Strategy for Write an Entire Story Month: Procrastinators Edition

Welcome to the deadline day in the “Write an Entire Story” month and there are a plethora of writers hard at work with their fingers on the keys, bleeding out the last of their 5,000 to 10,000 words. If you haven’t finished with your story, take the weekend and wrap it up. Then I want you to put it away. Take a walk, join an auto bon club, or poke around the kitchen and find the exact point when the refrigerator light goes out. Do anything to get the story out of your mind, ONCE YOU ARE FINISHED. Procrastinators Edition

In a week, we will meet back here for a final couple notes on editing. Right now we want to get the story out of our head. The point is to fall out of love with your prose. Like children, some prose are so ugly only a creator could love them. We need to remove ourselves from our loves, so we can see them with new eyes. While we take a break, let’s take a look at couple hints to help us finish up and some general points for submitting manuscripts.

The Point

First, we need to know the point of the last month. The point is the creation of a manuscript. No matter what you have printed, if you followed along with us this month, you now have a manuscript. Kudos to you, the hardest part of words is placement on the page. Procrastination is the beast of any self proclaimed writer and our efforts deserve a good pat on the back.

Think Leitmotiv

As we let the story settle into the recess of our mind, we will want to spend our last thoughts on the leitmotiv of our story. In all the words we have placed on the page there is bound to be a recurring theme and our final edit should include a central theme that lies in the silver lining of our story. In “The Great Space Race” the recurring theme is Herb’s ability to reap havoc upon the population and shed the repercussions. As I finish the final draft, I want to take in mind to what end his antics have and why the force, that compelled me to write him that way, saw fit to do so.

The Format

While word processors offer a variety of ways to make your text appear, when submitting a manuscript for consideration typerwriters have set the tone of the printing world. Your manuscript should look like it was ripped from a roller. With the many fonts to chose, stick with “courier” at 12 point. Courier is a monospaced font, meaning each letter take up the same amount of space, which makes your document easy to read. Set your margins at 1 inch all around and save your file in a RTF format, as rich text format is operating system universal. I found a good explanation of the “whys” for these steps on Star Ship Sofa Submission Guideline, and how at Proper Manuscript Format by William Shunn.

Spice up the Image

Now I am known for my lack of artist ability and Channel, the place American Nonfiction designates to show off fiction contains at least one picture, cover (190 width by like 300 height). American NonFiction is not against stories accompanied by pictures. If you want a cover not designed by Wesley’s poor artist ability, give us your best shot or have an artist friend design you a cover. We will include your artist friend in a multi post highlight of all artist submitted and you can bet a category in the “W.E.S. Awards”.

Until next week, if you finished give yourself a good pat on the back. If you are scared to submit and show off your work, even when competing with a hack like Wesley, give us a shout and American NonFiction will highlight you in a multi-writer “Runner up” post, which will also become a category in the “W.E.S. Awards”. Hint: free publicity for your blog or thing worth promoting. If nothing else, thanks for reading and following along in our fun.