A single manuscript page with gray placeholder bars in standard manuscript layout on a dark slate desk under a brass lamp, beside a fountain pen, a typewriter key, and a faint star chart.

What Is Shunn Format? A Speculative Fiction Writer’s Guide to Standard Manuscript Format

Sooner or later every short fiction writer opens a set of submission guidelines and finds a line like “Submissions must be in standard manuscript format (Shunn).” If you’ve never heard the term, it sounds like a secret handshake. It’s actually a plain, boring, predictable way to lay out a story so an editor can read it, mark it up, and pass it along to production without fighting the file.

I’ve been on both sides of that file. I’ve sent stories out to magazines and anthologies for years, and I’ve sat in the editor’s chair putting together the Ancient Terrors anthologies (bibliography) and editing two series for a Hugo-nominated author. This post explains what Shunn format is, what each part of the page is doing, how the modern and classic versions differ, and where to get my free templates so you don’t have to build the file from scratch.

Free templates: If you want to skip the setup, grab my free manuscript templates for Word. There’s a version with page headers and a version without headers. Both are RTF files, so they open in Word, LibreOffice, and most other word processors.

Where the name comes from

“Shunn format” is shorthand for “Proper Manuscript Format,” a guide by the writer William Shunn (shunn.net). He wrote the first version in late 1993 or early 1994 and has kept it online since 1995, updating it as submissions moved from paper to email and online portals (Shunn, 2020).

The guide is formatted the way it tells you to format, so you read the instructions on a page that shows them in action.

One quirk worth knowing: Shunn doesn’t love the nickname. In a July 2026 post he wrote, “For the record, we do not endorse the ‘Shunn format’ designation” (Shunn, 2026). Editors and writers use it anyway, so when a guideline says “Shunn,” it means his guide.

Why editors care about a boring page

Shunn’s guide opens with the reason: “editors will more eagerly read a cleanly formatted manuscript than a cluttered and clumsy one” (Shunn, Modern).

That matches what I’ve seen from the editor’s side of the desk. When every submission in the pile looks the same, the only thing left to judge is the story. A purple script font, single spacing, or a title page full of clip art doesn’t get a story rejected by itself, but it tells me the writer didn’t read the guidelines. And it makes me work harder before I’ve read the first line.

Format also matters after acceptance. Shunn points out that consistent paragraph settings and clean italics make life easier for the production team preparing the story for publication. A plain file is easier to edit and easier to typeset.

The page setup

Here’s the foundation, straight from Shunn’s guide and his formatting checklist:

Paper and color. A plain white page with black text only. No colored backgrounds, borders, or decorations.
Margins. One inch on all four sides.
Font. 12-point Times New Roman or Courier New. Avoid sans-serif fonts and anything flashy.
Spacing. Double-spaced throughout the story text.
Paragraphs. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch. Don’t add blank lines between paragraphs.
Alignment. Left-aligned with a ragged right margin. Full justification is for finished books, not manuscripts.

That last point trips up writers who self-publish. In my post about watching your spacing in CreateSpace, I talked about using full justification for a print book because it looks best on a printed page. A manuscript isn’t a printed book. Shunn’s checklist puts it well: “Your manuscript is a blueprint for a finished book, not the book itself.”

The first page

The first page carries the information an editor needs to find you, size up the story, and pay you.

Upper left corner. Your contact information: legal name, mailing address, phone number, and email. You can add your pronouns. List professional affiliations only when they’re relevant to the market. Shunn’s example: SFWA membership is worth mentioning to Asimov’s or Analog, less so to The New Yorker.

Upper right corner. An approximate word count. Take the number from your word processor and round it to the nearest hundred. If you’re getting into novella length, round to the nearest 500.

Title and byline. Center the title a third to halfway down the page. Double-space once and center your byline under it. The byline is the name you want printed with the story, which may be a pen name. The name in the upper left is the one that goes on the check. Even if they’re the same, each goes in its own spot.

The story. Double-space twice more and start the text.

Leave off your Social Security number. Shunn says the publisher will ask for tax information with the contract if they buy the story.

If sharing your legal name or address would put you at risk, Shunn’s July 2026 post says you can include as much or as little contact information as you like, and even use only your pen name, as long as the market’s guidelines don’t specifically require it. Shunn notes that most of the big professional markets do, because contracts and tax forms follow a sale.

The header on every other page

Starting on page two, every page gets a header in the upper right corner with your byline surname, one or two keywords from the title, and the page number. Set it up in your word processor’s header feature and tell it not to show on the first page.

Illustration (invented example): A story called “The Lighthouse at the End of the Galaxy” by a writer named Rivera would carry a header like Rivera / Lighthouse / 7. If a page gets separated from the stack, anyone can put it back.

Sentence-level details

A few rules cover the small stuff:

One space between sentences in the modern version.
Italics for emphasis. Underlining was a typewriter workaround, so use it only if a market asks for it.
For an em dash, type two hyphens with no spaces around them. Courier users may want to turn off the autocorrect that converts them, since a dash is hard to tell from a hyphen in a monospaced font.
Put dialogue in quotation marks and start a new paragraph when the speaker changes.
Turn smart quotes on, but watch words that start with an apostrophe. Autocorrect often flips the apostrophe in ’em the wrong way.

On numbers, Shunn has a separate post on spelling them out, and my old post on numbers in prose covers the same ground from the fiction side.

Scene breaks and the end

For a scene break, center a single # on its own line. Don’t just leave a blank line. Blank lines can drift to the top or bottom of a page during revision, and word processors tend to hide them there. If your break vanishes, the editor reads two scenes as one.

