Teresa Peschel

A Style Sheet is a useful thing to have handy. This is true whether you are writing a short story, a novel, or a 17-volume series.

How many books have you read where a character’s name is given incorrectly or changes halfway through the novel? A style sheet would have prevented that problem.

What is a style sheet? It’s a cheat-sheet for writing. They remember all those tedious dates and odd name spellings that are so easy to get wrong.

Your style sheet will remember for you, and it will also remember for your editor. Editor likes style sheets attached to the story they are editing since many questions come pre-answered, and they don’t have to stop their work and nag Writer (that’s you) to enlighten them.

This is one of those things that are easier to do than to describe, so let’s build one. Style sheets, by the way, are much easier to construct as you move forward with your story, rather than after the fact.

On a sheet of paper, make space for each letter of the alphabet, along with – if your story demands it – spaces for numbers and typographical characters. You can build your style sheet on paper or on your computer. If you build your style sheet on notebook paper, expect to rewrite it a few times as you add and change and correct.

On your computer, give yourself two columns, A to Z.

As you write the story, list every character’s name in the story. For given names and family names, you may want to list the name twice, once for the first name and then once for the last name. If your character is named “Pauline” list her twice. Under P list her as “Pauline (Whitman)” and under W, list her as “Whitman (Pauline)”.

It seems like overkill, but it makes it easy to tease apart multiple members of several families.

This dual-entry method also lets you identify characters by their relationships. Thus “Pamela (Pauline’s maiden aunt) (Abraxas)” provides you both the family relationship and the fact that “Pamela” doesn’t have the same last name as “Pauline”.

More importantly, having all your characters listed means that if you have to set the manuscript aside, when you return to it, you’ll know that your heroine’s name is “Pauline” and not “Penelope” or “Paulette”. It’s especially important with secondary characters, which are easier to forget.

Keep Characters Identifiable

Style sheets can also help reduce confusion with names. As you add names, you’ll see at a glance how many characters have names starting with “P”. This could confuse the reader. If you see ten names starting with “P” and no compelling reason to do so, your style sheet will nudge you to choose names from elsewhere in the alphabet. If you do have a compelling reason to have Peter, Paul, Paula, Patty, and Prince, you can make it clear in the story why you’re doing this – say, there’s a huge inheritance at stake if they were named that way and zero inheritance if they don’t — and you can select names that look as different as possible on the page while still starting with “P”.

All done?

You just got started.

Record Other Proper Nouns

Next, list all the street names, town names, country names, planet names, etc. If there are several towns with streets in each, list the names similarly.

That is, “Chocolate Avenue (Hershey)” under “C” and then under “H”, you list “Hershey (Chocolate Avenue)” followed by “Hershey (Cocoa Avenue), “Hershey (Granada Avenue)” and so forth.

Just as the overall list is in alphabetical order, the entries under each letter should be in alphabetical order.

Are you using specialty words? Foreign slang? Made-up words? Words used in an unusual way (i.e., a word normally not capitalized but you always use it with a capital letter to indicate it has a different meaning)? Do any of your words include accent marks over the letters? List those too.

Having your specialized vocabulary, foreign slang, and made-up words in a convenient list ensures consistency in your spelling and keep the Editor from harassing you because you need your characters to say “humuhumunukunukuāpua`a” instead of “Hawaiian Trigger Fish” (it’s true; look it up).

While you’re at it, throw in pets, species, named weapons, and anything else unique to your story.

After that come numbers and specialty characters. Is the dotcom venture capital firm that Pauline is investigating named “%Doom”? Are you writing about the band *NSYNC or country singer k.d. lang? Your style sheet needs a section for this too. Do your characters send text messages using emoticons? If they’re chatting via AOL with each other because your story is set back in 1995, you need to list what they use so Editor doesn’t change what you want into something incorrect for the story’s time period.

Your style sheet answers whatever questions could come up in the revision stage.

So that’s your style sheet for your short story or novel.

Style Sheets for Series

For a series, you may want to consider using two style sheets: a master sheet that cover all your books, and a style sheet for each book. Entries are created using the same format as above, but master style sheets are arranged differently so you can remember in exactly which book Penelope (Pauline’s secret twin sister) first appeared.

As with your novel sheet, start with two columns: from A to Z. Pauline will be listed twice: both as Pauline (Whitman) and as Whitman (Pauline). At this point, add the books this character appears in, such as “Pauline (Whitman) (Pauline’s First Peril)”.

Pauline is our major character so she won’t need much more. A minor character, like Penelope, needs a list of each appearance along with the book in which she becomes a major character. Thus, Penelope (Zimmerman) (Pauline’s First Peril) is followed by (Pauline and the Hideous Discovery). This title is the one where Penelope gets to shine in all her villainous glory. This is her main story, although Penelope, true to her nature, keeps coming back for more. She’s the mastermind behind so many other schemes, even if she doesn’t put in a personal appearance.

