When I first heard of this document a month or so ago I thought it would be filled with CSS intended to be used in an ebook or even a paper book. But alas, that was not what the document contains at all. A Copy Editor uses a style sheet to record the official ways in which certain words are used in the book, usually quoting references in grammar books. It also records all the made-up words the author uses and how they are supposed to be used. This is to aide in copy editing the final manuscript.
Last night I finished proofing the final edit of Starstrikers Second Edition. That book is a military SF novel set in a completely original and very detailed universe. Needless to say, creating a style sheet for this novel is a very big task. But I feel that time spent doing so, will help keep my universe straight in the long run. Starstrikers is just the first of what will be many novels set in this universe, so it’s very important to get the details right and keep them straight.
As I go through the ARC paperback and record my final edits to my master document, I will be updating the style sheet and making the document that much more accurate and true to the universe in which it is set. I’ll post a segment of this style sheet below, so you can get the idea of what it looks like.
Organizations and Places:
- Federation = capitalize
- Western Alliance or Alliance = capitalize
- Votainions = capitalize
- Votainion Empire not Dynasty, sometimes just Empire
- Viper troops = capitalize Viper only
- Great War or Great Galactice War
- GCU Capella = Italics and capitalize
Now when I get to proofing Tyrmia, in a few weeks, I can use the same style sheet and just add to it all the things that are new in that novel.