TFTSP: First 50 Pages
Posted on: February 20, 2025
The Shadow Mountain Slush Pile opens soon so I thought I’d better do another…
TIPS FROM THE SLUSH PILE!
Shadow Mountain recently made the change to limit submissions to 50 pages. You’ll notice this does not include a word count. Yeah, so did some people submitting.
Your 50 pages should have:
– 1 inch margins all around (though, honestly, as long as they are reasonable, I don’t notice)
– 12-point font in something easy to read, like Times New Roman (see other TftSP re: Comic Sans)
– Double-spaced lines
– If you include a title page, that does not count against the 50 pages
Your 50 pages should NOT have:
– A page for dedications
– A page for acknowledgements
– A lengthy “thank you” note for reading their manuscript
– The tiniest font imaginable
– Single line spacing
– Non-existent margins
– An extra 50 pages
Y’all stop making me need reading glasses.
Now I understand why my college English TA got so angry when people messed with the font sizes, but that was usually to make it look like *more* words.
Photo by Mel Baylon on Unsplash