As you write your series, you’ll be constantly updating your master name style sheet.

Your series master style sheet will have a page just for locations. You know how to spell Paris? True! But your master style sheet will say Paris (Pauline’s First Peril) (Pauline and the Hideous Discovery) (Trapped in the Seraglio) etc., etc. Every time a location appears in the series, add that location name to the master style sheet with a notation as to which book it appeared in. Then, later on, when you insert new novels into your series, you’ll have a fighting chance of keeping track of the sleazy nightclubs and seedy bars that Pauline frequents. Readers notice continuity errors such as when “The Bearded Clam” dive bar which was located in Ocean City suddenly relocates to Kansas City.

This location master style sheet is critical for a huge fantasy or science-fiction series that ranges across space and time. Don’t count on remembering all those tiny details. Let your master style sheet do it for you.

Your series master style sheet, just like your individual novel style sheet, will also include pages for magic weapons, pets, mystical words, techno-babble jargon, and anything else specific to the series. As with names and locations, list the novels in which
each term appears, with a notation (if needed) as to first appearance.

Your style sheet is a living document. You’ll be updating it every time a new character makes an appearance or walks down a dark street in the seedy neighborhood or develops a new martial arts technique that needs a cool name. Each novel written in a series will add to your master style sheet. If you set aside your manuscript or your series for a few years, your style sheet will remember all those pesky details for you.

When you’re finished with your manuscript, check it over with your style sheet to ensure no character changed names in mid-stream by accident. This is also your last chance to decide you’ve used too many names starting with the letter “P”. Make your changes and corrections as necessary. Then, when you forward the clean manuscript to Editor, send your style sheet along with it.

Editor will thank you for your style sheet. You’ve made Editor’s job easier, just like you kept your manuscript clean of easily made but not always easily corrected errors.

When you page through the opening pages of a novel, either online or in a real bookstore, you see the usual front matter: title page, copyright page, dedication, maybe some maps or charts. Sometimes, there’s an opening illustration. There may also be a list of other titles by Author, helpfully supplied by Publisher.

The purpose of this section is to inform Reader the basic facts about what he’s reading, who wrote it, and where the book came from. Informative, but it doesn’t do much to entice the Reader into wanting to read more.

There are sections of the book which fulfill that function, such as the title, the cover art, the back-jacket copy, and the book description.

There is also one more page which can do that. A page that is often ignored. This page can be your ally, luring the Reader into wanting to pay for the privilege of diving into your story right now.

This page is your table of contents.

Nonfiction always has chapter titles in its table of contents. Its function is informative, directing the reader to the section they need to read first.

Fiction has had a long and problematic relationship with chapter titles. Very old novels usually have titles for their chapters. They can be quite detailed, almost index-like in their complexity. Many modern novels don’t supply a table of contents at all, despite the fact that the book is divided up into chapters. The idea is that paper books don’t need them since Reader should start on page 1 and keep reading in he encounters “The End.”

Ebooks, unlike paper books, require a table of contents. Reader can’t just flip through a digital file. The table of contents lets Reader go directly to a specific chapter.

So here you have this valuable real estate, one that you must have for your ebook and what do I see most often?

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Even duller, you don’t even get the words, but:

1

2

3

4.

It’s functional, easy to do, and does the required job.

And it does absolutely nothing to draw in Reader.

How much more exciting it would be for Reader to browse the book, having been drawn in by your potent title, dramatic cover, vivid synopsis, and then open the book to see this:

1. Pauline discovers a body

2. Pauline is disinherited

3. Pauline meets a mysterious stranger

4. Pauline’s virtue is menaced by a cad

5. Pauline flees in the dead of night

And so on, until you reach the final chapter:

40. Pauline is triumphant

Or, you can devise a simpler set of chapter titles:

1. The body

2. Disinherited

3. The mysterious stranger

4. Menaced

5. Escape

And so on, until you reach the final chapter:

40: Triumph, or Virtue Rewarded

Which table of contents is most interesting to Reader? It won’t be the metronome of “chapter one, chapter two, chapter three ……”

Which table of contents will encourage Reader to open up her wallet, purchase your book, and then spend hours with your story? It will be the one that guarantees a good read.

Handling Divisions

In addition, your table of contents can help explain how your book is divided up. Does your book change time periods dramatically, moving from the past to the future and back again? Your table of contents can clarify that movement, making it easier for Reader to keep track of the narrative.

