A Cheat Sheet For Your Manuscript: The Editorial Style Sheet

Does your publisher’s in-house style guide ban serial commas even though The Chicago Manual of Style suggests using them? What’s a writer to do?

Relax! Let me worry about it.

I’ll remove every serial comma from the text for you, and I’ll note the reason on my style sheet.

As your editor, I’ll record each rule of grammar and style, plus your preferences, used in your manuscript. This document is a style sheet: an individualized written record of editorial choices. You’ll receive my style sheet with your edited manuscript, so you’ll see why I made each decision.

A style sheet helps me to help you maintain consistency and reduce errors within your manuscript or series of related manuscripts. (Do you have a sequel brewing already?)

Who else uses the style sheet?

Later, when your manuscript is formatted for publishing and your proofreader takes a final look to make sure no errors have crept in, they’ll receive the style sheet with the proofs. They’ll notice the lack of serial commas and wonder if some well-intentioned designer deleted them all. Then they’ll check the style sheet and see that your copyeditor removed them intentionally, and why.

The style sheet saves your proofreader and any other editors who work on your manuscript time and energy. And when they save time, you save money!

Sample Style Sheet from Check the Paige

What does a style sheet look like?

A style sheet is at minimum a few pages long and can get quite lengthy. I divide my style sheets into sections, including (but not limited to)

• standard formatting of the document;

• a word list containing proper nouns, variant spellings, hyphenated versus unhyphenated terms, and your coinages;

• punctuation choices; and

• use of numbers, dates, and other style choices.

If your manuscript is fiction—or nonfiction about people and stories, like a biography or memoir—my style sheet also includes sections like

• a character list, including names, key traits, and character development;

• world-building elements;

• timelines and calendars;

• descriptions of settings; and

• geography relative to different locations in the story.

Creating this record of your fictional elements helps me (and you!) make sure that

• Margaret’s hazel eyes in chapter three aren’t brown in chapter twenty-three;

• if Ginger meets Nancy at her Tuesday night self-defense class, their coffee date the next morning isn’t the day after the big date on Friday; and

• Larry's eight-minute bike ride to Ed’s house in book one of your series doesn’t take him thirty minutes in book four.

I’m your second pair of eyes, and my style sheet is our third pair of eyes.

So, sort of like a story bible?

The fiction section of a style sheet is similar to a story bible, but not nearly as comprehensive. If you’ve already mapped out your fictional world, geography, characters, timeline, and plot, please share that document with me when you submit your manuscript! I’ll incorporate it as I work, ensuring that your choices are maintained throughout.

Rules vs. style choices

A style sheet documents

• the established rules in mechanics and style I have used,

• the grey-area style decisions I have made that do not have exact rules in English grammar and style, and

• any style choices that are based on your (or your publisher’s) preference or your most common usage in your text.

What does a style sheet do for you as a writer?

There are no downsides to a style sheet. It makes your writing stronger and more consistent. It makes your story more cohesive and clearer for your readers. It saves you and everyone else who works on your manuscript time and money down the line.

And best of all? I include a style sheet with my copyediting packages at no extra cost to you!