 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A style guide codifies a body of rules regarding the grammar and formatting of printed matter. Although one might think that English grammar already has enough rules, there are actually plenty of areas of ambiguity and personal preference. A single style guide allows us to address these open questions and present a consistent grammatical style to our readers. It also introduces our writers to the concept of writing within the constraints of a style guide.
This style guide applies specifically to the stories which are submitted to the writing group for peer review and publication in DargonZine. It is not intended to apply to editorial matter in DargonZine or the content of structural pages on the DargonZine Web site, although that content should still generally conform to the style established here.
All Dargon writers are expected to format their submissions according to the following rules. Any exceptions will be specifically noted as optional. All stories submitted to DargonZine and Dargon-L must conform to the rules which follow.
In general, DargonZine prefers that words ending in 'S' form the possessive by simply adding a terminal apostrophe, rather than an apostrophe and 'S'. Words ending in 'Z' may appear either way.
Dale's
Nakaz' (or Nakaz's)
Plethiss'
Please do not use smart quotes in your prose; see "Character Set", below.
Use *asterisks* around words to indicate emphasis, rather than _underlines_ or CAPITALS. Note that in most cases, use of emphasizing markup is strongly discouraged, as it is usually not necessary.
See "Serialization", below.
See "Indenting", below.
Note that DargonZine does not use boldface. To indicate emphasis, use *asterisks* instead (see "Asterisks", above).
Note that DargonZine does not use WHOLE WORD CAPITALIZATION. To indicate emphasis, use *asterisks* instead (see "Asterisks", above).
Like most modern American English publishers, DargonZine takes a restrictive view of what constitutes a proper noun for purposes of capitalization.
In general, formal names are capitalized. This is true for characters, books, places, businesses, coins, months, nationalities and races, book titles, ship names, and so forth.
Special consideration is required for civil, military, religious, and some professional titles, as well as honorifics and titles of nobility, and topographic names. The general rule of thumb here is to capitalize only words that are part of the full formal name of a person or place, while lowercasing any instances of similar words which do not refer to specific entities or their formal titles. What follows is a list of examples:
Clifton Dargon, Duke of Dargon, is the duke of Dargon
the Shattered Spear opened on the fifth of Ober
the town of Barel is north of the city of Dargon
"Yes, captain," he said to Captain Smith of the Victory Chimes
"Yes, my lord," said the Beinisonian to Sir Morion
the Street of Travellers is a broad avenue
the captain bought a copy of "A Night on the Town"
I got five Nobles from Koren, the captain of the town guard
I saw a shadow boy at fifth bell on the Night of Souls
the Eelail lived on Cherisk before the Fretheod Empire
Also note that the definite article "the" is usually not capitalized, even when it might be part of a formal title.
Note also that names of ships are in title case, without any other punctuation, while titles of books and other works appear in title case within double quotes.
While there is no hard-and-fast rule regarding capitalization of names, the above should serve as a primary criteria. Use your judgement, but when in doubt, remember that DargonZine's predisposition is a down style, rather than an up style.
See "Serialization", below.
Many computer systems use different character sets, and there are a few particular symbols that may exist on your PC, which appear as garbage to people using a different kind of computer. For that reason, DargonZine requires that writers limit their usage to the standard 52-character alphabet and the most common forms of punctuation. A description of known problem characters follows.
The most frequently-seen problem is the use of "smart quotes", which curl left or right, depending on whether they begin or end a citation. There are both single- and double-quote characters. These are ASCII decimal codes 145-148 (‘’“”), and they should be replaced with ASCII code 34 and 39, "dumb" quotes ("').
This problem also occurs with apostrophes, which should be similarly replaced with a single quote mark.
The next most common problem is the single-character ellipse, ASCII code 133 (…), which should be replaced with three periods (...). See also "Ellipses", below.
See "Quotations", below.
Colons are used to establish equality between something on the left of the colon and something on the right. Often, this takes the form of enumerating the pieces which constitute a collective noun, or clarifying the meaning of a concept.
He worked two days a week: Monday and Sunday.
She didn't like his horse: a roan mare with a bad temper.
Note that a colon is never used to connect two sentences which could stand on their own. Contrast this usage with "Semicolons", below.
