suckers.) For a fee, they say, they 'll read your manuscript, and if it's good, represent it for you. The reading fee may come to several hundred bucks, or perhaps only thirty or forty.
I have a well-heeled friend who sent a manuscript to one of them to see what would happen. He got an analysis that was not only worthless, but poorly written! My friend laughed and went on writing. (His niche, incidentally, is audio books. He's sold about a dozen.)
Other such "agents" are more nearly piranhas; they operate in groups. Your "agent" replies that your novel is close, but needs some help, and suggests you send it to Reinholdt Rottweiler, a "highly regarded book doctor," who'll fix it up for you. For a healthy fee. (Reini is his cousin, and a graduate of Sing Sing Penitentiary.) They'll string you along as far as your money and naiveté allow. If you stay the course, they may even arrange a subsidy contract for you, which you could have done on your own at far less cost. (More about subsidy publishing a little farther on.)
Small Presses
When an outfit like Colossal Books replies that your novel isn't right for them, that may simply mean that its apparent market is too small to interest them. Or that yours is "soft SF," and they're working on an image in "hard" SF. Or that unknown to you, the editor had decided to use it, only to have it vetoed by Marketing.
If it's been the rounds, or when you get fed up with waiting, there are the small presses, which are publishers with fewer resources. There are quite a lot of them, mostly not listed in Writer's Market, so you may need to do some research to locate them. They have limited distribution, but they put out some good books. My impression is, you're not likely to get an advance payment from a small press for SF or fantasy.
You will, of course, bone up on contracts before you sign one.
The New Publishing
By "new publishing" I mean electronic publishing and POD (print on demand) publishing. If you are Stephen King, these can be quite lucrative.
The problem with electronic publishing is, sales are low. That will undoubtedly change, but that's how it is now. Electronic publishers have a hard time staying in business with the low volume of sales they customarily get.
Meanwhile I'm putting them here because at its best, POD publishing is a form of small press publishing.
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POD has advantages over electronic publishing. The product looks like most any other trade paperback, and you can read it on a bus or in the park without a still rather expensive electronic reader. Also it doesn't require big print runs, thus avoiding or minimizing warehousing costs, and reducing the sometimes deadly "cover returns" as well.
Here's how cover returns work: In conventional publishing, if sales are poor, the retailer can rip off and return the covers of the unsold books to the publisher for full refunds. Fifty percent or more of a 15,000-book shipment may bounce in this way, which makes publishers weep bitter tears! A sell-through of 70% is considered very good. Eventually, though, sales taper off. Your book may still be generating some sales, but not enough to reorder, nor to reprint for the orders that come in. So off come the covers! Ouch!
However (surprise! surprise!), POD has its own problems. A publisher's web site can produce direct sales to readers, but for major sales, a publisher needs to get books into bookstores. And bookstores have computerized systems (for accounting, inventory, reordering, distributor liaison—just about everything), systems designed to interface with those of the distributors. Thus stores and distributors tend to be unhappy about interfacing with new small publishers, which are often poorly organized and inexperienced.
Besides which, some POD houses don't accept booksellers' cover returns. And of course, some booksellers assume that the (to them) poor business practices of some POD publishers are shared by the others. POD is a new system finding its way. In a few more years...but that's not now. So if you're thinking of going POD, move with care. I did, with a collection of short fiction published years previously. So far I've liked doing business with RAP Books, which has been successful with its romance books, and is branching out.
As with small publishers in general, with POD houses there's the matter of cover-art quality. Conventional publishers may pay $5,000 for the cover art on a first novel, and $7,500 after you've had some success, a cost that hopefully will be covered by book sales. But a POD novel may sell fewer than a hundred copies. Say yours sells 500 copies; then a $5,000 cover illustration would cost $10 per book sold.
Except, of course, it won't get a $5,000 cover. But innovative graphic technology can produce some nicely respectable cover art for far less.
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Inevitably some POD publishers are barracudas with contracts from hell. They aim at owning every book you'll ever write, on shameful terms, before you ever write them.
