---
title: "Standard manuscript format: the Shunn spec in full"
description: "Shunn manuscript format in full, with the checklist to run before you send: margins, spacing, headers, scene breaks, the title page, classic and modern."
source: https://usegalley.com/resources/standard-manuscript-format
---
[Home](https://usegalley.com/) [Resources](https://usegalley.com/resources) Standard manuscript format

# Standard manuscript format

What an agent or an editor expects a manuscript to look like. Everyone means William Shunn's spec by it, and it is deliberately plain: the format is meant to disappear so the prose is the only thing anyone reacts to.

### The page

| Paper size | A4 in the UK and Europe, US Letter in the US. Match the person reading it. |
| --- | --- |
| Margins | 1 inch (25 mm) on all four sides. |
| Typeface | 12 point Times New Roman, or 12 point Courier New. Black, nothing else. |
| Line spacing | Double, throughout. No extra space between paragraphs. |
| Alignment | Left, ragged right. Never justified, and never hyphenated. |
| Paragraph indent | 0.5 inch (12 mm) first line, set as a paragraph style. Not a tab, and not five spaces. |
| Between paragraphs | Nothing. The indent is what marks a new one. |
| Page numbers | Every page after the title page, in the header. |
| File format |.docx, unless the guidelines say otherwise. Never a PDF unless asked. |

### Shunn classic and Shunn modern

Shunn publishes the spec twice and the text of both is the same. What
changes is the face.

| Modern | 12 point Times New Roman. Use this unless you are told otherwise. |
| --- | --- |
| Classic | 12 point Courier New. The typewriter convention, and a monospaced page makes a page count into a rough word count. |

A guideline asking for Shunn format means the modern one. A guideline
asking for Shunn classic means Courier. Beyond the face the two differ
only cosmetically, so nothing else on this page moves.

### The title page

| Top left | Your legal name, postal address, email, phone. Single spaced, no indent. |
| --- | --- |
| Top right | The word count, rounded. About 92,000 words. |
| Centre | The title, about halfway down. Capitals or title case, both fine. |
| Under the title | by and the name you want on the cover, whether or not it is the one above. |
| Header | None on this page. |

For a novel the title page is a page of its own, and chapter one starts on the next one. For a short story the text starts a few lines below the title, on the same page.

### The running header

Top right of every page after the title page, in the same face and size as the body:

| Format | Surname / Keyword / 12 |
| --- | --- |
| Keyword | One or two distinctive words from the title. Lantern, not The Lantern of Quiet Hours. |
| Why | A printed manuscript gets dropped. This is how it goes back together. |

### Inside the text

| Chapter openings | New page, title about a third of the way down, text a few lines below it. |
| --- | --- |
| Scene breaks | A centred # on its own line. It survives a page break, which a blank line does not. |
| Emphasis | Real italics. Underlining is the old convention and some guidelines still ask for it. |
| The end | Centred THE END after the last line. Optional, and harmless. |
| New pages | A page break, never a run of empty paragraphs. |

### What never belongs

- Decorative or coloured type, drop caps, ornaments, images.
- A copyright notice. It is implied, and adding it reads as suspicion.
- Binding, folders, or anything that has to be undone before reading.
- Two spaces after a full stop.
- Manual line breaks used to control where a paragraph ends.

### The check before you send it

The tables above are the spec. This is the pass to run once the file is
finished, and it is the short story layout that catches people out, so
pick the one you are sending.

What you are sending

Ticked

0 of 0

#### Set the document up

- US Letter, with 1 inch margins on all four sides.
- 12 point Times New Roman, or 12 point Courier New for classic. Black.
- Double spaced throughout, with no extra space between paragraphs.
- Left aligned, ragged right, hyphenation off.
- A 0.5 inch first line indent, set as a paragraph style. Not a tab, and not five spaces. An editor who reflows the file will see the difference immediately.
- Smart quotes on, then check the ones that open a word. Word turns the apostrophe in 'tis and '90s the wrong way round. It is the single most common thing left in a submitted manuscript.
- Emphasis set as real italics.