DargonZine's style requires use of serial commas. In a list of three or more items, where the final item is separated from the list by a conjunction, a comma appears before the conjunction. E.g. "England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales" and "red, green, yellow, or blue". While not placing the comma before the conjunction is often acceptable practice, DargonZine has standardized on use of serial commas.
Where you would use em-dashes to set off a parenthetical phrase -- such as this one -- use two hyphen characters, and set them off as if they were a separate word. Something -- well, exactly -- like that. Of course, one should always try to use commas in preference to dashes for setting off parenthetical phrases.
Dashes are also used to indicate interruption in quoted citations. In that case, if the speaker is interrupted midway through a word, the dash directly abuts the fragmentary word with no intervening spaces; however, if the speaker is interrupted between words, the dash appears after a single space. In both cases the closing quotes directly follow the dash, unless the sentence was an exclamation or question. See "Quotations", below, for what to do in that instance.
"Hey, don't --"
"Hey, don--"
"Hey, what --?"
Contrast this with the use of ellipses, below, which indicate a gradual trailing off of speech or thought.
Ellipses are used to indicate the slow trailing off of cited speech, in contrast to dashes, above.. They should be treated as a single three-character "word", set apart from other words. Like ... this. When an ellipse ends a statement or sentence, additional punctuation is not used in addition to the ellipse; it stands by itself and ends the thought or statement. If the ellipse begins or terminates a quotation, as it commonly does, the quotation marks directly abut the ellipse, without a period or comma:
"But I thought ..."
See also "Quotations" for rules regarding the combination of ellipses with other punctuation within a citation.
"Didn't you ...?"
An ellipse is made up of three periods. Do not use the special single-character ellipse (ASCII code 133: …), because it is not recognized on several other computers (see "Character Set", above).
See "Asterisks", above.
See "Quotations" for rules regarding the combination of exclamation points with other punctuation within a citation.
Submissions (whether to the Dargon-L discussion group or to the Editor) are to be sent as a flat ASCII text email. This rule ensures that your submission is readable by everyone, regardless of the computer system they are on. There are several different aspects to this rule.
First, your story should appear as the body text of your email, not as an attachment or attached file. Some email systems cannot properly receive attachments, and the additional encoding can make your story impossible to read for some recipients. If you *have* to use an attachment, attach a flat text file, rather than a formatted word processing document.
Second, your story should be flat, unformatted text. Be sure that you are sending your email as "plain-text" rather than as more prettily-formatted "HTML mail". Again, your system will add additional encoding which will be difficult for some people to read.
This also means that stories should not be sent to the list as formatted documents from word processing programs like Microsoft Word or WordPad. Nor should they be compressed by any compression programs like WinZip or StuffIt.
For this rule in particular, the diversity of email and computer systems makes a firm rule impossible. Experiment and find out what is going to get your text posted to the list with a minimum of reformatting.
All stories must begin with a header, and all the lines in the header must be centered.
The first header line contains the story's title. If it is part of a serial, the second line will contain the part number (using arabic numerals, not roman). Writers may choose to put a colon after the part number and then a subtitle that is specific to that part, but be warned that that information is not being stored in the database, and so should not be an integral part of your story's title.
The next line will contain the word "by" and the author's full name, and then a line with his email address in angle brackets if he or she wishes it to be known to the readers.
The final line will contain the Dargon date when the story takes place. All stories *must* have a Dargon date.
The header will be followed by a blank line, after which the text of the submission begins.
An example of a typical story header follows:
For co-authored stories, there will be two (or more) lines attributing authorship. The first line will begin with the word "by", and subsequent lines will begin with the word "and". After that word, each line will contain one author's full name, and (optionally) their email address in angle brackets. The order of names in the header is generally up to the writers.
If the above story were co-authored, the header might appear like this:
Do not break and hyphenate words across the end of a line boundary. Words that would otherwise exceed the maximum allowed line width should be spilled to the next line rather than split, as they will be reformatted by the Editor before publication and will probably not appear at the end of a line after reformatting.
Compound words with hyphens within them (e.g. "badly-needed") should, of course, retain their hyphens, but should also not be split across line breaks, for the same reason.
For information about using hyphens as dashes to offset parenthetical phrases, see "Dashes", above.
Do not indent your base text. Whenever a space appears in the first column of your text, the program which formats stories for publication will interpret and format this as a paragraph break.
