Blogger: Rachelle Gardner
If you’ve been writing books for long, you may have come across the challenge of keeping the details straight so that you can be consistent throughout the book. If the hero has blue eyes on page 1, he shouldn’t have green eyes on page 50. If your book capitalizes “Vice President” in the first half, it shouldn’t be lowercase in the second half. But how do you keep track of these things without having to rely on your memory?
You could create an Editorial Style Sheet. This is what editors do when they line-edit or copyedit your book. It’s ultimately their responsibility to see that everything is as correct and consistent as possible throughout your book, so as they’re editing, they write down details; names of people, places, businesses and all proper nouns; unusual spellings; and style rules that will apply to your manuscript.
Your style sheet doesn’t need to be formal or detailed. A simple one that you create as you write and revise can help you define and keep track of the elements that are important to you.
When editors create style sheets, they usually include the following elements:
1) A list of important style rules.
These will be followed throughout the manuscript. Note which dictionary and style guide you’re using (usually CMS or AP). The important thing is consistency and a pleasant reading experience, so this section will address things like whether or not the serial comma is used; under what circumstances kinship or pet names (“mama” or “sweetheart”) are capitalized or lowercased; whether inner thoughts are set in italics or roman type; rules for whether to spell out numbers or use numerals; and countless other issues that come up in editing.
2) The book’s setting (usually in a novel or memoir).
This is where you state the time frame(s) and location(s) on the map.
3) A list of places and street names.
This will insure consistency in spelling and capitalization. For instance, is it Babies ‘R’ Us… or Babies R Us? Is it Wal-Mart? WalMart? Walmart?
4) A list of all the people in the book.
This is how you keep track of the correct spellings of their names. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, you’d be amazed how often a writer spells the same name three different ways throughout a book. If personal details about the person are included, you may want to note those, such as age, relationship to another person (i.e. “wife of John”), hair color, eye color, height and any other available information.
5) A list of words.
There are many words whose spellings could be easily mistaken or challenged. For example, “blonde” and “blond” are typically confused and the rules for usage have evolved over the years. A nicely edited manuscript requires a rule so the word is spelled consistently, i.e. blonde for female and blond for male; or blonde for noun and blond for adjective. Sometimes a word is only used once, but is included in the style sheet to show that an intentional decision has been made to go with a certain spelling; or to show that the spelling has been verified through an external source (i.e. “Walmart” is verified by the company’s website.)
If you’re self-publishing, it’s pretty important to keep a style sheet, so you can communicate your choices to the editor you hire. But even in traditional publishing, it’s a good idea because it helps you stay consistent, and it will also help your publisher see that you’ve made intentional style decisions. It will ensure that your editor is aware of the choices you’ve made, so they don’t waste time trying to make style decisions for you.
Even if you never use a formal style sheet, hopefully this opens your eyes to the detailed scrutiny your manuscript may someday undergo.
Do you have any system for keeping track of details in your manuscript?
Image copyright: donets / 123RF Stock Photo
This is a great idea, Rachelle. I used this kind of system extensively when I wrote papers for technical journals. Changing the variable name associated with a physical property was generally considered bad form.
* One additional area where a style sheet is, I think, vital is in the usage of jargon and slang, especially for writers of historical fiction. For example, when was the term ‘motorcar’ supplanted by ‘car’?
* Another area in which a style sheet can help is in the usage of words from other languages. In England in the early 20th century, a warehouse might be referred to as a godown by a character who had spent any time in the Far East (especially India). Likewise, a shopkeeper might be referred to as a wallah; and having a quick look through a greengrocer’s might be referred to as “taking a shufti ’round the fruit-wallah’s place”. Accurate use is slang is so vital for verisimilitude, especially for readers who are familiar with the setting and who find the appropriate colloquialisms pleasing.
* The same’s true for anyone hoping to set a story during the Viet Nam war; “xin loi” (pronounced sin loy) is a kind of all-purpose term of derisive contempt or profound sympathy, depending on the context, and “beaucoup dien cai dau” (boocoo dinky dow) is the term that perhaps summed up the whole experience. (And yes, in the latter expression you get two languages to make up a signature phrase.)
Not to run on about Viet Nam (and not that I won’t!, but a ‘visual style sheet’ might be a good idea as well. For example, unit patches…the 25th Infantry achieved notoriety in the waning days of the Guadalcanal campaign in WW2, where it earned its nickname – “Tropic Lightning” – and its symbol, a lightning bolt superimposed over a taro leaf.
* Unfortunately, the patch earned itself its own nickname…The Electric Strawberry, and if you want to write about it, you’ve just got to see it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25th_Infantry_Division_%28United_States%29#/media/File:25th_Infantry_Division_CSIB.svg
You are so right, Andrew. Editors note all of those kinds of things on the style sheet.
