# House Editorial Stylesheet

_[jdbb] studio house editorial stylesheet · generated 2026-09-29 · https://studio.jdbb.net/stylesheet/_

## 1. House style basics

| Item | Rule | Example / note |
|---|---|---|
| English | US spelling & punctuation | color, fueled, desiccated |
| Spelling authority | Merriam-Webster (first listing) |  |
| Serial (Oxford) comma | **Yes** | "red, white, and blue" |
| Quotation marks | Curly “ ” / ‘ ’ |  |
| Periods/commas | Inside quotation marks |  |
| Em dash | Closed (no surrounding spaces): `—` | "the plan—such as it was—failed" |
| Ellipsis | Single glyph … or spaced periods, but be consistent within a book |  |
| Numbers | Spell out zero–one hundred in prose; numerals for years, addresses, temperatures with units, code/UI values, and data-heavy passages | "seventy-two-degree day"; "five in the morning"; 1998; 40 °C |
| Time of day | Spell out in prose, hyphenated when adjectival; numerals with a.m./p.m. in schedules and tables | "eleven-o'clock shadow"; "five in the morning"; 6:30 a.m. |
| Ampersand | Avoid in prose; use "and" (keep in official names) |  |
| Latin abbreviations | etc., e.g., i.e. in roman, not italic; comma after e.g./i.e. |  |

## 2. Typography & formatting

- Titles of in-world media, songs, apps, filters, and products: *italics*. *Quiet Harbor: Calm Waters for Your Feed*; *Amber Mornings*.

- Sound effects or asides the author types with literal asterisks (e.g. `*gag*`): **keep the literal asterisks**—do not convert to italics. Place sentence punctuation logically (e.g. `(… *gag*.)` with the period inside the parenthesis).

- Emphasis vs. punctuation: trailing `.`/`,`/`"` go *outside* an italic span unless the author clearly intended otherwise.

- Scene breaks: one device per book (blank line, `* * *`, or an ornament), applied consistently; never rely on a page break alone.

- Title/part/chapter openers: keep the author's heading text verbatim; styling is a layout decision, not a copyedit.

## 3. Manuscript handling

Send manuscripts as **.docx**, not plain text or pasted text. Word files preserve italics, smart quotes, em dashes, and scene breaks; plain-text paste loses them.

On our side: we edit in a lossless round-trip (.docx → markdown → .docx or equivalent). Asterisks in the extracted text are the author's italics; we verify each one is real emphasis before touching it.

After rendering back, sanity-check that emphasis survived the round-trip: diff the italic spans before and after. Word-processor exports sometimes extend an italic run over the trailing `."` of a sentence—move closing punctuation outside the span.

You get back a **clean edited file plus a changelog** (before → after list and author queries). Review the changelog, not tracked changes — they don't reliably survive conversion.

## 4. Voice & register

Preserve the author's voice, especially in casual or interior first-person narration. This is a *light* copyedit regime: fix mechanics, don't rewrite. **Keep:**

- Sentence fragments used for rhythm or emphasis. *"Gone. Just like that." / "Or worse."*

- Conversational discourse markers: "Like, sure,…", "I mean", "I guess", "sure".

- Profanity and slang in dialogue and narration (do not soften).

- Coined words and neologisms. Do not "correct" invented vocabulary; record each coinage and its styling on the book's word list and apply it consistently.

- Intentional repetition for effect (e.g., "The same… The same…").

**Fix:** grammar slips, missing/extra words, agreement errors, typos, mistaken homophones, dropped punctuation, inconsistent styling.

When fragment vs. error is ambiguous, preserve if it scans as deliberate; query rather than rewrite.

## 5. Dialogue

- Each speaker gets a new paragraph.

- Put a question-and-answer exchange on **separate** paragraphs, even when terse ("You coming?" / "Why do you care?").

- Dialogue tags lowercase after a comma: `she said, "Let's go."` and `"Never," he said.`

- Capitalize the first word of quoted dialogue introduced by a comma: `shrugged and said, "Let's go."`

## 6. Nonfiction apparatus

| Item | Rule | Example / note |
|---|---|---|
| Citation system | Choose notes-bibliography (humanities default) or author-date (sciences/social sciences) per book; never mix within a book |  |
| Notes | Endnotes by default, numbered consecutively per chapter; footnotes only for short trade books with few notes or when the author's argument depends on them |  |
| Note markers | Superscript numerals after punctuation; one marker per sentence where possible |  |
| Headings | Sentence case for all heading levels; no terminal period; no more than three levels below chapter title | "Why the model fails" not "Why The Model Fails" |
| Heading hierarchy | Levels must nest (no A-head jumping to C-head); a level needs at least two siblings or none |  |
| Figures & tables | Number by chapter (Figure 3.2, Table 3.1); every figure/table is called out in text before it appears |  |
| Captions | Sentence case, terminal period if a full sentence; source/credit line at the end in parentheses |  |
| Cross-references | Refer to chapter, figure, or table number, never to page numbers ("see chapter 4", "see figure 2.1"); lowercase the generic word |  |
| Bibliography order | Alphabetical by author surname; multiple works by one author chronologically; 3-em dash for repeated author only if the house template supports it |  |
| Block quotations | Set off quotations of 100+ words (or 5+ lines) as block quotes; no quotation marks around the block; citation follows in parentheses or a note |  |
| Acronyms | Spell out at first use in each chapter with acronym in parentheses; thereafter acronym only; no periods (NASA, GDP); add a list of abbreviations if more than a dozen |  |
| Lists | Parallel grammatical structure; bulleted for unordered, numbered for sequence; terminal punctuation only if items are full sentences |  |
| Epigraphs | Set in italics or reduced type, source on its own line preceded by an em dash, no note or bibliography entry required |  |
| Index & glossary | Index entries lowercase except proper nouns, subentries indented, page ranges with en dash (112–15); glossary alphabetical, term in bold, definition a fragment or one sentence |  |

## 7. Recurring mechanical fixes

Watch-list of corrections that recur across manuscripts:

- **Hyphenation of compound modifiers:** taped-off, skin-deep, drug-fueled, ivory-colored before a noun; open when predicate or noun ("a sickly sweetness").

- **Possessives:** someone's, others' — check apostrophe placement.

- **its vs. it's:** "its faultless logic" (possessive), not "it's."

- **Frequent misspellings:** angrier not "angier"; desiccated not "dessicated"; putrefying not "putrifying"; hall pass two words.

- **Subject/verb and there was/were:** "there were so many more people."

- **Dropped/duplicated words:** delete false starts ("I was the I couldn't…").

- **Commas before terminal adverbs and parentheticals** ("…, sometimes") — verify each.

- **Missing prepositions** ("step up to the corner").

- **Question marks** on questions phrased as statements, especially in interior monologue.

- **Plurals vs. singular in lists of named things** ("the names of the parts," not "the name of the parts").

## 8. What not to change

- Authorial fragments and run-ons used stylistically.

- Slang, vulgarity, and dialect in dialogue.

- Invented terminology and neologisms (style them per the book's word list).

- Voice-driven comma splices in fast interior passages — light edit only; query the author rather than silently rewriting if meaning is at stake.

- An author's consistent, defensible choice that differs from house style (e.g. spaced ellipses); note it on the book's stylesheet and follow it.