A Style Sheet Will Help Your Writing Stay On Track. Here's How. (Template Included!)
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Ask a professional editor to name a tool they can’t live without and you’re likely to hear “my style guide” in response. Style guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style are like Editing Bibles — mammoth tomes that are sometimes over 1,000 pages in length. And they need to be, because these guides define every little grammatical nuance you can imagine. They can be applied across many genres and subjects to create a unified and familiar tone and aesthetic. Editors can’t live without style guides because they have an answer for virtually everything.
Except...a style guide can’t tell you how you spelled that supporting character’s name with two R’s when they were introduced on page 55. Or if you’ve been writing numbers out in full (like ‘twenty two’) or shortening them as digits (like ‘22’). Or, for that matter, exactly what happened to your characters on Day 1 of your story when you’re currently writing Day 4.
This is where the multifaceted usefulness of a style sheet comes into play. A style sheet isn’t a one-size-fits-most guide adhered to by editors; rather, it’s a concise document (a few pages, at most) generated by the author during the writing process. A style sheet helps you keep track of formatting and narrative choices unique to your book, so you don’t have to keep second guessing yourself throughout the writing phase. And when you hire an editor to polish your manuscript, a style sheet might even help save you some time and money!
In this blog post, we’ll walk you through some simple ways you can create a style sheet of your own so you don’t tie yourself up in knots during your next writing project.
Start by creating a document with your name, title, and several headings to make it easy to reference. You’ll want to add to or update this document as you make decisions about your book. We recommend that you begin by including the following:
1. The Basics
What style guide you’re adhering to (at FriesenPress, we use the same Chicago Manual of Style mentioned above), what English convention you’re using, what dictionary you’re referencing (make sure it matches your English convention).
2. Spelling
You aren’t writing your own dictionary, so only include spellings that might get confused, including brand names (like FriesenPress: capital F, capital P, and no space), names with accepted variants (is it Jon or is it John?), unique place names (Albuquerque), foreign words or phrases (c’est la vie), and intentional slang or regional variants you want to retain (gotta, thru, y’all).
3. Punctuation
Some punctuation choices depend on your English convention (like quotation mark styles) or your medium (journalism, trade fiction, and academia may have different formatting preferences), and some are down to personal preference (to use the Oxford comma or not?), so take note of any specific preferences here.
4. Acronyms, Jargon, and Reference
If your book contains unique words or terms that the average layperson is unlikely to know, consider including a quick reference here. This will enable you to quickly recall the exact wording or spelling of certain terms (like CMOS = the Chicago Manual of Style, The Beatles, or Procyon lotor). This should include the official capitalization, title styling, or text styling so you can use it consistently.
5. Numbers
How are you treating numbers in your book? Style guides have recommendations for whether they are written in numbers (one) or in numerals (1) for various circumstances and quantities, but you might need to account for dates, years, times, percentages, etc. Make sure that you are applying these styles consistently.
Professional editing reduces distractions that diminish your book's readability, such as convoluted content structure, incorrect grammar, and persistent typos. From developmental editing to proofreading, our vetted editing team will match you with the editorial services you need to create the best book possible.
6. Quotes, Lyrics, Contributions
If your book contains excerpts of other people’s work, determine how they will be credited, and be consistent. Are they all listed by initials, last name only, name and date? This will not only ensure a more polished manuscript, it will also make your designer’s work more efficient.
7. Custom Styling & Formatting
If there’s anything else you need your editor or designer to be aware of, it goes here. This could be that an alien species in your book uses [square brackets to communicate] instead of regular quotation marks. Or that a specific character never uses contractions in their speech. Or that you want transcribed historical letters set in a different font. Or that you have call outs or pull quotes you want set up in block formatting.
8. Timeline Notes
Finally, a style sheet is an excellent place to jot down any timeline quirks that you want to keep track of as you write. If you know there’s an important seed planted in Chapter 2 that you absolutely mustn’t forget, feel free to note that here for quick reference. Depending on the scope of your story, you may wish to track the days, weeks, and months of your characters’ lives, or detail the minutiae of certain events that take place.
Not all of the elements listed above will necessarily apply to every book, and you don’t want to clutter up your style sheet with irrelevant information. When reviewing your draft, you can use this quick list to conduct a cross-reference (using the Find feature) to ensure you’ve been consistent throughout. Submit this style sheet when having a professional edit of your work and it will ensure intentional choices you’ve made aren’t overwritten for the more standard variation. If you’re getting multiple rounds of editing, it can also keep all of the people working on your book on the same page.
Style sheets are easiest to construct as you go along in your drafting, but you can also make one during review as you see what items keep cropping up or might be important to check later. Keep your style sheet relevant to the major pieces that will affect how an editor or designer might review or format your text. It will help guide you not only through the writing, revising, and editing processes, but into design as well.
