Hatrack River Writers Workshop: 13

This is topic 13 in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by sakubun (Member # 5719) on :

When a post shows it was "edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury", does that mean she (you) probably cut some lines to make it fit?

Also, rather than write something and then re-edit it to fit the submission box, can't we just go with the first 13 lines of an MS Word (or the like) document with 1.5 inch margins?

It's worrisome to me to write something and have the hook on the 13th line and then have to change things when I go to submit it or fear that it will be edited and the hook might be cut.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

In a properly formatted manuscript, the first 13 lines are all that the editor will see on the first page.

The purpose of those first 13 lines is to get the editor to go to the next page.

Yes, I cut anything that goes outside of the reply box (allowing for spaces between paragraphs if there are any) because the reply box is sized to hold exactly 13 lines of 12-point courier font (manuscript format) text.

Actually, if there is only a word or two on the 14th line that completes a sentence, I will usually not cut that.

A goodly percentage of the "13 lines" that I cut down are probably formatted with Times New Roman font, and while they appear to the author to be only 13 lines, if they were formatted in 12-point courier, they would be longer than 13 lines.

We use the size of the reply box to make it fair for everyone, no matter how they have formatted their manuscripts.

I hope this helps.

Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :

Although, I would not kill myself to write a thirteen line hook to post here. I write my story and then post the first thirteen to entice readers to crit the whole thing. I do make more of an effort to make the first graph or two flashy, but this is not the natural setting for a full manuscript, and it seems like it would be forgetting the ends in favor of the means to write to the first 13 dictum too rigidly. What I'm really saying is: relax! what's outside the box counts too!