Writing Guide

In Alphabetical Order

Note: You can always break the rules. Just run it by someone before final drafting.

Transcription

• Accents - Nothing so heavy as to be indistinguishable from gibberish, unless it's a language not yet in the translators.

• Gender for turek and ssarith - Turek and ssarith do not have a concept of gender. That does not mean you have to use they/them. Do it based on the POV character's vibes. If the POV character is a ssarith or a turek, they're going to see all members of their own species the same way gender-wise—as in, entirely uniform—so you pick a pronoun and use the same pronoun for that species through the entire thing. They may get confused over someone else's gender because the concept doesn't innately register to them.

• Hands - Use paws, claws, or whatever is appropriate to the species over hands. Or if writing an anup, don't mention them at all, pervert.
  • Exceptions - Words like handed, handling, handsome, handedly, etc. If it's a handy verb or adjective, probably doesn't need adjusting.
    • Exceptions to the exceptions - Punning is pawesome.

• Man/Woman - No humans here. Use male, female, enby, or species name. You can use terms like "lady" for the vibes, but do so sparingly or try to find an alternative.

• Measurements - Metric system is preferred.
  • Exceptions - Beer can be measured in pints because metric doesn't have a convenient term for 470ml.

• Nose - Functional, but consider snouts, snoots, proboscis, or even antennae as appropriate.

• Puns - As many as you can! Make Gre7g suffer!

Typesetting

• All Caps - Use for signage if applicable; otherwise emphasize using italics.
• Bold - At your own risk. In other stories, bold is sometimes used in standalone centered text like reading out signage, but it's preferred not to use it in-line.
• Drop Caps - Don't use while drafting, this is final polish formatting.
• Italics - For emphasis, titles (books and ship names, not personal titles), thoughts (without quotations), alternative communiques (lip reading, chemical signals, flash [morse] code). In a line of italics, un-italicize to indicate emphasis.
  • ex: We need to infiltrate the White Flower II in order to acquire their delicious fruit pies, she thought.
• Small Caps - Used to denote the beginning of a chapter or passage depending on layout style, with the first x words put into small caps for visual weight. Don't use while drafting, this is a final polish formatting.
• Underline - Underlining is not preferred in general fiction for any reason--traditionally, underlining text in manuscripts told the typesetter to italicize the text. Since now we can just format directly in word processors, there is no need to do this anymore.