Verbatik Media

A few years ago, an author questioned dozens of edits I had made to their manuscript.

Why had I changed “towards” in one sentence?

Why had I hyphenated a compound adjective?

Why had I capitalised one term but not another?

Why had I changed “okay” to “OK”?

The assumption was that editing is subjective.

And to be fair, some parts of editing are subjective. Editors do make judgement calls. We think about rhythm, tone, clarity, genre, character voice, reader expectation, and the emotional effect of a sentence.

But many editorial decisions are not personal preferences at all.

They come from something most writers have either never heard of or never properly understood: style guides.

And once writers understand what style guides are, a lot of editorial decisions suddenly begin to make sense because professional editing is not merely about correcting story, plot, acharacter arcs, and pacing, it is also about creating consistency.

What Is a Style Guide?

A style guide is a set of editorial rules that helps maintain consistency in spelling, punctuation, grammar, capitalisation, abbreviations, citations, formatting, and usage across a piece of writing or an entire publication.

In simpler words:

A style guide tells writers and editors how certain things should be written when more than one option is technically correct.

Because English is messy. Many things can be correct at the same time. For example:

• toward or towards
• adviser or advisor
• email or e-mail
• okay or OK
• internet or Internet
• judgement or judgment
• travelling or traveling
• colour or color

In many cases, the question is not “Which one is grammatically correct?” The better question is:

Which one are we choosing for this manuscript, publication, publisher, audience, or style system?

That is where style guides come in.

A good style guide prevents every editor, proofreader, publisher, and designer from making a different decision.

Why Do Style Guides Exist?

Style guides exist because professional publishing depends on consistency. Without style guides:

• newspapers would spell and punctuate terms differently across articles
• publishers would handle titles, dates, numbers, and punctuation inconsistently
• academic journals would cite sources in chaotic ways
• long books and series would become editorial nightmares
• readers would encounter distracting inconsistencies throughout a text

Readers may not consciously notice consistency. But they absolutely notice inconsistency.

A reader may not pause to appreciate that a book consistently uses “email” instead of “e-mail.” But if one chapter uses “email,” another uses “e-mail,” and another uses “E-mail,” the inconsistency begins to look like carelessness.

This is why style guides matter.

They protect the reading experience from unnecessary friction. They also make the publishing process more efficient. Editors, proofreaders, typesetters, indexers, designers, and publishers need a common reference point. Style guides give them one.

In my next article, I will be covering The Big Style Guides Writers Should Know. As writers do not need to memorise every major style guide. But if you are serious about writing, editing, publishing, self-publishing, academic writing, journalism, or content creation, you should at least know that these style guides exist

Most fiction writers do not need MLA for their novels.

Style Guide vs House Style: What Is the Difference?

This is one of the most important things writers need to understand.

A style guide is a broader published reference, such as Chicago, AP, MLA, APA, or Oxford. A house style is the specific style followed by a publisher, magazine, journal, company, or editorial team.

For example, a publisher may broadly follow Chicago but still have its own preferences.

A house style may decide:

• whether to use “towards” or “toward”
• whether to use “OK” or “okay”
• whether to capitalise certain terms
• whether to italicise foreign words
• how to handle dates
• how to punctuate dialogue
• whether to use the Oxford comma
• how to spell culturally specific terms

This is why two publishers may edit the same sentence differently. It does not necessarily mean one editor is wrong It means they may be following different style systems.

For writers, this is crucial.

When your editor changes something, they may not be saying, “Your version is wrong.” They may simply be saying, “For this manuscript, we need one consistent style decision.”

What About Indian Publishing?

This is where the conversation becomes more complicated.

Indian writers often work at the intersection of several Englishes:

• British English
• American English
• Indian English
• publisher house style
• international reader expectations
• local cultural vocabulary
• regional language influences

An Indian English manuscript may include Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam, Sanskrit, or other regional language words.

It may include terms such as:

• puja
• aarti
• prasad
• haveli
• ghat
• dhaba
• auto-rickshaw
• kurta
• sari
• namaste
• guru
• panchayat
• achaar
• masala
• chai

Then comes the editorial question:

• Should these words be italicised?
• Should they be translated?
• Should they be explained in the text?
• Should they be included in a glossary?
• Should they be treated as familiar Indian English words?

There is no single answer.

This is why Indian writers need style awareness. A Western style guide may not always solve Indian storytelling problems. For example, an international editor may treat “puja” as a foreign word and italicise it. Whereas an Indian editor may leave it unitalicised because it is common in Indian English usage.

During the editing of one of my clients books, an Indian mythological fantasy novel, we deliberately chose not to italicise Indian cultural and religious terms. Words such as puja, aarti, prasad, mandir, ashram, gurukul, tilak, and prasadam appeared so frequently that italicising every occurrence would have created unnecessary visual clutter and interrupted the reading experience.

