To : All Writers, Everywhere
From : A Beleaguered Editor
Subject : Overenthusiastic Decoration of Copy
If you’re a 12-year-old girl, please feel free to decorate your copy with fancy fonts, different coloured text, watermarks, random stolen images, unicorns, pixies, emoticons and LOLs.
If you are not a 12-year-old girl, but a professional writer or a student, and you want to be taken seriously, please curb your enthusiasm. Use a simple font, such as Times, Calibri, or any of the crap MS Word defaults to. Use black ink, not lilac. Keep watermarks to a minimum, and when you use them, insert only data such as page number, heading, author, etc. I do not need to see your collection of My Little Pony fan art.
If you do unleash your inner graphic artist all over the page, not only will you come across as a rank amateur, but you will also waste my precious time (for which I am billing you by the hour) and piss me off. And editors are the Incredible Hulks of the literary world. You won’t like us when we’re angry.
Comments and questions, guys. Let’s talk it through!