But take heart! There are guidelines for navigating those waters. We'll get to them a little later.
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Not surprisingly, some POD outfits are subsidy publishers (see below), whose authors pay the costs. There's nothing wrong with that. You get to see your story as a book, and with some personal energy and initiative you may sell quite a few copies of it. A principal activity of self-published and subsidy-published authors is selling the boxes of books that occupy space in their garages and basements. You don't need to have hundreds of books printed. With POD you can order them a dozen or half a hundred at a time. And unless it's atrocious, your book will find readers, at least a few. Meanwhile you'll find other people with interests like yours. Also, quite a few people who pay to have their book published sell enough copies to pay the publication costs. There is even a (very) small chance it will gain momentum, perhaps get some favorable reviews, and be picked up by a major publisher, who will get it broadly distributed.
Subsidy Presses
Subsidy presses are publishers who publish books at the author's expense. There's nothing wrong with doing this if you can afford it, but if you've got an SF or F novel, make a serious try at getting it published by someone who'll pay you.
Some worthwhile books that don't appeal to commercial publishers are subsidy published.
Some POD publishers are subsidy publishers. Again, POD doesn't require large inventories.
Self Publishing
Self publishing is a sort of economy form of subsidy publishing. To self publish, you learn the ropes and do as much of the work as possible yourself. It's an excellent way to publish your family history, your memoirs, a book about your home town, or the story of your mortar company in Viet Nam, and there's no reason you can't self publish the sword and sorcery epic you've been working on. Statistically the odds are strongly against making money with it, but you may be someone who likes bucking the odds.
And now for those helpful guidelines I mentioned.
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The quarterly SFWA Bulletin is a valuable source of articles on and about writing SF&F—about the writing process, publishing, agents, laws, contracts, and current markets for stories long and short. And more. I recommend it. You may be able to examine back issues in your city library. Some back issues may be available from the Bulletin office.
Another very useful publication is the SFWA Handbook mentioned earlier. Again, check the SFWA website for how to buy a copy.
If you are unfamiliar with book contracts and are invited to sign one, read it carefully in conjunction with what the SFWA Handbook says about them. You might also want to read Chapter 4, "The Book Publishing Contract, "In Kirsch's Handbook of Publishing Law. That's not a SFWA product, but at $22 it's a bargain.
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I hope you've found this article helpful. Meanwhile, if you've made up your mind to write, then write as regularly as your circumstances permit.
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This essay deals with a broader truth: Success in writing is not a function of abiding by the rules. Or of ignoring them. Basically it's a matter of pleasing readers. However, rules often reflect realities, however partially and imperfectly, so be aware of them. But don't mistake them for the realities themselves.
A dozen or fifteen years ago, in the hospitality suite at a science fiction convention, an aspiring writer approached an English professor and said he was working on a novel. "Would it be all right to tell you about it?"
"Go ahead," the professor said.
"Well, in the prolog..."
The professor chopped him right there. "Never use a prolog. Anything you want to put in a prolog, you should put in the body of the story instead."
This was not a professor with publications restricted to small literary magazines featuring skillfully written pieces of limited reader appeal. He was a seasoned author with a substantial body of commercially published fiction, who'd earned consideration for his views on commercial writing. So the young man stammered his thanks and left — with me a few steps behind. In the corridor, I gave him my "ten-cent lecture" on the uses of prologs, making it up as I spoke. Then I went back into the hospitality suite, told the professor I'd overheard his reply to the young man, and asked if he'd be willing to hear my twenty-five-cent lecture (it had been improved by previous recitation) on the uses of prologs. Asked mildly, not confrontationally.
"Go ahead," he said.
It went something like this:
One of my novels, The Lantern of God, would make very limited sense if the reader didn't know the context of the story—it's (fictional) history—thousands of years in its past. And no one in the story knew it, or had any basis for even speculating. Thus I opened with five poignant pages, providing that context, and the story with much more meaning, while attaching the reader emotionally. And no one has ever complained to me about it, not even Jim Baen, who bought it.
