Manuscript format: Straight or curly quotation marks?
I'm writing (or at least trying to write) a novel, and using standard manuscript format: 12-point Courier, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, etc. I'm using Google Docs, which automatically converts straight quotation marks (i.e. ' or ") to curly ones (i.e. ‘ and ’ or “ and ”). Personally, I like the way this looks, but I know a lot of proper manuscript format is about avoiding fancy typographical stuff (e.g. using two hyphens instead of an em-dash). Is it acceptable to use these curly quotes, or should I switch to straight ones?
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1 answer
Check the manuscript guidelines of where you're submitting. Anything else is a personal style preference.
Some manuscript guidelines require straight quotes, some ask for curly quotes throughout. In general, short fiction tends to require straight quotes (particularly when submitted in the body of an email, or pasted into a web form) and novels tend to need curly quotes. (The same issues usually apply to apostrophes and em dashes.)
The easiest way to handle this is probably to write with curly quotes turned on. It's a simple matter to use a text editor to turn them into straight quotes; doing it the other way around can be a little more complicated and prone to error.
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