Hi there, i'm an aspiring writer and have heard that literary agents and publishers require manuscript submissions to be double spaced. Now this may sound like a simple and stupid question but what does that actually mean? Does it mean 2 spaces between each word or wider spacing of the lines?

Help, help, help.

wider spacing between the lines!

Double spacing looks like this

with two 'free lines' between the written lines.

Hope this helps;)

As has been suggested, double spacing is where you have a blank line between lines of text. So this particular bit is single spaced and

now we have some

double spaced text.

I would suggest two things - first of all go and have a look n Waterstones for a book on creative writing - there are a few other things to consider such as margins, justification, font, etc. but on teh whole if what you've got is good as long as the text is not handwritten and is double spaced you'll get by.

The second thing is that if you're a beginner, getting an agent unless you've got contacts is very difficult. Take a look in 'The Writer's and Author's Year Book' - it comes out every year and lists publishers and agents. Read up on who you're planning on going to and only send them stuff they want. Also, send it to a name, not a 'Dear Sir or Madam'.

Finally, we're kicking off a fiction writer's group on 22nd February - www.storytellers.curious-hosting.co.uk - so feel free to come along if you're in to fiction!

Good Luck!

Joe

cheers - will bear all that in mind. Am at the stage of submitting my synopsis and sample chapters now. Don't know anyone in the Industry so don't expect anything to come of it. Not trying to sound defeatist, but just like the Music Industry, it seems to be all about WHO you know rather than WHAT you know...

If anyone knows of any literary agents or publishers currently looking for writers / novels, please post up.

Also, if there's any writers who've attained success, it;d be great to hear from you... as perhaps a succcess story (hope for all us aspiring 'as yet unpublished' writers!)

Ta
Pete

I've found that the internet is a great place to test the water with your literary offerings. A few short stories published on a website and a bit of positive feedback did me the world of good.

Plus it was a bit of an ego boost to realise that I had fans on four different continents!

Originally posted by G_SuperBikes
cheers - will bear all that in mind. Am at the stage of submitting my synopsis and sample chapters now. Don't know anyone in the Industry so don't expect anything to come of it. Not trying to sound defeatist, but just like the Music Industry, it seems to be all about WHO you know rather than WHAT you know...

If anyone knows of any literary agents or publishers currently looking for writers / novels, please post up.

Also, if there's any writers who've attained success, it;d be great to hear from you... as perhaps a succcess story (hope for all us aspiring 'as yet unpublished' writers!)

Ta
Pete

I've had a fair amount of work published. My best was a short story in the prestigious 'The Lady' women's weekly. I got 100 quid for that. Other things include spoof news stories, articles, and short humour pieces in a VIZ type mag which is now out of circulation.

I've got all my published work in a box-file, so not too much really.

Be warned, I must have received at least 100 rejection letters before I finally got something published.

Also, sorry to disapponnt you, but agents don't look for writers. They have more than they can handle. They are only interested in writers who have already had novels published.

You have to force your way in I'm afraid.