Another novel, The General's President, doesn't seem to be science fiction at all, until one gets well into it. At that point I realized this created a problem for SF readers and for marketing, so I wrote a brief prolog treating the story as historical from the viewpoint of a future culture, which gave it an SF feel right up front. The information could hardly have been communicated by referring to it in the text, and certainly not as well. Subtlety can be useful, but so can directness, and the virtue of either derives solely from its effectiveness in telling the story.
Effective mystery, including enigma, can hook a reader, glue him to a story. What's this? for instance, or what does this mean? Sometimes a prolog can be an excellent place to do this. (You will, of course, clarify the mystery later.)
A prolog can also establish a pole, a terminal with an emotional charge at odds with what follows, creating tension.
The post-apocalyptic Lizard War was written in the first person, with a young point-of-view character named Luis Raoul DenUyl. Like almost all his people, Luis is largely ignorant of the world beyond his experience. There are aliens in the story who know what's going on, but they aren't telling, and we don't have access to their minds. After a while I twigged that this would create a problem for readers, so I wrote a prolog providing the needed information enigmatically, from sources outside the story. It created mystery right up front, and a whole 'nother dimension to the novel. (The book continues to sell 15 years after the first printing.)
Whatever its purpose, the prolog needs to be interesting or otherwise entertaining. In another first-person novel, The Scroll of Man, the prolog provided not only needed perspective, but irony and playfulness. I received more comments — pleased comments — on the prolog than on anything else in the story.
Somewhat to my surprise, the professor said I'd made some good points, and we let it go at that.
How had he come by his earlier rejection? Perhaps in his student days, some respected professor had voiced it. Or it might have been spawned by students using poor prologs; I've critiqued workshop manuscripts that began with ill-conceived prologs, including "prologs" that were really Chapter One.
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Often I don't use a prolog. The time to write a prolog is when the story will benefit from one. Then write it.
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First understand: I’m talking about manuscripts of fiction. If you’re a technical writer, the odds are good they’ll want it done differently.
Now, I’m going to be dogmatic about this. I’m going to tell you you must format your submission manuscript in a certain way. Actually you can format it any way you wish, but if you want to sell a novel to, say Damfyn Books, a major publisher who pays advances and royalties, format your submission draft HIS way, even if you think it looks ugly. Because he has reasons for wanting it his way, and if you’re too sniffy to do it that way, you create problems for him. And he not only won’t pay you for creating problems, he won’t even read your manuscript! It will go immediately into the SASE you enclosed, if you enclosed one, or into the Dumpster if you didn’t..
You have, of course, researched the publisher you plan to submit it too. Chances are, he offers to provide his own guidelines. FOLLOW THEM.
But if he didn’t — or if you’re not sure — follow what I’ve written here. It will be close enough.
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Use ordinary 20-lb white typing or copy paper.
Leave 1-inch margins on both sides and the bottom of the page. Set the first manuscript line one inch below the header. And double space. That’s double space. Not one and a half. Not triple. Double space. And one inch means one inch. There are practical reasons. Working reasons. Some word-processing programs may be reluctant to let you do this. Some software design engineers think all word-processing documents are business letters. They are unfamiliar with the needs of editors, layout people and typesetters. If your system is reluctant, try sneaking up on it. Set your spacing to give you 25 lines of text per full page.
Each manuscript page needs a header, including your last name, a key identifying word from the title, and the page number. Set the header down 0.5 inch from the top.
Indent the first line of each paragraph. Don’t leave extra space between paragraphs. Do leave extra space, with a pound-sign (#), between paragraphs.
Double space. That doesn’t mean space and a half. It doesn’t mean triple.