For text that should be indented, such as block quotes, adjust both left and right margins inward by (approximately) 5 characters. The amount is arbitrary, since your story will be reformatted prior to publication, but your proofreaders will appreciate your staying consistent with the usual format.
Submissions should not be right-justified or contain more than one blank space between words (or sentences). This is optional, since your story will be reformatted prior to publication, but your proofreaders will appreciate it, and it allows the Editor to obtain a more accurate estimate of your story's size prior to publication. See "Spacing" and "Line Length", below.
Stories should range from 80 to 800 lines. Stories that exceed 800 lines (at the maximum allowed line length) must be serialized into two or more parts that will be published separately. See "Line Length" and "Serialization", below.
For your convenience, the following conversion table is provided, showing DargonZine's maximum and average story sizes. Note that these conversions are *very rough* approximations which depend on a number of varying factors.
| Lines | Kbytes | Words | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum | 800 | 50k | 8000 |
| Average | 450 | 30k | 5000 |
DargonZine is published with a maximum of 72 characters per line of text. While you are not responsible for formatting your stories to this specific line length, it is strongly suggested that you keep individual lines within 65-90 characters wide.
All Dargon money is in the form of coins, and all coin names are always capitalized, contrary to modern English usage. Note that the names of the coins are specified in the Online Glossary, and they are never referred to as "gold pieces" or "silvers" or anything of that ilk, nor should new coin names need to be created.
In the body of a story, the rule of thumb with numbers is to spell out integers of ten or less, and use Arabic numerals for anything greater. Ordinals should almost always be fully spelled out. However, there are several special cases, and in this instance the author should use reasoned judgement in determining when to consciously violate this standard.
In general, parentheses are discouraged in works of fiction. Therefore, we strongly recommend avoiding them. In many cases, parentheses are best replaced with commas or dashes (see "Dashes", above), or by eliminating the parenthetical phrase from the narrative. This rule is optional, but strongly recommended.
Paragraphs are indented 5 spaces from the left margin. Note that your submissions do not need to be exact, as the program that formats stories for printing will indent any line that begins with a space. However, you should conform to this standard for the benefit of your peer reviewers.
As with most prose, DargonZine requires that dialogue contain a paragraph break each time the speaker changes.
See "Capitalization", above.
Cited discourse, whether direct (verbal), or indirect/internal (thought), is placed within double quotation marks. Any words or phrases which are quotes within quotes are set off with single quotes, such as the following:
"He told you to 'go get a job'", Bill replied.
As is standard practice, the closing quote is left off the end of a paragraph when the following paragraph continues the same person's speech; however, the new paragraph *does* still begin with a quotation mark. For example:
"Go down and turn right onto Murson and you're there.
"And it's the wooden door," he added as an afterthought.
Note that when a citation ends a sentence, the period is placed inside the ending double-quotes. This is an American usage which may seem counterintuitive to writers who observe British/Queen's English.
Bill replied, "He told you to 'go get a job'."
Note that if a quotation is a question that ends with an ellipse or dash, a questionmark appears between the ellipse (or dash) and the closing quotation mark. The rule also pertains to exclamation points when the fragmentary sentence was an exclamation.
"What were we thinking when we ...?"
"What in th--?"
"Hey that's --!"
Please do not use smart quotes in your prose; see "Character Set", above.
Submissions will often be divided into separate sections. This indicates a change of setting, time, or viewpoint. Sections are delineated by a single blank line. Section breaks do not require asterisks or any other punctuation.
A semicolon is used primarily to link two complete sentences which are so closely related that use of a period would be inappropriate.
He downed the liquor; he immediately regretted it.
His head was throbbing; he had to get out of the tavern.
For short sentences, you will find that you could often replace a semicolon with a conjunction such as "and" or "therefore" or "but". The semicolon is most useful in connecting longer, more complex sentences than those shown in the examples.
The biggest criteria for using a semicolon is whether the two sentences are grammatically correct if you replaced the semicolon with a period (i.e. are they independent clauses).
The other, and much less frequent, use of the semicolon is to separate items in a list when the items are long clauses where a comma would not suffice. In prose this is very infrequently needed.
Stories which exceed the maximum story length (see Length, above) must be serialized (i.e. divided into chapters or parts). The author is responsible for breaking the submission into parts and providing appropriate backfill for the second and subsequent chapters.
