What is a style guide?

A style guide, or style sheet, is just as it sounds; a sheet of paper or word document containing the stylistic information for your manuscript. 

The concept behind a style sheet is to aid consistency and depending which side of the fence you sit on determines the information you put in a style sheet. Some authors, and editors, believe a style sheet should only contain the micro elements of your manuscript: spelling, punctuation, grammar preferences, etc. Others, believe you should put all your story’s key information in to help you keep track of who’s who, what’s where, and when important things happen. While both arguments have merit, the ultimate decision is yours.

Rules vs preferences

There are no fixed rules with style. The Oxford Guide to Style/New Hart’s Rules and The Chicago Manual of Style are the most widely used, but they’re only guidelines. It’s up to you – the author – to use these guidelines to create your own preferences to suit the way you write.

What should go in a style sheet?

This is where I have two hats. As an author and because of the way I write, before I write anything, I create a style sheet which details the microelements of my manuscript. I use a Scrivener timeline to track key dates and events in my story and other elements of the software for character and location building. Before I send the manuscript to my editor, I transfer all the key information to my style sheet. That’s just my way of working.

As an editor, I highly recommend transferring all your story information: microelements, characters, locations, key events, etc. onto the style sheet. It will save your editor valuable time when having to cross-reference any discrepancies or inconsistencies they find.

Here’s a list of things I would expect to find in a style sheet.

• • character names, traits, and role in the story
  • How you handle point of view
  • How you handle hyphenation, en-rule, em-rule, and capitalisation
  • spelling preferences – ise vs ize, UK vs US
  • language choice
  • punctuation style
  • tense choice
  • key geographical locations
  • building names and layouts
  • timeline information
  • treatment of dialogue and thoughts
  • Any specific rule for your world – useful for science fiction and fantasyhow