Use an equal-spacing font, preferably Courier, where each symbol occupies the same amount of space on the line. (The crocodile is a useful hold-over from the Cretaceous. Equally spaced fonts [monotypes] are useful hold-overs from the Age of Typewriters.) Make that Courier “10-pitch” — that is, 10 spaces to the inch. If your word-processing system doesn’t let you select pitch, then select “12-point.” It’s usually not 12 point, really, but for monotypes, “12-pitch” is modern computereze for 10-pitch.
Do not use a decorative font. Do not use Times Roman, Helvetica, or the like, which assign different spaces for different letters. There are practical reasons for this. But the most practical reason is, most editors don’t accept them.
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To indicate a word or line or letter to be set in italic, underline. Underlined words are more readily spotted by a typesetter than italics are. Actual italic can be used to indicate passages you think should be set in a font different than the general text.
Leave two spaces after periods. I know it says not to in Windows for Idiots or Mac for Idiots. Their authors misinformed their readers on this, and no doubt resulted in manuscripts being rejected. They hadn’t worked as commercial typesetters or copy editors, or prepped copy for typesetters.
True, manuscripts are downloaded into the typesetter’s computer from disks. But the hand-written copy editing and copy prep instructions are then keyboarded in by a typesetter. And earlier, the copy editor edited with pen on paper so the changes can be recognized and evaluated against the author’s delivered work, usually as a paper printout.
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I realize I already specified the paper, but let me restate: Do not use glossy paper, or pastel paper, or legal-size paper.
Oh! And did I mention double spacing?
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To me, the first draft is what I have when I've finished and printed out the complete story. By that time, some chapters will have been through, say eight drafts. But the whole thing is the “first draft.” It used to take me five or six months. At my present age it takes somewhat more.
By the time I’ve finished that first draft, I know the whole story quite well. Then I write the "second draft" — a matter of achieving balance, and sometimes deleting pieces and adjusting sequencing. All while getting a firmer grasp of the ideas, characters, and story situation. (My stories commonly explore ideas, which typically evolve somewhat during the writing process.)
The second draft is finished when I've rewritten the entire first draft. Unless significant research is needed, I usually finish it in three or four weeks. The second draft (or occasionally the first) then gets read by two or more pros with whom I trade critiques. Sometimes I also have subject matter pros read them. Then, while I wait for their responses, I work on some other project. Critiquers are usually fairly quick on the turn-arounds, but they have deadlines, emergencies etc. of their own.)
When I have their comments, I produce a third draft, which may take a couple of weeks. This is an especially fun draft, a matter of further refining, till it says what I want it to say at that time.
My third draft goes to the publisher, where they decide whether to accept it. This may take awhile — they are busy folk — and occasionally there’s some back and forth on it.
When I’ve heard back, I write the fourth and final draft. First I edit it on paper, then write the changes into the computer, and then edit it on the screen! (All editing, on paper and one the screen, I do while reading aloud; I catch things reading on paper that I’d miss on the screen. And vice versa.) It takes about two weeks to prepare that final draft.
A few months later I receive the type-set page proofs. I read them against my final draft, for glitches (there can be glitches, and they can be missed by proof readers less familiar with the story than the author is). And for whatever line editing the editor has done. (Some houses send the edited copy; I always got the edited copies when writing technical publications. But I’m content with just the page proofs.)
Page proofs are not a last chance to rewrite, except to avoid embarrassment. If there is something that must be rewritten, consult with your editor first. Page proofs are for catching the editor's misreadings. (Did I lead him astray? Did she actually fix something, or just change it?). If an editor’s fix is not okay, I still misled her, so there's a problem, and it’s my responsibility to fix it. It’s my name on the cover. Typically I’m grateful for the editing. Invariably the editor catches things I’d missed.
The page proofs will come with a deadline, based on the date scheduled for printing. And the printing schedule is based on the schedule for shipping the books to distributors. So if you’re late, the process goes on without your in-put. There is little slack there. So if you’re scheduled for major surgery, or the wedding of your daughter in Singapore, or if you simply hate doing page proofs, let your editor know in advance.
And that's pretty much the drill. Vaya con Dios!
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