Ideally, all the parts of a serialized story should either be submitted to Dargon-L and approved by the group as a whole, or individual parts should be able to stand on their own as independent stories. We don't want to get into a situation where a lengthy series is left only partially completed when an author leaves the project or loses interest in the storyline.
The requirement for backfill should make it clear that a single story can't just be chopped into two or more pieces that are published separately without considerable attention being given to lead-ins. Remember that at least one to three months will pass between the publication of each chapter, and virtually no one will remember your characters or the details of your storyline without a reminder. In addition, DargonZine will always have new readers whose first issue might contain chapter three of your story, and who won't bother going to the Web site to track down the previous episodes. For these reasons, writing backfill is required for stories which span multiple chapters, and it would be wise to write each part so that it can stand on its own, containing its own climax and closure.
One option for such recaps is to write a simple "Our story so far" prologue to the second and subsequent chapters, but that generally gets a negative reaction from readers and is viewed by many writers as poor form. The skillful writer will adeptly weave background information within the narrative of subsequent chapters, bringing the new reader up to speed and subtly reminding the rest without a heavy-handed recap. Learning how to adapt your writing to the target medium is part of learning how to be a good writer.
All submissions should be single-spaced, i.e. no blank lines between lines of text. A blank line in your text will be interpreted as a section break.
Only one space should be placed between the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next. The use of two spaces between sentences is an artifact of typewriters, and is not generally used in professional publishing. This is optional, since your story will be reformatted prior to publication, but your proofreaders will appreciate it.
It is absolutely and without exception required that before you post a story to Dargon-L, you must run it through a spelling checker and have live humans proof it *before* it is posted. Spelling and grammar are basic skills that every writer must master, and it's extremely unprofessional to expect the other writers to waste their time performing this function for you. The purpose of the project is to teach the art of good writing, not fourth grade spelling and grammar. A submission that isn't spellchecked will often get a curt response from reviewers, because it indicates to them that you want them to invest more care into proofing your work than you put into writing it.
In general, DargonZine conforms to the rules of American English grammar. However, because many Dargon writers come from other English-speaking nations, British/Queen's English spellings are equally accepted.
In general, DargonZine urges writers to avoid stock phrases such as "in the blink of an eye" and "out of the blue". Such phrases have long since lost the power of their original imagery, and make for uninspired writing. Remember, if your writing is filled with familiar, boring phrases, your writing will come across as familiar and boring. Instead, try to depict images that are vivid, compelling, and full of unique insight.
Writers should note that the terms "hour", "minute", and "week" are generally not used in Dargon prose. These should be replaced with the Dargon standard "bell", "mene", and "sennight", respectively. Writers should consult the Online Glossary's definitions, since these time units do vary significantly from the Earth equivalents. In addition, "second" also does not exist, and should be converted to "moment". "Moment" will also sometimes be a better replacement for "minute" than "mene", depending on context. Note that "month" and "year" are just fine to use.
See "Headers", above, if you want information about story titles.
See "Capitalization", above, if you want information about how to capitalize proper nouns such as people and places within the Dargon milieu.
Stories should end without any trailer, including any "the end" or "to be continued".
Note that underlines are not used in DargonZine. To indicate emphasis, use *asterisks* instead (see "Asterisks", above). Two items which have used underscores in the past are book titles and ship names; the former should appear either in double quotation marks, and the latter should simply appear inline with no special treatment other than captitalization. Both should, of course, be in title case.
The use of modern or modern-sounding words, concepts, and slang (such as "labor union" and "clipper ship" and "bacteria") are discouraged, because they are anachronistic to the medieval milieu and tend to pull the reader out of the story and back into the modern world. While the interpretation of this rule should not be overly literal, it's often easy to write around a dubious word choice. Dictionary entries on the Merriam-Webster Online site <http://www.webster.com/> are useful references for the dates when a particular word came into common usage.
While not an exclsuive rule, DargonZine tries to promote the use of established (or creative new) Dargon slang as a replacement for similar English expressions, in the interest of creating local color. One particular example would be the use of "straight" as a substitute for "ok", "okay", "yeah", "right", and similar expressions of agreement. Use them at at your discretion, and expect new turns of phrase to receive critical attention during the critique process.
See also "Time", above.
See "Line Length", above.
 |
 |
 |
|
 |