I found myself in a curious position this week. My writing partner and I are expanding our fiction critique group, and as part of that I posted an announcement in the weekly email blast by Willamette Writers, our local writing association. No sooner had the announcement run than writing samples from eager group participants began to fill my inbox. While it was gratifying to get such an overwhelming response, the sudden influx of manuscripts cast me in a new role–that of impromptu editor. For the first time, I saw writing from the other side of the desk.

I knew nothing of these writers except what they included in their email, had nothing on which to judge them but their writing samples. From that, I was supposed to decide who I’d want to sit across the table from every two weeks as they ripped apart my darlings and set fire to my prose. It would have been nice to sit down and speak with each of them individually, but the reality was that I was pressed for time and needed to pick a set of winners quickly and accurately. Do you see where this is going?

As writers, we’ve all done it from time to time; sat around with our buddies and bemoaned a publishing system that seems stacked against us. Do it this way, they tell us. Format your manuscript in exactly this font, with this line spacing. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope if you want a response. Play by the rules and hope that the inevitable rejection will at least come with a post-it note on the form letter. We bristle, we growl, and we wonder why our writing isn’t criteria enough. After all, it’s brilliant!

I, for one, will never again bitch about any of that. With every email I opened, the absolute supremacy of the first impression rang truer. One applicant apparently either lost her shift key or was channeling e e cummings. I’m sure it seemed cute to her to start every sentence with a lower-case letter, but to me it said one thing: this one’s trouble. She did not make the final cut. I opened another manuscript to find the entire chapter written in 24-point Arial bold, the margins pulled in so far that the words seemed to suffocate in the narrow column. Yes, I read every one of those enormous words. Trouble was, I started off with a chip on my shoulder because it was so damned hard to follow the thread of the story, what with all that scrolling. In the end, the delete key was exercised.

After several of these submissions, I came across an email that washed over me like a warm breeze. The message itself was witty, to the point, and radiated intelligence. I opened this writer’s attached chapter, and found it laid out impeccably, double-spaced, indented paragraphs, the works. Of course, none of that would have mattered if the writing weren’t what I was looking for. Not surprisingly, however, I found myself immediately drawn into the story as well. Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.

Here’s the lesson I took away from the selection process: make it easy for the person reading your work to like you. It’s that simple. Show them respect by being brief and to-the-point in your initial encounter. Show them you have a sense of humor, and that you’ll be someone with whom they’ll enjoy working. Show them you’ve invested the time to learn how to present yourself professionally. Having done all that, proceed to knock them out with your writing.

A quick search of the Web turns up many opinions on proper manuscript formatting. Here’s a quick overview, and here’s another more in-depth article. Don’t get so hung up on the fine points that you let it stop you from getting submissions out the door, but do pay close attention to how your work looks. The right font in the right size might just make the difference between the best-seller list and the circular file.