#Creative writing manuscript title page how to
#Creative writing manuscript title page professional

It's a mistake to think you need to wax lyrical with lots of showy language and super-long sentences. Make sure it introduces a character, tells us where and when your story is happening, and shows us straight away what genre we're in. But the volume of submissions is huge and we need to keep on top of it, so the agents may not read very much unless there's something which really draws them in. Polish up your first page: Curtis Brown and C&W, like all good agencies, consider every submission that arrives.A title-less novel lacks an identity and it makes it harder for the agent to discuss it with colleagues. You might not feel you've found the right title for your novel at the time of sending it to agents, but it's much better to put a working title on it than none at all. Put a title on the material: A great title can immediately make an agent sit up in his or her seat.Don't put a copyright notice on the material - it doesn't actually serve a real function and just looks silly. Also, number your pages and put your name on them.

Nobody wants to have to fight their way into a densely packed page of tiny font with no discernible formatting.

#Creative writing manuscript title page professional

This may sound petty, but if you've got a truckload of reading to do (which, believe me, is the case for all literary agents), it makes a massive difference when the work looks clean, professional and readable. Format your work properly: The right way to present your work is to use an unfussy font - not too big, not too small (Times New Roman 12 point will do just fine), 1.5 or double spacing, and make sure you set the work out correctly, the way you'd see it on the page of a published book - ie, paragraphs indented (rather than with spaces between them), dialogue properly formatted etc.

#Creative writing manuscript title page how to

How do you put together a submission package that will catch their eye and make them want to read your work? Here are some tips on how to do it - and, by the way, most of them also apply to putting together an application package for one of our selective creative writing courses …