Instead, we treated these words as an organic part of the novel’s linguistic layout. Because the story is completely rooted in Indian culture and intended to immerse readers in that world, constantly signalling these terms as “foreign” would have worked against the narrative.
In a different book, perhaps one aimed primarily at readers with little familiarity with Indian culture, the editorial decision might have been different. The correct choice depends on the audience, the genre, the publisher’s house style, and the reading experience the author wants to create.

A publisher may have a house rule for how to treat non-English words. A literary novel may allow more cultural immersion without explanation. A commercial book for a broader global audience may require more context. A children’s book may need gentle explanation. A memoir may retain culturally specific vocabulary for authenticity.

This is why editorial judgement matters. And it is also why Indian writers need to understand style guides without blindly obeying them.

Style Sheets: The Secret Tool Editors Use

Most writers have heard of style guides only vaguely. Even fewer have heard of style sheets. But style sheets are one of the most useful tools editors use while working on manuscripts.

A style sheet is a document created for a specific manuscript to record editorial decisions. It includes:

• spelling preferences
• hyphenation choices
• capitalisation decisions
• character names
• place names
• timelines
• ages
• relationships
• cultural terms
• invented words
• fantasy terminology
• abbreviations
• dialogue style
• punctuation preferences

For example, a manuscript style sheet may record:

• email, not e-mail
• OK, not okay
• website, not Web site
• towards, not toward
• colour, not color
• Chapter 1, not Chapter One
• The Widow, capitalised when referring to the supernatural entity
• Mumbai, not Bombay, except in historical context
• Diwali, not Deepavali, unless referring to a specific regional usage

This is where editing becomes extremely practical. A style guide gives the larger rule system. A style sheet records the decisions made for one particular manuscript.

If you are writing a long novel, fantasy series, historical fiction project, memoir, or multi-generational family saga, a style sheet can save you from dozens of continuity errors.

At Verbatik Media, every client who chooses Proofreading as an add-on to our editing service receives a manuscript-specific style sheet. Throughout the edit, we record all the important editorial decision so that the proofreading stage is not based on guesswork but on documented consistency.

We are particularly fond of style sheets and prepare them for larger manuscripts and projects with extensive world-building or specialised terminology, such as fantasy, mythology, historical fiction, science fiction, and other manuscripts where consistency is critical. By the time proofreading begins, the style sheet serves as a map, ensuring every editorial decision is applied uniformly from the first page to the last.

For professional editors, style sheets are not optional decoration. They are part of the invisible architecture that keeps a manuscript consistent.

Professional editorial organisations such as the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading also emphasise the role of editorial standards and clear, fit-for-purpose text.

Example: Harry Potter and Editorial Style

A useful example of style differences is the first Harry Potter book.

In the UK, the book was published as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by Bloomsbury. In the US, the book became widely known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Same book, different title, different publishing market, and different editorial and marketing context.

This is not simply a spelling issue. It shows how publishers make decisions based on audience, market expectations, cultural familiarity, and positioning.

Books do not exist in a vacuum. They are shaped by readers, countries, publishers, languages, and editorial assumptions. This is why writers should not think of editing as merely “correcting English.” Professional editing often involves preparing a manuscript for a particular readership.

My Perspective as an Editor

New writers often assume editors make changes because they personally dislike certain words. That is not always true. When I edit a manuscript, I am often not asking, “Do I personally prefer this word?” I am asking:

• Is this consistent with the rest of the manuscript?
• Is this consistent with the author’s chosen English?
• Is this consistent with the genre?
• Is this consistent with the target readership?
• Is this consistent with the character’s voice?
• Is this consistent with the style guide or house style being followed?

Editing is often less about choosing the “correct” option and more about choosing one option and applying it consistently. And that distinction is extremely important. Because once writers understand this, they stop seeing every edit as an attack on their voice and begin to see editing as a system.

And a professionally edited book needs a system.

Remember, style guides are not there to suffocate your writing, they are not there to make every book sound the same. A good style guide does the opposite. It removes unnecessary inconsistency so that the reader can focus on the story, the argument, the emotion, and the meaning.

For writers, understanding style guides can be exceptionally liberating. You begin to realise that editing is not random. It is not simply an editor imposing their taste on your manuscript. At its best, editing is a structured attempt to make your book clearer, cleaner, and more consistent. And consistency is one of the biggist signs of professionalism.

Readers may not always know why a book feels polished. But they feel it. They feel it in the rhythm. They feel it in the spelling. They feel it in the punctuation. They feel it in the absence of distraction.

That is the invisible work of style.

And once you understand it, you will never look at editing the same way again.