Author-provided style sheets
Published by Deanna Hoak February 9th, 2006 in copyediting, writingI think I’ve asked you this before, but do you like to see an author provide their own style sheet with lists of odd words/usages/explanations?
This sounds as though it would be really helpful, but on the few (two) occasions where I’ve had an author provide a style sheet, it actually wasn’t helpful to me at all and really just added another layer of work, as I had to check everything against the author’s style sheet while still compiling my own. Both the style sheets I was provided contained typos and differences of usage between what the author said was in the book and what actually appeared, which then resulted in further queries; authors don’t really know they’re being inconsistent, or they wouldn’t do it. :-)
The style sheet serves multiple purposes in the production process–it helps the compositor and proofreader later. First, though, it helps the copyeditor. When I make a style sheet, I include the page number where a term is first used, so that I can refer back there if the term is spelled (or capitalized, or hyphenated) differently later. I have to have a style sheet of my own preparation in order to copyedit well.
Another reason I can’t be too excited about authors providing their own style sheet is that at least one of the ones I was provided was…well, condescending. Authors know what they’re doing with voice. If you’re providing a style sheet because you really believe you need to in order to keep the idiot copyeditor from screwing up your prose, please have the decency to phrase it so that that isn’t obvious. :-)
I’d like to hear from other copyeditors on this, though, since I haven’t been provided many style sheets by authors. Have you received some that were helpful and noncondescending?
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I'm a freelance copyeditor specializing in fantasy and science fiction. SF/F novels I have copyedited have been finalists for (and have sometimes won) the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke, Golden Spur, John W. Campbell Memorial, Quill, Locus, Philip K. Dick, British Science Fiction, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy awards. In 2007 I was short-listed for a World Fantasy Award for my copyediting.
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“authors don’t really know they’re being inconsistent, or they wouldn’t do it. :-)”
I think that applies to a lot of life!! *grin*
How are ya?
Did an author want to prepare a stylesheet for the copyeditor’s benefit (purely hypothetical question for me, sadly), do you have any tips? What would make it easier on you?
I’m wondering if there’s a difference between an author providing a style sheet just because, and an author providing a style sheet that they’ve received previously for earlier books in a series. It would seem to me that there would be an advantage in keeping a style consistent throughout a series, and that a style sheet would be useful for this purpose. This is of course making the assumption that a series has different copyeditors at some point.
Yes, it’s enormously useful to have the copyeditor’s style sheet from the previous book in a series. Publishers will often send one if they still have it.
uthors don’t really know they’re being inconsistent, or they wouldn’t do it. :-)
I usually catch myself when I do something like that. A couple months ago I was sitting on the toilet (I know you wanted to know) and realized there was a giant time inconsistency in Glicia when Davin was telling Tab some stuff…and then freaked out until I had a chance to sit down and fix it. It only took a couple paragraphs, but I seriously lose sleep over that sort of thing. *grin*
I’m sort of amazed it made it through so many drafts, though. Kind of like the typo everyone misses, yanno?
But you definitely have a point: if I’d known I was being inconsistant *then*, I wouldn’t have done it. I’d have fixed it right away. ;)
I’ve received one helpful one, and it was one in which the author was talking about specific sentence style and using specific examples with model sentences.
Like, no commas in adjective series, and showing exactly what he wanted by quoting sentences from the novel.
Other, less helpful style sheets were general “hands off” instructions about this and that, with this and that being utterly and unconsciously inconsistent throughout, despite the advertised deliberateness.
Unfortunately I KNOW that I’m inconsistent and usually try to say “here on the style sheet is what I MEANT to use throughout the book…” For the Ukiah Oregon books usually I don’t worry too much doing style sheets because there’s so little stuff introduced that usually I don’t mess up too bad. For the Tinker books, where I have the Elvish language and the elves have three or four names, I try to make one up. It also depends on how close to deadline I’m running. If I had time to do an ultra polish is different from if I’m squeaking in under the wire and haven’t gone over the document with a fine tooth comb.
I copyedited two (or maybe it was three) books in a fantasy series, and I did very complete style sheets. Then I didn’t do one or two in the series. Then I was asked to do another. In the time I wasn’t doing them, the spelling of a principal character’s name changed–not for any reason; it was an error that no one caught (it was all vowels, and two of them were reversed). Since the publisher did not send me the interim copy editor’s style sheet, I presume they hadn’t sent that copy editor mine; if they did, the copy editor ignored it.
I sometimes copyedit later editions of textbooks. It would, indeed, be enormously useful to have the style sheets for the previous editions. However, it has never happened.
Occasionally I’ve received an author’s style sheet–only once, I think, for fiction, and it was minimal. For scholarly nonfiction, most often I have seen them used by volume editors to try to corral their individual authors into something resembling consistency. In those cases, they have been useful.
I really appreciate authors’ telling me about usages that are common in their field but that I might not have encountered or about something that is a strong personal preference but not in keeping with the prescribed style (usually Chicago)–for example, capitalization of certain terms.
I think we’re like that with lots of elements in our style. We don’t deliberately set out to misspell things, make grammatical errors, stylistic errors, continuity errors…
I don’t do them deliberately. They slips theyselves into the text when I’m not looking. {g}
Granted, when I’m fingers-on-keyboard, I’m often not looking at the screen, but inward to the stage of my mind, where the characters are pacing their marks. I’m merely transcribing and sometimes I’m so caught up in the action that things slip by me.
Then my brain does that “fill in the blanks” thing it does on a read-through and rewrite.
I loves my critters. They see the things I don’t.
I have only had an author provide a [short] style sheet a few times, and I found it useful. I certainly wish I’d had one on the book I was just working on, which had wildly inconsistent usage with dozens of sf terms from line to line, in a very long book. I made decisions, then was forced to reverse myself when, say, the character’s name was spelled differently a lot of times later. Once I had a well-know sf author provide a short list of unusual words, and say, These words aren’t standard; leave them alone. That I liked.
What would be frustrating, and I think we’ve all encountered some version of this, if the author who cantankerously insists that you not mess with his or her deathless prose, then submits a manuscript full of obvious sloppiness, solecisms, and inconsistent names and usage.
So it really depends. But I’m fine with the author making decisions of usage for me, rather than my having to puzzle out what it is I think they want.
Interesting. I’ve heard from a number of authors that it is absolutely vital to provide a style sheet to the copyeditor, so I felt a bit like a slacker because it hadn’t occurred to me to do this for my first fantasy novel. For the subsequent volumes in the series I merely included a copy of the style sheet that the copyeditor had prepared for the previous book, so there was a working referencem, though luckily I had the same CE for all three books so this wasn’t an issue.
For the new series I did include a style sheet, which I used throughout writing the book to try to keep myself consistent. I put a note saying “In case of inconsistent spellings or usage, this is what I intended” on the style sheet.
Not sure if the copyeditor used it or not, but she sent back the style sheet that she produced, which I’ll include when I hand in the next book. Her sheet is much more comprehensive than mine, since mine only included people, places and invented terms.
No, it definitely isn’t vital; I’ve copyedited a huge number of books, and those two are the only author-prepared style sheets I’ve gotten. I absolutely do like to see the style sheet from the previous copyeditor, though, if there is one.