Update

First off an update. Who doesn’t love an update?

• I have revised the first 30K words of Curse Breaker: Enchanted. Woohoo! I have about 70K words to go. 😦
• I made some new art for Curse Breaker: Enchanted & Curse Breaker: Faceted (book 2, see featured image). 
• Unless I find a quieter space than my apartment to record the audio book, I won’t be able to make that happen DIY style despite what I said in my last post. 😦
  • Even with everything off (and I do mean everything including the refrigerator) there’s just too much background noise. I tried every trick I know to reduce it in Audacity, my fav audio editing program, but such post-production magic eludes me.
  • Worry not, I have a back-up plan. More on that in a future post when I start down that path. For now, I need to get Curse Breaker: Enchanted  up for sale on Amazon.com; it’s a prereq for plan B.

Now then on to the meat of today’s post.

---

Style Sheets and Why You Need One ASAP!

I read today that I should have a style sheet for my novel. After searching around to find out what the hell a style sheet for a novel should include, I decided I would make mine public. This way if you need to make one for your novel, you can have a look at mine and get a brain wave for what should be in yours.

First off, what the hell is a style sheet? From what I read, it’s a straight up list of everything unique to your story. It’s a running record of character and place names, addresses, made up words (for us fantasy, sci-fi writers), colloquialisms, technical terms–in short anything that could be misspelled, transposed, forgotten and which might trip up a reader. It’s supposed to be your reference.

If you forget the main character’s last name or what that tiny town two county’s over is called, you can check your style sheet. Yeah I know that’s not all that illuminating a definition but it’s the best that bloglandia and Google had to offer. So since this is something that major writers do, it’s something I’m going to do. On the off-chance that there is some value for you in this, I’m keeping my list here.

So here goes nothing.

---

Style Sheet for Curse Breaker: Enchanted

(It’s a work still in progress)

All-fruit
Argin (Captain of the Star of the Nirthal, rumored to be a smuggler)
Beku
Bisheen
Branchers (proper noun)
bowyer
Cyril
Doors of Mount Eredren face south
Gregori
Grellin
Guardians, the (proper noun)
Guards, the (proper noun)
Inari
Jacora (proper noun)
Jerlo
Jerlo’s Office is on the third floor.
Jorey (Ranispara’s nephew)
Litherians, the (proper noun, plural)
longbow – Sarn is Left eye dominant: Use a left handed bow, hold the bow with your right hand, and pull the bowstring back with your left hand.

• Wear an arm-guard (also known as a “vambrace” or bracer) on your bow arm (the side that holds the bow) to avoid it getting slapped by the bowstring (if you don’t use one you will end up skinning your forearm if you do it too much). For Sarn its his right arm.
• You may also wish to wear a chest protector, especially if ;you are a woman, to protect your chest from string burn, as well as keep clothing from getting in the way.
• Get a finger tab for the string hand. This is a small piece of leather or heavy fabric that protects your drawing fingers when you let go of the bowstring. Sarn’s string hand his his left one.
• A bowling can be worn to help your hand stay on the grip, and also to hold your open hand against the grip, which allows the bow to move freely during release.^[2]
• A quiver is worn on the back or around your waist, and is where the arrows are held.
• Your body should be perpendicular to the target and the shooting line, meaning that if you drew an imaginary line from you to the target, this line would go across the middle of your feet.

Lower Quarters, the (proper noun, singular)
lumir (noun) red makes heat; blue puts out cold in addition to light
mage
magic
magicking
Metran
Miren
Moirraina
Mount Crael
Mount Eredren
Nerule
Nolo
north-south transept
Paytor (the Harbormaster)
Racine (proper noun)
Ran
Rangers, the (proper noun)
Ranispara
Renthalia (proper noun)
River Nirthal runs west to east ie from border to capital to sea
Sarn
Shade (proper noun)
Shayari (proper noun)
Shayarin (adjective)
Spar (proper noun)
stalactites
stalagmites
Star of the Nirthal (ship name)
subterranean
trireme
Wanderers (proper noun, plural)
Will (proper noun)
Vierra