You’ve written a book, sent it to your trusted copyeditor, and the copyeditor has completed the edit. The copyeditor sends you the manuscript, a cover letter, and…a style sheet? What’s that?
A style sheet is one of the most important tools a professional editor uses in a book copyedit. Here’s what you need to know about the style sheet your editor creates for your book manuscript.
What’s a Style Sheet?
A style sheet is a list of words, stylistic preferences, and notes about your book that a copyeditor makes while editing to keep track of spelling and stylistic preferences in your manuscript.
“Preferences” is key here: I’m less concerned with following Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and The Chicago Manual of Style rules to a T and more concerned with making sure everything in your manuscript is consistent, even if it breaks a “rule.”
The Difference Between a Style Sheet vs. a Style Guide
While style sheet, style guide, and style manual sound similar, they aren’t interchangeable. Here’s an easy way to tell the difference between a style sheet and a style guide:
For example, if your book is traditionally published, that publisher likely has their own style guide that outlines their house’s stylistic preferences, but your copyeditor will create a style sheet specific to your book.
You probably learned about some style manuals in school, like MLA, Chicago, and APA. Most of traditional book publishing follows The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition (aka CMOS) as its style guide. I was professionally trained in CMOS style through the University of Chicago’s editing certificate course and know the CMOS style manual well.
When I create a style sheet for your book, I’m using CMOS as a baseline for style, usage, and grammar, then customizing the style sheet to fit your particular book’s needs, story, and writing style.
What Does a Style Sheet Look Like?
Style sheets vary from editor to editor. Many are simply lists of words in a Word document, sometimes broken up into different groupings, like character names, foreign words, place names, etc. You can find templates online, like this style sheet from Louise Harnby, and you can read about how other copyeditors develop and maintain their style sheets, like this blog post about TTRPG style sheets from Rachel Lapidow.
I use a Google Sheets style sheet that I adapted from Jeri Walker’s template (I’d link to it, but her site is no longer active) and have updated over the years as I use it. The template has separate sheets for the categories people, places, words, timeline, and Chicago Manual of Style things that come up frequently. I can alphabetize the items within each category quickly, and it’s easy to search the sheet to see whether I’ve already entered a term.
Here are the categories I use for a book copyediting style sheet:
- Timeline: The Timeline category provides an overview of major chapter events and dates.
- Places: The Places category covers places referred to in the manuscript. This category includes layout for buildings, descriptions of rooms, neighborhoods, towns, distances, etc.
- People: The People category includes details about characters, like nicknames, important descriptions, unique habits, backgrounds, etc. Generally directly copied from the manuscript.
- Words: The Words category contains words I looked up during the edit to check spelling and hyphenation. Also included are brand or pop culture references or made-up words (like in fantasy novels) requiring unique capitalization, spacing, etc.
- Miscellaneous: The Miscellaneous category covers other matters unique to this book such as accents and foreign words.
- Chicago Manual of Style: The CMOS category contains additional information regarding style standards including grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. The info here represents a selection of common issues.
Depending on the manuscript, I sometimes add in other categories, like:
- Text Formatting: The Text Formatting category covers how specific types of text (like text messages, handwritten notes, telepathic dialogue, remembered dialogue, and T-shirt texts) are formatted.
- German Words: Let’s say I’m editing a memoir about someone who lived in Germany for a decade. I might make a German Words category for the style sheet, which would include German words used throughout the manuscript and a brief translation for each.
- Vampire Clans: Let’s say I’m editing a vampire novel with different clans of Vampires. The Vampire Clans category includes clan names, their special strength, notable members, region, history, etc.
Here’s an example of what the Words category looks like in a book style sheet.
You’ll see a list of words (or phrases, titles, and some proper nouns) in alphabetical order with the preferred spelling, capitalization, and punctuation recorded. For instance, you can see that in this book, we’ll spell “cell phone” as two words and “antiracist” as one word with no hyphen. We’ll capitalize “Cracker Jack” and use “barbecue” instead of “barbeque.”
