Your Legal Name (or Agent’s name)
Address Line 1
Address Line 2
Phone Number
Email Address
Word count: 80,000
NOVEL TITLE
Pen Name or Author Name
Category (Adult/Young Adult/Middle Grade/et al.)
Genre (Fantasy/Mystery/Literary Fiction/et al.)
LastName / TITLE (OR KEYWORD) / 1
CHAPTER ONE
Subtitle or POV Character
In the first paragraph of a chapter, there should be no indentation. This document template will
automatically add a 0.5” indentation at the start. However, you can hit the backspace to bring the
sentence back to the start of the line.
Every paragraph after the first one should start with this indentation. You may have the
urge to add an extra line between paragraphs, but that is not standard practice—so avoid that if
possible.
“What about dialogue?” you might ask. Reedsy has a guide on their blog to punctuating
and presenting dialogue where you can learn all about that. However, the general rule is that you
start a new paragraph every time you change the speaker. And every time that happens, you
should leave it indented.
“Just like this?” you ask.
“Exactly like that,” I reply.
As I said, there are plenty of other rules related to writing dialogue—most of which you
can find online—but you might want to watch out for a few in particular.
“Like what?” you chirp.
LastName / TITLE (OR KEYWORD) / 2
“Small things that editors and agents hate. For example, never use all-caps in your
dialogue, even if you’re trying to express anger or excitement.”
“WHAT??! BUT I LOVE USING ALL CAPS!”
“That might be the case,” I say, “but it makes you, the author, look like an amateur (or
Owen Meany). And never underline anything in a manuscript”
“But you just did!” you protest.
“Do as I say, not as I do.”
***
When you want to signal a scene break—meaning that you’re moving on to a new scene
within the same chapter—you can either use three asterisks (as seen above) or the hash mark (#).
Both of these should be aligned to the center. Remember that consistency is your friend: you
don’t want any of your stylistic elements to distract from your wonderful story. So be careful not
to switch between asterisks and hashes.
***
When you’re ready to begin a new chapter, remember to start on a fresh page and type
the chapter title about one-third of the way down the page. If the chapter has a subtitle, you can
write that just underneath, but there should be a double space between the chapter titles and the
first paragraph.
If you wish to indicate some passage of time, you should write that two lines above the
chapter title. To demonstrate all of this, I’ll create a second chapter to this template. Simply
because I’ve run out of things to say, the words will be in lorem ipsum, which is a placeholder
language that designers use.
LastName / TITLE (OR KEYWORD) / 3
An indication of the passage of time (optional)
CHAPTER 2
Subtitle or POV character (optional)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut
labore et dolore magna aliqua. Sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt. Diam maecenas ultricies mi eget.
Molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis. Quisque sagittis purus sit amet volutpat.
Nisi est sit amet facilisis magna etiam tempor orci. Semper auctor neque vitae tempus quam
pellentesque nec. Posuere lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vulputate mi sit amet mauris
commodo quis. Eu tincidunt tortor aliquam nulla facilisi cras fermentum odio. Non enim
praesent elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla. Auctor eu augue ut lectus arcu bibendum at varius
vel. Amet justo donec enim diam vulputate ut pharetra. Ut eu sem integer vitae. Sodales neque
sodales ut etiam.
Vestibulum mattis ullamcorper velit sed ullamcorper morbi tincidunt. Praesent semper
feugiat nibh sed pulvinar proin gravida. Morbi leo urna molestie at elementum. Cursus risus at
ultrices mi. Posuere morbi leo urna molestie at elementum. Consequat id porta nibh venenatis
cras sed felis. Convallis aenean et tortor at. Non sodales neque sodales ut etiam. Duis convallis
LastName / TITLE (OR KEYWORD) / 4
convallis tellus id interdum velit laoreet id donec. Euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend quam
adipiscing vitae proin. Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer. Sit amet massa vitae tortor
condimentum. Maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo. Ultricies leo integer malesuada
nunc.
Fermentum et sollicitudin ac orci phasellus egestas tellus rutrum. Massa vitae tortor
condimentum lacinia. Vitae tempus quam pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem et tortor. Nibh nisl
condimentum id venenatis a condimentum. Id cursus metus aliquam eleifend. Consectetur
adipiscing elit ut aliquam. Dolor magna eget est lorem ipsum. Sollicitudin nibh sit amet
commodo nulla facilisi nullam vehicula ipsum. Donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis
aliquam. Blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Ac felis donec et odio pellentesque. Vulputate enim
nulla aliquet porttitor lacus. Dolor magna eget est lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Diam maecenas
sed enim ut sem viverra. Donec ultrices tincidunt arcu non sodales neque sodales.
The End.