Description

This webinar explains the elements of a comprehensive fiction style sheet, and how copyeditors of fiction can develop their sense of what to include on it. The section on general style is similar to that for nonfiction, covering numbers, punctuation, typography, abbreviations, usage, and a general word list. Tracking not just names of characters and places but also their descriptions and relationships to each other can help the copyeditor ferret out plot discrepancies. Finally, keeping a detailed timeline by tracking not only individual days but other concrete and relative references to the passage of time can help keep the plot accurate.

Amy J. Schneider, owner of Featherschneider Editorial Services since 1995, is a full-time copyeditor and proofreader of trade nonfiction, university press books, and best-selling fiction in a variety of genres. Amy has written articles and presented in-person and online sessions, both solo and on panels, on editorial topics (including fiction copyediting, editorial style sheets, macros, templates, the business of freelancing, and mastermind groups) for the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), ACES: The Society for Editing, Editors Canada, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd), the Northwest Editors Guild, and Copyediting.com. When she’s not working in the soft glow of her four-monitor desktop, she enjoys running, singing, and teaching her springer spaniels to do silly tricks (not all at the same time). Her book The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press in spring 2023.