A style sheet is a critical tool that an editor uses to maintain consistency throughout a manuscript. Style sheets are not just for editors, though — writers also benefit from using them, both during the self-editing stage and when collaborating with a professional editor.

What exactly is a style sheet?

A style sheet is a place for capturing stylistic decisions on items such as spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. A style sheet is used by an editor to confirm that the appropriate style is being applied consistently throughout the entire work. The editor refers to it constantly, checking for accurate spelling and capitalization on all key terms and validating all stylistic decisions.

A style sheet is typically in the form of a simple text document. It consists of three main pieces:

• An overview, which describes the work being edited and any style guides or dictionaries that will be used while editing.

A Quick Dialog Exercise

Periodically, I take an example from my critique group, change the names of the characters to avoid making the author uncomfortable, and use it as a demonstration of stuff we don’t see ourselves that others might. Here is an example of something I have accidentally done a LOT of, and how to correct it.

Read the following short passage. (The girlfriend has been watching her boyfriend dance while he cooked, and then they sit down to dinner.)

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“So apart from skiving off today, how’s uni going?”

“It feels like a huge backward step. I’d prefer to be back at work.” She poured two glasses of water. “Have you won any more contracts?”

“I have actually. Remember the urgent sample screenshots you pulled together just before you left?”

She surprised herself at being able to remember anything about those last few weeks. “Was it that catalogue…

Decisions. The average person now makes more decisions in a day than most did in weeks, months, even years. Decisions can engulf us. Haunt us. Overwhelm us. Interrupt us. Even stalk us in our dreams, ummm, a Nightmare on Choice Street? Choices are great, but too many can make it difficult, or almost impossible to make and trust decisions. Then comes the morning after, littered with “Did I make the right choice?”, “What did I do?”, “Can I return this?”, “What was I thinking?”.

Even in blogging there are so many decisions. At first, it felt frightening, like I was that boy in Jurassic Park, when Dr. Grant was explaining how Velociraptors kill.

Now I’m more like Chris Pratt, on a motorcycle, riding with the Velociraptors in Jurassic World, which for me was an all-out, action-packed cheesefest (in a good way), but a noticeable lack of Jeff Goldblum

Blog 6 The Best and Simplest Advice for New Aspiring Writers

If you aspired to be an electrician or a plumber then you would spend a few years learning your craft. If you aspire to be a writer then it is important to learn your craft, and to learn the writing craft you need to take off your reading for enjoyment hat, and put on your apprentice writer hat.

Learn from the experts. Read a book for enjoyment then read it again as an apprentice writer with a critical reviewer hat on. Discover how the writer held your interest. Learn the writer’s techniques in unfolding the story. Examine how the writer has revealed and described characters, and places. When I’ve read a good book, I may read it three times (not in succession) to understand the writer’s techniques. If I learn something, I make a note – maybe a paragraph…