Numbers in text...

Generally, you should spell out the numbers one to ten, but use numerals for 11 and above, until you get to one hundred (but one thousand, but 11 thousand).

Novel: Thur's Utopia
Genre: Sci Fi (Dystopian)
One sentence summary: A man and a woman go an a voyage to overthrow an evil dictator.

The Chicago Manual of Style says to spell out whole numbers through one hundred as well as round numbers (like one thousand).

What comes after NaNo? National Novel Publishing Year! http://www.nanopubye.org

That's what I do.

I spell out numbers 1-20 (I think that's the MLA rule - or it used to be - it does tend to change over time), and I ALWAYS spell out numbers in dialogue. It just doesn't read right to me if you're quoting a character like: "He gave me 308 marbles." So I write it: "He gave me three hundred and eight marbles."

Metaphors be with you.

I always spell out numbers if they're being used to count something. If they're used as a date or something like a room number, I use the digits instead.

As a history major, I've been taught with Chicago-style. Therefore, I agree with the comment above. Write out one through one hundred, and round numbers like a thousand. Anything else can be written out in numerical form. :)

Awesome. Thanks.
I've been so busy trying to get my word count going that I forget to pull out my MLA handbook :)

I'm going out on a limb here -- do whatever gives you the biggest word count. For example:

1,285 = one word

One thousand two hundred eighty five = six words!

I know, I know; terribly incorrect. Then again, six words versus one word! ;-)

Just remember to fix it in December.

Of course I have a blog!

sneaky sneaky!! i love it.

In fiction I always write out numbers, no matter how big, because it makes a difference to the flow of a sentence whether a number is "one thousand, one hundred," or "eleven hundred," and so on. I would only use numerals in a case where there were numerals in the story, such as if the characters were reading the number on a computer readout.

I think this goes double for dialogue. It doesn't make too much of a difference when the number is "2," but if a character is giving, say, his phone number, I want to hear whether he says "one two zero seven" or "one two oh seven" or "twelve oh seven," or whatever.