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Dragons & Rare Creatures
Editing Directions & Style Guide

Thank you for being an editor or proofreader on a Dragons & Other Rare Creatures Book!

Below you will find directions and style information that applies to all books in the series.

Last updated: 4/25/2022

Providing feedback & corrections:

  • Please provide feedback in the form of an email or a link to a file on google drive.
     

  • You can choose to annotate the PDF document or type up a list of items.
     

  • If using a list please note the page number and paragraph number (if there's more than one) followed by the correction:
    PAGE 12 - P2 - "and" should be "are"
     

  • Please do not repeat the SAME feedback or correction over and over again.  If it appears in many places you can simply say this appears in many places and you will want to search/replace for consistency.
     

  • Unless specifically asked to do so, you do not need to proofread or edit any indexes in detail as they are created automatically. A quick glance at them to be sure no text is cut off and that they generally make sense is fine. 

PDF Viewing and Layout Style

I provide the draft manuscripts as PDFs.  Some PDF viewers display with artifacts - slightly boxes or lines over parts of the art or text that appears blurry or bold when it should not.  If you see these in many places it is probably your PDF viewer.  You can check the text by copying it and pasting it into a rich text format email or word document.  If it pastes with weird spaces or bold there IS a problem and you should let me know.

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Most of my books used stylized fonts and layouts.  They sometimes have fake burned pages or stains added.  This is because I want them to look like old guides, wizard's tomes, scrapbooks etc.  If you feel something in the layout looks strange and is in ONLY a few places or is making anything hard to read or understand please let me know, otherwise it is probably intentional and not needed.

Capitalization Guide:

  • Creature Names are always capitalized (i.e Elder Red-Scaled Dragon)
     

  • References to overall creature type do NOT need to be capitalized (i.e. dragons)
     

  • Dragon watcher refers to a hobby or occupation so "dragon watchers" or "dragon watcher" doesn't need to be capitalized.
     

  • Names of places, people, and organizations should be capitalized. This includes the ‘Seelie Court’ and ‘Unseelie Court’.
     

  • Types of plants or flowers are generally not capitalized (unless they are part of the name of a creature).
     

Grammar & Wording:

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  • The rarity of a creature or other scientific facts are sometimes just noted as a few words like "Common."  or "Herbivore." This is intentional and part of the "field guide" or "notes" style of my books.  This means sentences with facts can read more like sentence fragments.  EXAMPLE: Found in Asia, only in shallow, freshwater.|
     

  • The size of creatures is often written as two-foot or three-inch and so forth.  This is correct unless the creature has a very exact size and then it may be written numerically (like 1.75 feet)
     

  • Sentences are sometimes more casual or friendly vs using strict grammar.  For example the word "that" is often omitted.  Both of these are acceptable in the books:  "so they have"   and "so that they have".  When editing please note these style issues only if you feel the wording isn't clear enough or reads weirdly aloud.
     

  • Years are written with a lowercase s (i.e the 1900s or 1830s)
     

  • We always use oxford commas (i.e. item 1, item 2, and item 3.)
     

  • For other use of commas: if something seems really odd or wrong please let me know.  IF you are doing a FULL EDIT ONLY, please feel free to note other places you think commas should be added or removed. I go though each of these on a case-by-case basis, choosing to use (or not use) commas depending on how I want the sentence to be read.

     

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