Standard manuscript format is the presentation convention for a submitted manuscript: 12 point type, double spaced, one inch margins, half inch paragraph indents, ragged right, a title page carrying your contact details and an approximate word count, and a running header giving your surname, the title and the page number.
It is a convention, not a standard. No standards body issues it, and the person who wrote the reference document says so himself.
Where the Convention Comes From
Almost every modern statement of the format traces back to one document: William Shunn's Proper Manuscript Format. Shunn dates it precisely, writing that he "churned out the instructions that follow in a couple of hours one afternoon in late 1993 or early 1994", and he is careful about its status: "Remember as you read that what I'm saying is not absolute gospel."
That modesty has not stopped it becoming the de facto reference. Clarkesworld asks for "standard manuscript format (modern preferred, classic accepted)" and hyperlinks the phrase directly to Shunn. Asimov's Science Fiction does the same rather than restate the rules. When two professional markets define an industry term by pointing at one person's page, that page is the standard in every sense except the formal one.
Since April 2020 the document exists in two versions. Modern uses a proportional serif face and one space between sentences. Classic uses a monospaced face and two spaces. Clarkesworld's wording above is using that vocabulary as though it were a shared registry, which in practice it is.
What It Specifies
| Element | The convention |
|---|---|
| Type size | 12 point |
| Typeface | A standard, readable serif. Times New Roman in Modern, Courier New in Classic |
| Line spacing | Double, throughout |
| Margins | One inch on all four sides |
| Paragraph indent | Half an inch, first line |
| Alignment | Left aligned, ragged right. Never justified |
| Colour | Black on white, no decoration |
| Page one | Contact details upper left, word count upper right |
| Title position | A third to halfway down page one, centred |
| Running header | Surname, title keyword, page number, upper right, absent from page one |
| Emphasis | Italics, not underlining |
| Scene break | A marked glyph on its own line, never a blank gap |
The Chicago Manual of Style independently confirms the margin, calling one inch all round a typical default for manuscripts on either Letter or A4 paper. It is worth noting that Chicago describes its own analogous rule about flush left chapter openings as "a convention more than a rule", which is the same category the whole format belongs to.
Who Actually Requires It
Here the internet consensus and reality part company. Reading the submission pages of five established literary agencies:
- Janklow and Nesbit UK ask for "size 12 and in a reasonable font, with your sample material double-spaced". That is the only one of the five matching the convention.
- Blake Friedmann ask for 1.5 line spacing, which contradicts the double spacing rule outright, and ban PDFs.
- Darley Anderson say plainly that they "don't specify exact formatting requirements", asking only for "a font and line spacing that allows for easy reading".
- A. M. Heath take pasted text through a web form, so typography does not survive the submission at all.
- Andrea Brown Literary publish no prose formatting specification.
The pattern is clear. The convention is strongest in short fiction and genre magazine submissions, where it is named and linked, and weakest in trade literary agency submissions, where most agencies decline to specify anything. What agencies do agree on is the submission package: a covering letter, a synopsis, and an opening sample of roughly three chapters, ten thousand words or fifty pages.
So the correct rule is not "always use standard manuscript format". It is: follow the stated guidelines if there are any, and use standard manuscript format when there are none. Shunn says exactly this: "If their rules differ from these, follow theirs."
What Deckle Exports
Deckle's DOCX export has a Standard Manuscript Format option, available on the Word variant only. Turning it on produces Times New Roman at 12 point, double spaced, one inch margins on all four sides, and a half inch first line indent on body paragraphs.
Page one carries your contact block upper left with an approximate word count upper right, rounded to the nearest 500 and rendered as "About 92,500 words", then the centred title and byline lower down. The running header reads "SURNAME / TITLE / page" and is suppressed on the title page, so the text begins on page 2 as the convention requires. The page number is a live Word field rather than typed text, so it stays correct if the manuscript is edited.
Two honest divergences from Shunn. Deckle marks scene breaks with a centred * * * rather than the # Shunn specifies, and the header uses the full title rather than a keyword from it. Both are widely accepted and neither will cost you a submission, but they are differences, not matches.
For the step by step, see formatting your manuscript for literary agent submission. For the individual rules, see font and spacing for manuscript submission, scene breaks and chapter headings. If you are setting it up by hand rather than exporting it, see how to format a novel manuscript in Word. For why the delivered file is DOCX rather than PDF, see EPUB vs PDF vs DOCX.
Common Mistakes
- Treating it as a rule when the agent has published their own. Stated guidelines always win.
- Justifying the text. Shunn calls justification "a typesetting style for finished copy, not for manuscripts on submission". Ragged right is correct.
- Underlining for emphasis. A typewriter era substitute for italics. Use italics.
- Sending a PDF because it looks tidier. At least one named agency bans PDFs outright, and editors need something they can mark up.
- Formatting the submission like a finished book. Drop caps, running feet and chapter ornaments belong to the printed interior, not the manuscript.
- Assuming every agent wants Times New Roman 12 point double spaced. Three of five named agencies specify nothing at all.
FAQ
Q: Is standard manuscript format an actual industry standard? A: No. It is a widely followed convention with a named author, who explicitly declines the word gospel for it.
Q: Times New Roman or Courier? A: Modern defaults to Times New Roman, Classic to Courier. Use Modern unless a market names Classic.
Q: Does it apply to non fiction proposals? A: The typography carries over, but proposal structure is a separate matter with its own conventions.
Q: What if the agent asks for something that contradicts it? A: Do what the agent asks. Their guidelines override the convention every time.
Q: Is it different for a novel than a short story? A: A novel needs a separate title page, page numbering starting at 1 on the first page of text, and each chapter starting on a new page.