For example:

Part One: Scotland 2019

1. Pauline enters the circle of menhirs

2. Pauline performs the ritual

3. Pauline is interrupted by the laird, Jamie

And so on, until we reach

Part Two: Scotland 1019

10. Pauline is tried as a witch

11. The laird meets his double, Fergus

And so on, until we reach

Part Three: Scotland 1519

21. Pauline saves one laird, sacrificing the other

And so on, until we reach

Part Four: Scotland 1019 B.C.

26. Pauline is captured by druids

And so on, until we reach

Part Five: Scotland 2019

35: Pauline’s time machine malfunctions

And so on, until at last we reach

Part Six: Scotland 3019

40: Pauline, Jamie, and Fergus, reunited at last

Locations and settings

Thus, we see:

Part One: Manhattan

1. Pauline discovers the body

2. Pauline flees into the night

And so on, until we reach

Part Two: The holler in West Virginia

12. Pauline is kidnapped

13. Pauline meets a dangerous man

And so on, until we reach

Part Three: The Florida Gulf Coast

21. Pauline almost drowns in the hurricane

And then after much trauma

Part Four: Hollywood

31. Pauline and the casting couch

And then back to

Part Five: Manhattan

39. Pauline faces the court

40. Pauline’s decision

You can just as easily show how Pauline is zipping across the galaxy in her two-person space ship and the planets she visits.

If your book is in parts, whereby each part is narrated by a different character, your table of contents can make that clear.

Part One: Pauline

1. Pauline’s dreadful discovery

2. Pauline, accused

And so on, until we reach

Part Two: Harrison

5. Is she guilty?

6. If she is, she’s still damn hot

And so on, until we reach

Part Three: Pauline

11. Pauline vamps the prosecutor

12. Pauline finds evidence

And so on, until we reach

Part Four: Harrison

21. The evidence is damning

22. Her web of lies

And so on, until we reach

Part Five: Pauline

30. Pauline’s arrest

31. Pauline in prison

And so on, until we reach

Part Six: Harrison

35. Desperate measures

36. Disbarred

And so on, until at last

Part Seven: Reunited

40. Pauline and Harrison, or Virtue Triumphant

In every case, exciting chapter titles gives Reader far more reasons to pick up your book over someone else’s.

You can play with your chapter titles. They form a poem if read aloud. They can reveal the story from start to finish. Conversely, they can conceal what actually happens by focusing on a minor, but still interesting, event in the chapter. They can bring out other characters in the novel, letting Reader know that Pauline is accompanied by her sister, Penelope, also prone to peril.

The choice is yours.

The only disadvantage is that it takes time to write good chapter titles. As you write and rewrite, make notes on possible chapter titles. Revise as needed and then see how your list of chapter titles reads on the page. Revise again. Writing chapter titles is similar to choosing the title of your book or writing headlines. You are compressing a huge message into a few words. The difference is you don’t have to be as concise as a book title might need to be.

Your chapter titles can become another marketing tool; a subtle one that helps make the sale to Reader, when she’s deciding between your book and someone else’s. Your book has an exciting table of contents, whetting Reader’s appetite. The other book has that dreary list of chapter one, chapter two, chapter three and so on.

Be the book that Reader chooses.

I started writing about five years ago (has it really been that long?). I had always told myself stories, especially as I was trying to sleep, but I never wrote anything down. I don’t know why. I just didn’t. I certainly rewrote in my head the novels that I didn’t like, the movies that went the wrong way, and created new lives for characters I wanted to know more about.

But I never wrote anything down. I was married to a writer; I wasn’t. So I didn’t write on paper a single word of the novels I dictated to myself or anything about the worlds I created. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

[He, by the way, never once told me I wasn’t a writer. He didn’t know I told myself stories.]

It’s irritating now to look back on all those years of not writing anything down. If I had, I could imagine writing this from my luxurious, warm beach house in Kauai, instead of my little desk in the coldest corner of my living room in my 64-degree house. Fingerless gloves help, as do my secondhand Jack Skellington wristies, but not enough. I’ve lived in Hawai’i and no matter how carefully I decorated my house in central Pennsylvania to resemble a tropical paradise, it’s not Hawai’i.

But there’s no point in regretting the past. We can only start where we are.

Where I started was when my sister sent me a secondhand laptop. Since the kids were mostly grown, and I had time during the day when my husband was writing, I gradually started writing. I wrote blogposts for my husband’s website that became my first nonfiction book: Suburban Stockade. He needed content and we were living the lifestyle so I wrote them. I wrote blogposts that described my discovery and development of a new kind of quilt (NotQuilts). Those posts will also be turned into a book. I’ve since written plenty of other stuff as well. Nonfiction is easy.

While I was doing this, I also started writing fiction. I wrote in fits and starts, as the muse dictated, as I had the time and the inclination. I didn’t finish anything but I sure wrote a lot of words. Over the last few years, I must have written a million or more words; developing a few worlds, stories set in those worlds, vignettes and scenes and snippets and bits and pieces.