You don’t have to mark the end of a story, but some writers center the word END after the last line. That helps when the final words fall near the bottom of a page.

Modern versus classic

In 2020 Shunn split the guide into two versions. The text is identical. Only the presentation differs:

Modern uses a proportional serif font like Times New Roman with one space between sentences (Modern Manuscript Format).
Classic uses a monospaced font like Courier with two spaces between sentences (Classic Manuscript Format).

If a market asks for “Shunn Classic,” Shunn says it means Courier, not Times New Roman. Older links to his guide redirect to the Classic version, so an editor linking the old URL may simply be linking whatever was there first. When the guidelines don’t say, modern is the safer default today. Shunn himself notes that Courier is probably on its way out in fiction circles.

Novels are a little different

Shunn has a separate sample novel manuscript. The main differences:

A novel gets its own title page.
Page numbering starts at 1 on the first page of actual text, the page after the title page.
Each chapter starts on a new page.

For novels and short fiction alike, use the actual computer word count. Shunn has a post explaining why the old rule of 250 words per page doesn’t hold up with modern fonts (Shunn, 2021).

Using my free templates

Back when I put these together, I wrote that new authors on convention panels kept asking how to format a manuscript. The templates are my answer to that. There are two:

Manuscript Template (With Headers) for markets that want the surname, title, and page header.
Manuscript Template (No Headers) for markets whose guidelines ask for no header information.

Both are free. Click the download button on the page and check out at $0. They’re in RTF format, so they work in Word and other word processors.

Adjust the template to fit the market. Some publishers want slightly different versions of the Shunn layout, such as Courier New instead of Times New Roman, or a different font size. Make those changes before you paste in your story. If you’d rather use Shunn’s own files, he offers Word templates for stories and novels that will even calculate a rounded word count for you.

Guidelines beat everything

Shunn ends his guide with the most important rule: check each market’s submission guidelines, and if their rules differ from his, follow theirs. A market may want a different font, a different header, or less contact information on the page.

Read the guidelines before you format, and read them again before you hit send. While you’re there, research the market itself. My post on researching publishers walks through where to look.

A quick pre-submission check

Before a story goes out, I’d run down this list:

One-inch margins, 12-point font, black text, double-spaced.
Half-inch first-line indents, no blank lines between paragraphs, ragged right edge.
Contact information upper left, rounded word count upper right.
Title a third to halfway down, byline centered below it.
Header with surname, keyword, and page number on every page but the first.
Centered # for every scene break.
Italics, not underlining, unless the guidelines say otherwise.
The market’s guidelines checked one last time.

Format won’t sell a story. It just gets the story read on its own merits. If the draft still needs work, start with my post on self-editing a speculative fiction novel, then come back and drop the clean version into a template.

Sources

William Shunn, “Proper Manuscript Format” (Modern Edition): https://www.shunn.net/format/story/ (white page, black text, 1-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman or Courier New, contact information, word count rounding, no Social Security number, title placement, byline, double spacing, 0.5-inch indent, left alignment, header, one space, italics, two hyphens for dashes, dialogue, smart quotes, # scene breaks, END, follow market guidelines; quote “editors will more eagerly read a cleanly formatted manuscript than a cluttered and clumsy one”)
William Shunn, “Proper Manuscript Format” (Classic Edition): https://www.shunn.net/format/classic/ (Courier version; “Shunn Classic” means Courier)
William Shunn, “‘Proper Manuscript Format’ Now Comes in Two Distinct Flavors,” April 16, 2020: https://www.shunn.net/format/2020/04/proper_manuscript_format_now_comes_in_two_distinct_flavors.html (history of the guide; modern uses a proportional serif font and one space, classic uses a monospaced font and two spaces; identical text; old URL redirects to Classic)
William Shunn, “A Brief Manuscript Formatting Checklist,” January 20, 2024: https://www.shunn.net/format/2024/01/a_brief_manuscript_formatting_checklist.html (checklist items; quote “Your manuscript is a blueprint for a finished book, not the book itself”)
William Shunn, “Withholding Personally Identifiable Information,” July 13, 2026: https://www.shunn.net/format/2026/07/withholding_personally_identifiable_information.html (contact information flexibility; quote on the “Shunn format” designation)
William Shunn, “The Old Rule of Thumb for Estimating Word Count Is Obsolete,” April 23, 2021: https://www.shunn.net/format/2021/04/the_old_rule_of_thumb_for_estimating_word_count_is_obsolete.html (use the computer word count)
William Shunn, “Sample Novel Manuscript”: https://www.shunn.net/format/novel/ (separate title page, numbering from the first text page, chapters on new pages)
William Shunn, “Microsoft Word Templates”: https://www.shunn.net/format/templates.html (Story and Novel .dotx templates with a word count calculator)
Guy Anthony De Marco, “Manuscript Template (With Headers)” and “Manuscript Template (No Headers)”: https://guyanthonydemarco.com/downloads/manuscript-template-with-headers/ and https://guyanthonydemarco.com/downloads/manuscript-template-no-headers/ (free RTF templates)
Guy Anthony De Marco, “Free Manuscript Templates for Authors,” 2013: https://guyanthonydemarco.com/free-manuscript-templates-for-word/ (convention panel origin of the templates; some publishers want Courier New or a different font size)
Guy Anthony De Marco, Bibliography: https://guyanthonydemarco.com/bibliography/ (Ancient Terrors, listed under “Editor & Collected By”; short fiction in magazines and anthologies)