#### The first page

- A title page of its own, with chapter one starting on the page after it.
- No separate title page. The text starts a few lines under the byline.
- Your legal name, postal address, email and phone at the top left, single spaced.
- The rounded word count at the top right.
- The title centred a third to halfway down, with the byline under it. The byline is the name you want printed, whether or not it is the one in the contact block.
- No running header on this page.

#### Every page after it

- A running header at the top right: surname, a keyword from the title, the page number.
- Each chapter opening on a new page, its title about a third down.
- Scene breaks as a centred # on its own line. A blank line disappears when it lands at a page break. A hash does not.
- Page breaks used to start a new page, never a run of empty paragraphs.

#### Before you send it

- Saved as.docx, unless the guidelines name something else.
- No copyright notice, no decoration, no images.
- One space after a full stop, not two.
- No manual line breaks inside a paragraph.
- The agency's own guidelines read, and followed wherever they differ from this.

## Their guidelines beat this page

If the agency, the publisher or the competition publishes its own
guidelines, follow those, even where they contradict everything above. Read
them first. They take twenty seconds to find and people still skip them.

Galley exports this layout as a format of its own, so you don't rebuild the
manuscript by hand every time you submit. It's in
[preview and export](https://usegalley.com/docs/preview-and-export), next to the
submission package.

For a file that is not in Galley, the
[Shunn manuscript format generator](https://usegalley.com/resources/shunn-manuscript-format-generator)
applies everything on this page to a.docx, a PDF or plain text and hands
back a Word file. It runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.

**For reference, not instruction.** Publishers, agencies and
competitions each keep their own house style, and their guidelines win over
anything on this page.
Checked in September 2026 against [William Shunn's proper manuscript format](https://www.shunn.net/format/novel/), [the classic version](https://www.shunn.net/format/classic/) and [his own short checklist](https://www.shunn.net/format/2024/01/a_brief_manuscript_formatting_checklist.html).
Whichever you pick, apply it to the whole book.

## Questions

What is Shunn manuscript format? The same thing as standard manuscript format. William Shunn wrote the guide down in 1995 and kept it current, and because nobody else wrote theirs down, his became the one every submission page means when it says "standard manuscript format" without saying what that is. If a guideline names Shunn, this page is the spec it is pointing at.

What is the difference between Shunn classic and Shunn modern? The typeface. Modern sets the manuscript in Times New Roman, classic sets it in Courier New, and beyond that the two differ only cosmetically. Use modern unless a guideline asks for classic by name.

What is standard manuscript format? A plain, uniform layout for a manuscript you are sending to someone who will read it professionally: double spaced, one inch margins, a readable 12 point face, indented paragraphs, and a header carrying your surname and the page number. It exists so an editor can mark it up, estimate its length at a glance, and think about nothing except the writing.

Should I use Times New Roman or Courier? Either is safe. Courier is the older convention and still preferred by some editors because its fixed width makes a page count into a rough word count. Times New Roman is more commonly accepted now. If the submission guidelines name one, that answer beats this one.

Do I underline italics or use real italics? Real italics, unless you are told otherwise. Underlining was a typesetting instruction from the era of typewriters and it survives in a lot of guidelines that nobody has revisited. Some editors still ask for it, and the ones who do will say so.

Do agents actually reject on formatting? Rarely on formatting alone. What formatting does is set the tone before your first line: a manuscript in a decorative font with centred chapter titles and no header reads as a first attempt, and reading is a job done at speed. Getting this right costs nothing and removes a reason to stop.

What word count do I put on the title page? The real one, rounded. Shunn rounds short work to the nearest hundred and a long manuscript to the nearest five hundred, and rounding a novel to the nearest thousand is just as safe. Nobody expects 92,431, and writing it exactly reads as someone who has not done this before.

## Next

[Word count by genreThe number that goes on the title page.](https://usegalley.com/resources/novel-word-count-by-genre) [Dialogue punctuationThe other thing a reader notices in the first page.](https://usegalley.com/resources/dialogue-punctuation-rules) [Proofreading marksWhat comes back on the manuscript afterwards.](https://usegalley.com/resources/proofreading-marks) [Query letter formatterThe other half of a submission.](https://usegalley.com/resources/query-letter-formatter)

More at [the resources index](https://usegalley.com/resources).

Knowing the rule is one thing. Galley applies it across the whole book.

[Launch Galley](https://app.usegalley.com)