There was only one problem: I didn’t finish anything.

I was extremely inconsistent in how I wrote. I would write a paragraph or two, or I’d write a few thousand words or something in between. I’d take days off, that turned into weeks while I waited for inspiration to appear.

Let me tell you, the muse didn’t arrive promptly at my house every day at 10 a.m. I wrote like a terrier in a field full of mice and rabbits and tall grass. I was constantly distracted, constantly going off on a tangent, and constantly starting something new! exciting! distracting! unconnected to anything else!

I have to look upon all those words as practice. All those practice fictional words also taught me that nonfiction was much, much easier for me to write. I can churn out a few thousand words on keeping water out of your basement in a flash.

I got into the very bad writing habit of being inconsistent. I took a few online writing courses which did help. They would have helped more if I hadn’t used them as an excuse to avoid the tedious work of writing my own fiction. Did you know you can teach yourself the habit of never finishing what you started? It’s true. You can.

Joining CPRW

Then I joined the Central Pennsylvania Romance Writers. Soon after I joined, the group ran its “fifty words a day for fifty days” competition. Fifty words a day? I can do fifty words. I did not join the contest, but I decided to act as if I had. Gradually, very gradually, I started writing a bit every day, except on Sunday. Fifty words a day became my goal to shoot for. If I made my goal, I tried to keep writing.

I started to write more.

More than that, I started writing consistently. This was a huge step for me. I started trying to finish what I had already started instead of going down yet another rabbit hole.

Here’s another thing I learned: The belief pushed by some self-helpers that you can learn a new habit in 21 days? I can’t. I need weeks and weeks of steady, regular practice before a habit can set itself. Even then, I still have to remind myself to do it.

On the other hand, bad habits like eating all the ice cream or playing solitaire for hours on end are easy habits to learn because they’re fun and involve zero self-discipline. I can learn a bad habit in about an hour.

But after awhile, I began to accept that those 50 days were a good, solid start to writing every day, whether I felt like it or not.

Stacking Goals

Once I was fairly consistent at fifty words, I set a secondary goal of writing 385 words per day. Hitting this mark for 26 days (every day of the month except Sunday) equals 10,000 words. Ten thousand words a month equals 120,000 words in a year. That’s a large novel, two shorter novels or a whole lot of short stories.

I chose to only count “new” words, no editing or rewriting of any kind. My fifty words have to be new, a continuation of what I am already working on. Otherwise, I can endlessly rewrite a passage and never make any forward progress. Refusing to count “edited” words forces me to add new ones and get closer to “the end.”

For the same reason, I chose to not count any nonfiction or blogpost words. I can write plenty on soil management or constructing Roman shades, but that doesn’t get the novel finished. I’m not counting this post towards my word count for the day. If I did, I wouldn’t add more words to The White Elephant of Panschin. I would count my day as done and it’s not.

I do not count exactly. I always round down. If I write 59 words, I count it as 50. As with budgeting, I overestimate my costs and underestimate my income to arrive at a happy ending. With writing, I underestimate how much I write and overestimate how much I need. Then, at the end, I’ve got plenty of words to work with. It’s easier for me to tighten than it is to add.

Eventually, another “fifty words a day for fifty days” challenge appeared on the CPRW calendar. Again, I did not officially participate. But I wrote my words as if I did. I rarely wrote less than 385 words a day, other than on Sunday.

I’m now working towards a new goal: 1,000 words a day. 1,000 words a day for a year (skipping Sundays) is 313,000 words. That’s three novels! I rarely make this goal but I do usually get 500, 600, even 800 words so I’m getting closer. The key, as always, is consistency.

It’s all very well to write 1,000 words here and there and nothing in between. But those random words don’t necessarily add up to a finished piece of writing. Fifty words a day, every single day, will add up to a finished piece of writing. Fifty words a day is such a small amount, yet if you are consistent, you’ll end up with more words than if you wrote only as the muse appeared.

The muse still doesn’t show up at my house at 10am sharp. Sometimes she shows up, but more often, she doesn’t. Interestingly, when I go back and reread what I wrote, I can’t tell which days she appeared. My words all blend together, equally smooth and inspired.

As a direct result of “fifty words,” I finished and self-published my first novel. I’m plowing ahead steadily on my second novel. After it is finished, I have notes on the third one in the series. “Fifty words” is helping me to go back to my million or so words of glurge and world building and convert them into finished writing.

I’ve been a member of CPRW for about a year now. The “fifty words a day for fifty days” challenge is coming up again. This year, I will participate officially and submit my word count. If you don’t participate in “fifty words” officially, you may still want to participate on your own. “Fifty words” helped me to be more consistent and productive. It can help you too.