Marlowe can analyze novels, novella and narrative nonfiction (biographies, memoirs, histories). She does best with manuscripts that are at least 20,000 words long and can accept files in plain text (.txt) or MS Word (.doc or .docx).
Our A.I. trusts that every word in your manuscript is part of the story, which means you need to submit a clean version that she can understand and properly critique. Here is a handy checklist of what to do to prepare your manuscript for upload.
- Delete all comments and footnotes
- ‘Select all’ text and change the font to Times, Arial, or Helvetica
- .g., title page, testimonials, dedication, epigraph, but not the prologue)
- Remove all back matter (e.g. acknowledgments, about the book, further readings, etc.)
- Remove all running headers and footers – including book title, author name, and page numbers. Tip: Find these under View > Header and Footer.
- Select File >> “Save As” and create a new .doc, .docx, or .txt file. (This “Save As” step is important. Please do not simply save your existing file. Save your document as a new file to help ensure that it uploads correctly and cleanly.)
If you follow all of these steps and your manuscript is rejected by Marlowe, it may be due to unusual encoding by your word processor. This article will show you how to save with UTF-8 encoding, which is Marlowe’s favorite.
