What is a style sheet, and why do you need one?

If you’re working with a copyeditor in any capacity, whether via your publisher or someone you hired if you’re self-publishing, at some point you’ll hear the term “style sheet”. If you’re unfamiliar with the editorial process, you’ll probably be unsure what exactly that means and why you need one!

What is a style sheet?

A style sheet is a document created especially for your book by the editor. It will record choices the editor made in terms of spelling, punctuation, formatting, and so on. These may be in line with your preferences (for instance if you write in US or UK English), or the editor may make consistency decisions based on majority usage (if you favour “T-shirt” with a hyphen over “tee shirt”).

Style sheets can be simple or very detailed, depending on the manuscript and the genre. If you’re writing a contemporary romance, your style sheet might contain less information than a complex fantasy with lots of unusual terminology.

Style sheets can help you understand your edit, and why the editor made certain decisions. They can also be very useful for ensuring consistency across a series of books.

Style sheets also ensure that proofreaders don’t override any of the editorial decisions made at an earlier stage.

What’s included on a style sheet?

What exactly does a style sheet contain? Every editor creates style sheets and lays them out slightly differently. The level of detail can be dependent on genre and complexity, as I mentioned above.

In its most basic form, each style sheet tends to include:

• Language preferences (US/UK for instance)
• Spelling and hyphenation preferences
• The style guide that the editor followed while editing (a style guide is completely different to a style sheet – more on that soon!)
• Sources including dictionaries, reference books and so on
• Rules on punctuation and grammar, such as quotation marks, dashes, ellipses, serial commas, number styling, and so on
• Capitalised terms
• Abbreviations
• Acronyms
• Accented words (cafe vs café)
• Unusual words, especially if you’re writing fantasy or sci-fi and have unique terminology

Many editors are extremely detailed with their style sheets. In my view, the more detailed the better, because the more things you keep track of, the better your ability to spot errors, such as a character’s hair suddenly changing colour later in the book.

Style sheets may also cover:

• Characters’ names, roles, relationships, ages and appearances
• Location names/important settings
• A timeline
• Formatting decisions (such as how to mark scene breaks, how many spaces should come after the chapter headings, what should be placed in italics, styling for chapter headings and subheadings, and so on)
• World-building terminology

What’s the difference between a style sheet and a style guide?

A style sheet is a document tracking all the style decisions that are relevant to your book and that are made by your editor during the editorial process. It’s specific and tailored to your manuscript.

A style guide is a published set of editorial guidelines for documents and books. There are style guides for different types of English: most fiction books in the US follow Chicago style, whereas fiction books in the UK follow New Hart’s Rules. Your editor will use these as a reference when editing your manuscript.

A style guide isn’t a hard and fast set of rules. Editors are often flexible depending on the author’s preferences and style. Every choice is recorded on the style sheet.

Publishers may sometimes have their own in-house style guides so that all their books remain consistent and follow the same rules in terms of grammar, formatting and punctuation.

Why style sheets are useful

• Your editor can refer to a style sheet to make sure any books in a series remain consistent.
• Keeping your style sheet to hand can help you when writing sequels, as you can make sure they adhere to the same conventions, and that you aren’t accidentally introducing errors into your series.
• Style sheets can be passed along to proofreaders to make sure they don’t “overwrite” any decisions already made by you and your copyeditor.
• Style sheets can be crucial for helping you remember details. If you have a complicated novel with lots of character names and locations, style sheets can ensure you don’t slip up with your characters’ ages, surnames, appearances, and even the timeline of the story.
• With a style sheet, you can be sure your editor made decisions for a good reason. Style sheets help you to understand the edit you’ve received.

You shouldn’t expect a style sheet from a developmental editor or writing coach. Style sheets are produced by a copyeditor – and sometimes by a proofreader, if the copyeditor’s style sheet was somehow lost.