You can see in the book style sheet example above that I sometimes include additional comments, like what this word is preferred to (for instance, “burned” is preferred to “burnt”), or notes about what the word is or its preferred usage.
How a Book Editor Uses a Style Sheet
My desktop setup includes two monitors, so while I’m editing, I have the manuscript open on my main screen and keep my style sheet (and other editing tools) open on the second screen.
As I copyedit, I look for words that need to be double-checked for spelling, capitalization, or accuracy. I use my MerriamFetch macro to pull up a search for the word on Merriam-Webster to ensure it’s spelled correctly, or if it’s a person, place, or other proper noun, I use my GoogleFetch macro to pull up a Google search of the word to check its spelling. (If I think that CMOS has guidance on the word’s spelling, punctuation, or capitalization, I’ll use my CMOSFetch macro to pull up a search on the CMOS site.)
Once I’ve verified the correct spelling of a word, I copy and paste the correct spelling into the style sheet.
So, as I edit, the style sheet grows…and grows!
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
- I come across “babywearing” in the manuscript.
- I first check if Merriam-Webster has a preferred spelling for it. Merriam-Webster prefers “babywearing,” and a quick search of the manuscript confirms that most of the time, the author spelled it as one word, “babywearing.”
- I add “babywearing” to the style sheet.
- I search in the manuscript to see if there are instances of “baby wearing” or “baby-wearing.” There are two places where the author used “baby-wearing,” so I update those instances to “babywearing” so all instances of the word are correct.
As I edit, I can alphabetize the words in my style sheet so that if I encounter the same word later in the manuscript, I can double-check its spelling and usage.
Once I’ve completed a copyedit, I go through the style sheet and search for variants of words in the manuscript to make everything nice and consistent. For example, if I’ve noted “bed-and-breakfast” in the style sheet, I’ll search the manuscript for “bed & breakfast” or “bed and breakfast” to make sure only one spelling is used throughout.
How an Author Uses a Style Sheet
When I am finished copyediting your manuscript, I will send you a copy of the style sheet in a Word document so it’s easier for you to use.
You should look over the style sheet to review the stylistic choices I made in your manuscript and let me know if there are any errors (a foreign word spelled incorrectly, an errant hyphen in someone’s last name, etc.).
After you’ve looked over the style sheet, there’s not much more you need to actively do with it. But do hold on to it—it might be helpful later.
As an author, you might need your book style sheet if:
- You hire another editor or proofreader to work on the same manuscript. For example: Maybe you have me copyedit your book before querying, and your book is eventually published by a traditional publisher three years later. Or maybe you’re self-publishing and hire a proofreader after book design. You can send the next copyeditor or proofreader the style sheet so that they can see the stylistic choices the (first) copyeditor has made and don’t waste their time undoing the copyedits.
- You write another book in the series. When you write the next book in the series, you can refer to the style sheet for spellings (especially place and character names) and details about the timeline, characters, and places. Was the character’s name spelled Amy or Ami? Was Aunt Shannon’s hair red or brown in book 1? What month did the main character get married in book 2? Check your style sheet. And as you write, add new characters, places, and terms to the style sheet to let future editors know how they are intended to be spelled.
- You publish more books in the series. If your book is the first in a series, pass the style sheet along to the editor who copyedits the subsequent books so that words and names are consistent across your series.
Looking for a Professional Book Copyeditor?
I help authors polish their manuscripts for self-publishing or querying literary agents. I can help you polish your manuscript so that:
- You make a good first impression with your readers
- Grammatical, stylistic, and punctuation errors don’t make your readers put your book down
- Your unique voice shines through and sticks with readers
Ready more about my book copyediting process here to determine if I’d be a good fit for you. Then reach out with details about your manuscript, and we’ll talk about the best way to polish your manuscript for self-publication or querying.