In one of the tutorials for Scrivener an external writer, one Alexa Donne, states that she sets the font to Times New Roman, because that's how publishers like it. Or want it. Whatever, she makes a bit of a point of it. I did so too, because I'm a good boy, but... ew. From a professional point of view I defnitiely appreciate some good fonting from time to time, but right now I'm wondering what the drawback would be in just writing the whole thing in Arial and if some crackpot publisher wants my stuff, I'll just change it. I know this is a bit of a dumb question, but I'm a peculiar person, so is there somekind of pitfall I'm missing? Oh, and while I have your attention: What's with this line spacing? Who sets that to 2.0? Why?
There's no drawback here, so long as you make sure the file you send to the publisher uses the appropriate font. We're talking about double spacing, yes? Everyone sets it that way because it's what publishers want. And publishers/editors like double spacing because it makes the document easier to read, you can scrawl notes or corrections on a double-spaced hard copy, and double spacing approximates the amount of content you'd see on a single published page. If it throws you off during the writing process, you can always just write with single or 1.5 spacing and change it when you're done.
I do everything in TNR, but if you want to write in a different font, have fun. It's up to you. Just keep in mind that readers have different expectations than you do and most of them just want to be able to read the book. There are reasons that fonts like TNR, Garamond and Palatino are the standards. They are the easiest to read.
Heh. I'm down to 1.0 even. It's all fun and games to make it look at professional as I can, but honestly, in the end I'm the one that's reading it. I'll burn the rest of these bridges when I get to them. To be completely honest, about thirty seconds after I started this thread I looked at Scrivener and went, "Eh, it's okay really." I tried quickly going back and deleting the thread, but that didn't seem to be an option. It's just a little fuzzy in the software, compared to, say, here.
Yeah, I get it. It's the standard. But trying to have everything publisher ready is getting so far ahead of myself that I might as well call up random directors to discuss scenes with them. I like what I'm writing to look like a book would so I can make believe I'm reading my book, but these industry standards I'll get to when the need arises.
As others have noted, there are really two parts to the selection process. The first part involves the writing. You select the font and the format that works best for you in the creative process. The second part involves the submission. Here, you don't have a choice. You go with whatever format the publisher decrees in font, line spacing, and so on. It's usually specified somewhere on the publisher's website. If you have specific requirements for that, be aware that such things are subject to change. These things can backfire, of course. A friend of mine published a fantasy novel that had two alternating narratives, one with the fantasy element and the other with the character's mundane experiences. She specified that the two narratives have very different typefaces, to let the reader know what part of the story she was in. But when the book came out, she found out that the publisher changed her choices to two almost identical fonts, obscuring her intent. So this sort of thing has to be ironed out pre-publication.
