Sample Book Style Sheet
A Fiction Yogi copyedit or proofread comes with a PDF style sheet for your reference. This is useful both for me as I work on your novel (and perhaps your series), and for you should you need to work on the book further.
It contains a compilation of the stylistic choices that are applied consistently throughout your narrative, as well as providing information that's useful for continuity.
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Client confidentiality prohibits me from providing a real example of one of my style sheets, but below you'll find a fictional sample to illustrate what exactly a style sheet is and its uses. Actual style sheets will naturally be more extensive;
this is a shorter version intended only as a guide.
Viewing on a larger screen than mobile is advised.
A Book by U.B. Author
Sample Book Style Sheet [or Book Series Style Sheet]
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Word Styles
For emphasis – italics (He said what?)
Foreign words – italics (Bellissima)
Book titles – italics (The Art of Fiction)
Signs – italics: door marked Exit
Email messages – italics
Voicemails - italics and double quotations
Text messages – italics
Online messages - bold (See you at 8)
Buttons – initial capital and italics (She hit Send)
Chapter headings – Chapter 1
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Numbers
Time, spelt out – six-thirty / three p.m. or a.m.
24/7
Room numbers, numerals – 246
Years, numerals – 2024
Ages, spelt out – twenty-eight
Time periods, abbreviated numerals - '80s
Currencies, spelt out – five million pounds
All other numbers spelt out
Punctuation
Ellipses (3 dots followed by one space) used for dialogue that trails off/left unfinished, and pauses
Lower case after ellipsis when narrative runs on
Unspaced em dash for interruption of dialogue or narration
Spaced en dash linking clauses or in place of parentheses
Hyphen in stammered speech (Y-yes)
Curly quotation marks used throughout: double for speech; single elsewhere
Abbreviations no punctuation – POC
No punctuation after Ms, Mr, Mrs, Dr
Serial (Oxford) comma applied only in complex sentences – apples, oranges, and the pears her father liked / apples, oranges and pears
Other
UK English
-ise spellings
Point of view: 3rd person close, alternating between 3 characters, different character each chapter, past tense
Narrative break - 1 line space
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Reference books/resources used during this edit/proofread
New Hart’s Rules, The Oxford Style Guide (2014 ed.), Oxford University Press
New Oxford Dictionary for Writers & Editors (2014 ed.), Oxford University Press
New Oxford Spelling Dictionary (2014 ed.), Oxford University Press
dictionary.cambridge.org, online, accessed May/June 2024
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Timeline (passage of time)
* refers to points that have been queried on the MS
Tuesday morning, Alice arrives late for her dental appointment
It’s 12.20 in the afternoon by the time she leaves; she’s late returning to work
Thursday, gone 15.00, Jeremy calls a meeting with his staff
Thursday, 18.00, Jeremy is in the Mad Ferret drowning his sorrows
Thursday, 23.20, Jeremy returns home to find Melissa has changed the locks
He strolls the streets for several hours
Alice is woken at 1.15 by Jeremy ringing the doorbell
Friday, dawn, Alice gets up to go for a run
*She returns 90 minutes later (queried if it would be light by then or still dark)
3 days later – Monday – Jeremy has more or less moved in
Characters, Descriptions & Relations
* refers to points that have been queried on MS
Alice Synes, 24, brown hair styled in a bob; teaching assistant at Mayberry Primary; has a strong aversion to coffee, reminds her of her father; pale green eyes, not as slim as she’d like; drives an old Metro, red, exhaust issues; has lived alone since leaving her last foster home at 17; soft voice, strong-willed; rents a one-bedroom apartment in Hackney, 3rd floor; *never known her mother (queried how she knows she 'takes after' her mother)
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Jeremy Pritchard, 37, reasonably fit, works out three times per week, fair hair that’s balding, fair skin, dark round 1cm mole below left eye, blue eyes; stand-in supervisor at Merryman’s Meats; not all that ambitious, seeks the easy life, married to Melissa, no children
Melissa Pritchard, 36, solicitor, married to Jeremy, disillusioned; brother 3 years younger than her, surgeon
Geographic locations, venues (real & fictional)
Includes descriptions of locations used repeatedly, or that may be used in future books
* refers to points that have been queried on MS
Amsterdam
Denver Gardens, Hackney, Flat 3B - one bedroom off the hall, just large enough for Alice's bed, small bedside table and an Ikea single wardrobe with one broken door and cracked mirror to front; single-pane windows looking down over the car park; open-plan living room and kitchen, worn 3-seater couch with cigarette burns from last tenant, portable TV propped up on an upturned microwave box, dining table seating two beside the window, net curtains; kitchen functional but old
Glasgow
Hackney, London
*Mair Street, Hackney (queried Mare Street?)
Mayberry Primary, St Catherine’s Street - school for 300-plus children, schoolrooms old and in need of updating, damp creeping up the walls
Merryman’s Meats, Harcross Road
Portugal
Sublime Family Dental Practice
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Key points to bear in mind for series
Melissa has not told Jeremy about the baby by the end of Book 1
Alice has vowed never to get in touch with her mother despite discovering in Book 1 that she lives nearby
The knife wound Jeremy receives at the end of Book 1 will leave a scar, two inches wide, just below and to the right of his belly button
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Spelling choices
Adrenaline
Be-all and end-all
Belly up
Blond (male); Blonde (female)
En suite (the bathroom is en suite); en-suite (the room has en-suite facilities)
Get-up (outfit)
Laidback
On board (in agreement, or bring someone in)
Onboard (process of induction)
Onsite
Percent
Rear-view (mirror)
T-shirt (initial capital)
Tube (initial capital, trademark)
Win-win
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Tina Williams
fictionyogi.com
I’d worked with a couple of editors previously who weren’t as thorough as I’d hoped, but working with Tina was a completely different experience. I was more than happy with what came back (and it came back very promptly, I might add) and am certain her edit has made my book so much better. I received incredible attention to detail in terms of catching grammar mistakes and typos, but alongside this, the notes, comments and suggestions made, as well as the catching of important timeline/continuity issues, was invaluable. I will most definitely be relying on her services for my next book.
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Matthew Hattersley, author of the Acid Vanilla & John Beckett action thriller series