Interior design

How to format a novel

Fiction has a strong and largely invisible set of conventions. Readers do not notice them when they are right, and find a book amateurish when they are wrong without necessarily being able to say why. This guide is that list.

None of it is a rule in the sense that breaking it is forbidden. It is a description of what a reader's eye already expects from a novel.

The type

A novel is a lot of continuous text read for hours at a time, which narrows the sensible choices considerably.

Typeface
A serif with a modest x-height and real italics. Garamond, Caslon, Minion, Sabon and Baskerville are the traditional answers and remain the right ones. Avoid anything designed for screens.
Size
10–12pt, depending on the face. Print a page before committing.
Leading
120–140% of the type size. Tighter looks cramped; looser makes the page grey and the book longer.
Measure
Aim for 60–75 characters a line. Much wider and the eye loses its place returning to the left margin; much narrower and the hyphenation gets ugly.

Measure is why trim size and type size cannot be chosen independently: 12pt on a 4.25-inch page produces a line too short to justify cleanly.

Paragraphs

  • Indent every paragraph except the first of a chapter or scene. Around 0.2–0.3 in, or roughly one em.
  • Never indent AND add space between paragraphs. That is a business-document convention; in fiction it reads as a formatting error.
  • No extra space between paragraphs at all, in fact — the indent is the signal.
  • First line of a chapter set flush left, often with a few words in small caps or a drop cap.

Chapter openings

The most visible piece of design in a novel, and the one place where restraint is most often abandoned.

  • Start the text a third to halfway down the page. That drop is what signals a new chapter, more than the title does.
  • No running head and no page number on the opening page.
  • Chapter number and title in a consistent treatment throughout — same face, same size, same position on every chapter.
  • If a chapter has no title, the number alone is enough. Do not invent titles for consistency's sake.

Running heads and page numbers

The convention is the author's name on the verso and the book title — or the chapter title — on the recto. Set in small caps or at a smaller size than the body, and always in the same typeface family as the text.

Suppress both the running head and the folio on chapter openings, on blank pages, and throughout the front matter proper. A page number on a blank page is the detail that gives away a book assembled in a word processor.

Scene breaks

A scene break inside a chapter is marked, not merely spaced. Three options, all acceptable, one of which you must use consistently:

  • A blank line, with the following paragraph set flush left rather than indented.
  • A centred ornament — a fleuron, an asterism, a small rule.
  • Three asterisks, centred and spaced.

The failure case is a blank-line break that lands at the foot of a page: the blank disappears into the page turn and the reader reads straight through it. If your scenes shift viewpoint or time, use a visible mark instead.

Widows, orphans and the final pass

Once everything else is settled, read the whole book looking for stranded lines. This is genuinely the last step, because any change above moves them.

Two pages showing an orphan and a widow On the left-hand page, a single line sits alone at the very bottom — the first line of a paragraph that continues overleaf. That is an orphan. On the right-hand page, a single line sits alone at the very top — the last line of the paragraph that began on the previous page. That is a widow. ORPHAN first line, left behind WIDOW last line, carried over
An orphan is the first line of a paragraph stranded at the foot of a page. A widow is its last line stranded at the top of the next. The mnemonic: an orphan has no past, a widow has no future.

Questions, answered

What font size should a novel be?

10 to 12 point for the body, depending on the typeface — fonts of the same nominal size differ substantially in how large they actually look. Set a page, print it, and read it at arm's length. Large-print editions are 16pt or above, which is a different book with a different page count.

Should novel text be justified?

Yes, with hyphenation on, for a printed novel — it is what readers expect and what almost every published novel does. Justified text without hyphenation is the worst of both: it produces rivers of white space through the page. For ebooks, leave it to the reading app.

How do I mark a scene break?

Pick one convention and use it throughout: a blank line with no indent on the following paragraph, a centred ornament, or three spaced asterisks. The important detail is what happens when a scene break falls at a page turn — a blank line alone becomes invisible, so use a visible mark if your breaks are load-bearing.

Should chapters start on a right-hand page?

In traditionally published fiction, usually yes, and it is what makes a book feel professionally made. It costs pages: roughly half your chapters will be preceded by a blank verso. Starting chapters on any page is a legitimate choice for a long book where printing cost matters, and is increasingly common.

How long should a chapter be?

There is no typographic answer — this is a writing question. What formatting cares about is consistency of treatment, not length. If your chapters vary from two pages to forty, they should still all open the same way.

Do I need drop caps?

No. They are a stylistic choice with a genre association — common in fantasy and historical fiction, rarer in contemporary literary work and thrillers. If you use them, use them on every chapter opening, and never on a paragraph that begins with dialogue.

Get these decisions made for you

Alhora's built-in interiors apply the conventions below consistently across a whole book, and keep applying them as you revise.

Download Alhora free See pricing

macOS, Windows, Linux and ChromeOS. No card needed to format and preview.