Great idea, Rachelle. The chapters in my non-fiction book can stand on their own, and I haven’t written them in the order they appear in the book. Going back to an earlier chapter, I noticed subtle differences in style.
*Now–to decide which style I prefer, and make my style sheet. I’m adding a checklist to my to-do list.
Whenever a style sheet type mistake crops up in a book I’m enjoying, it always makes the story world feel less real. I remember noticing that the love interest in the Honor Harrington series (a space opera based upon Napoleon’s wars in France) was both a centimeter shorter and a centimeter taller than our heroine. As a reader, I had to decide which to believe for the story world and it took time and pulled me from the fictional dream. In the first Percy Jackson series (which I love) the same thing happened with Blackjack the smart-mouth Pegasus. The first time we meet Blackjack, the Pegasus is a mare, the next time he was a stallion. I had to decide, mare or stallion whenever Blackjack was on the page. A great idea and one that I haven’t done before, although some of this is in my planning document, such as character descriptions and information.
Kristen, some fish can change sex in response to environmental conditions, but I never heard of an equine creature that could.
On the different height problem: was he sometimes barefoot and sometimes in cowboy boots?
I keep notes at the top of my manuscript listing each character’s physical characteristics and personality traits that I need to track: eye color, hair color, which leg is broken.
I look at the notes often when I first start writing and add more details as I write. I’m writing a series with some recurring characters, and the notes for a character get transferred to the top of the next manuscript they are in.
I think a more formal style sheet is a vital tool as I approach publication.
*I write Roman-era romantic historical fiction. That means characters from very different backgrounds with different native languages trying to communicate in one they both know. Some speak with contractions, some don’t. Some are highly educated; some are slaves. There are some foreign words that need to be in italics. I edit and reedit many times before my “final” goes to a content editor, so I mostly have each character consistent, but my content editor thought my style sheet was a great help with my first novel.
*Editors charge by word count with the per-word charge based on how much work they think it will take to edit your manuscript. You want them to see that you’ve done a professional job before they quote a price. You also don’t want to pay for suggestions to change things that shouldn’t be changed, like linguistic quirks. This week I’ll be sending the manuscript for my April release to the editor of my first novel, and I wouldn’t dream of sending it to her without a comprehensive style sheet.
And also, Carol, style sheets often contain information such as, “Foreign words are only italicized the first time they appear.” So you can be as specific as necessary in your style sheet.
David, The Bible has clear instructions about this in 1 Corinthians 7:5.
Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Nothing there about a difference of opinion, assuming the intimacy is a wholesome kind of intimacy between husband and wife. I doubt it applies to kinky practices.
This is so helpful. I still haven’t found a system that works perfectly for me. Whatever method I use for a style sheet, though, it usually includes a calendar of sorts. I once had a character who would have been pregnant for eighteen months without that clue.
Style sheets can be a life saver. I’ve found keeping a style sheet is an absolute must and I refer to mine on a daily basis when editing.
* Something else I personally find helpful are maps, including those I’ve drawn myself. The main setting for my YA takes place in Southern Illinois along the Mississippi, therefore my heroine can not be watching the sun rise over the river. I caught this mistake early on, but was still mortified, especially since I’m originally from that area. I promptly drew a map of every building and natural landmark I would mention in the story so that I could refer back to it when necessary. While doing this I realized the way I pictured the locations in my head were actually the opposite as to how they’d be in real life. I’m sure there’s a medical term for that brain-boggling dilemma, but we won’t go there.
As someone who only recently began paying attention to what goes into publishing a book, this post is invaluable to me. I’m not familiar with style sheets, but I know I could definitely use one. I currently write notes in my margins to keep track of important details, but it makes so much more sense to have a seperate document you can actively adjust.
Thank you!
Thanks, Rachelle. This post and its comment thread are very helpful. I’ve noticed these little things in my reading and they always take me out of the story. I hadn’t known how to prevent the same problems in my own writing, Relying on memory is hard work and likely to fail (at least in my case).
I’ll be doing this from now on.
This is fascinating and something I have encountered in my own writing. I frequently find myself going back to check how I handled a style issue just to maintain consistency in my work. I use Scrivener for story information and it keeps me straight on things like the color of a person’s eyes or hair. I had an issue in my current work where the color of an alien’s clothing designated what their profession was, so it was crucial that I kept that straight throughout the book.
I love your idea of keeping the style sheet handy while writing so you can refer to it and turn it over to your editor. That keeps everyone on the same page, so to speak.
Thanks for an informative article!