My friend Susanna J. Sturgis, who copyedits fiction, sent
this message to a publishing list. She granted me permission
to forward it to lists including novelists; the more who read
it, she says, the easier her job will be. Joy, who sticks to
easy stuff like monographs
> I rarely see usage notes or a style sheet
accompanying mss. _now_. An
> astonishing (to me, anyway) number of published
novelists don't know what
a
> style sheet is, or they didn't before I told them.
<g> IMO, they're
> especially useful for fantasy, historical, and
science fiction, but I
recall
> mentioning style sheets in a discussion on the SFRT
(Science Fiction
> RoundTable -- those were the days <g>) on old
GEnie, and almost none of
the
> (mostly experienced) authors knew what they were.
(If they did, it was
> usually because they received the CE's style sheet
with the edited
> manuscript, but this practice didn't seem to be all
that common either.)
>
> I'm currently copyediting a trade history book. Any
proper name that has
> acceptable variations, you can be pretty sure that
my author has used all
of
> them. <g> My style sheet isn't quite as long
as the book, but it's getting
> there, and if the guy doesn't like my choices, I
don't want to hear about
> it. <snark>
>
> In my exasperated opinion, agents and acquiring
editors ought to be
> suggesting that their fiction authors (and some
others as well) include a
> short style sheet with their finished mss., and then
this style sheet
should
> accompany the ms. through the production
process.
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