Question for the ST Authors: Is there a ST Style Guide?

[JonnyQuest037]

Trek Authors: Does Pocket send you any kind of internal Style Guide document to ensure that certain things stay consistent throughout the novel line?

I know that you can always look up things in resources like the Star Trek Encyclopedia or Memory Alpha. I'm talking about more picayune things like "Always make sure that you spell 'USS Enterprise' without periods in the 'USS' and with the word 'Enterprise' in italics" or "Please try to keep your book somewhere between eight and 25 chapters." Stuff like that.

Just curious.

 

[David Mack]

Not really.

 

[Greg Cox]

Nope. And, honestly, I can never remember if Sickbay is capitalized or not.

Thank god for editors and copyeditors.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Personally, with regard to style, I've always found it more than a little bit ridiculous that "Starship" is italicized. I mean, that's about like referring to a certain museum-ship docked at the old Alameda naval base as the Aircraft Carrier Hornet. Or to the museum-ships docked at San Francisco's Pier 45 as the Submarine Pampanito and the Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'Brien.

 

[DEWLine]

Sidebar: I've been noticing in some of the British news services a tendency with water-going ships and boats to put the name of the ship first and the function afterwards. EG: "The Coral Princess cruise ship". Which disturbs me. And no italics or boldfacing on the ship name either.

 

[JD]

Nope. And, honestly, I can never remember if Sickbay is capitalized or not.

Thank god for editors and copyeditors.

OK, I feel like an idiot right now, because now that you mention it, I can't remember. Is it capitalized?

 

[David cgc]

Personally, with regard to style, I've always found it more than a little bit ridiculous that "Starship" is italicized. I mean, that's about like referring to a certain museum-ship docked at the old Alameda naval base as the Aircraft Carrier Hornet. Or to the museum-ships docked at San Francisco's Pier 45 as the Submarine Pampanito and the Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'Brien.

I'm 90% sure that's for trademark reasons. You can't put a legal protection on the word "enterprise," or even the name "Enterprise," but "Starship Enterprise" as a unit, that can be legally defended. And since part of trademark law is demonstrating that you use and defend the mark as yours exclusively, consistently making it clear that "starship" and "Enterprise" go together as a single unit, and "starship" isn't just a noun adjunct,* marks it as a singular quantum of legally distinct information that allows CBS a leg to stand on to put a stop to non-Star Trek or otherwise ersatz starships Enterprise. So that's why that usage would happen in the body text of novels, and not just cover copy or promotional materials that say Starship Enterprise™ or Starship Enterprise™.

*Thanks, Google!

 

[Mysterion]

Sidebar: I've been noticing in some of the British news services a tendency with water-going ships and boats to put the name of the ship first and the function afterwards. EG: "The Coral Princess cruise ship". Which disturbs me. And no italics or boldfacing on the ship name either.

Here's how the US Navy Style Guide explains it:

ship names - For first reference always include USS, the ship's name and the hull number: USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75).
• There is no hyphen in the hull number. On second reference, use only the ship's name or reference as “the ship”. Do not use "the" in front of a ship's name: "USS San Jose," not "the USS San Jose." Use ‘the” before the ship type: “the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77).
• Exceptions: Do not use "USS" for ships before 1909, or if it is not yet in commission, or has been decommissioned and you are referring to the ship in its present state.

Always bugs me to see ship names written otherwise in novels and in the media. And there are a couple of media outlets that just seem to refer to ANY navy vessel as a "battleship".

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Except that the Frigate USS Constitution (the one in Boston Harbor) is still USS Constitution (most likely by virtue of the fact that it is still in commission, and still crewed by U.S. Navy personnel), despite the fact that it was built long before 1909 (in the 1790s).

In both of my two visits to the ship, I did formally request "permission to step aboard" before stepping of the brow.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Not really.

Nope. And, honestly, I can never remember if Sickbay is capitalized or not.

Thank god for editors and copyeditors.

Thanks for the answers, guys. I been wondering about this sort of stuff while working on my ST Timeline. I've typically been going with "USS Enterprise" and capitalizing "Stardate" and "Starship", but like Greg, I don't know if I should capitalize stuff like "Sickbay" or "Chief Medical Officer."

 

[Dayton Ward]

Perhaps the closest thing we have comes in the form of the poor soul tasked with copyediting the novels. We've been fortunate to have the same person doing them for quite some time, and I imagine he keeps some kind of reference for his own use, as he'll make references about consistency in terminology when I read his notes. Either that, or he has the freakish ability to remember all of that crazy stuff.

And before anyone asks, I don't believe this is anything which is likely to be made publicly available.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Oh, sure. I was just curious if such a document existed. Of course it would need to kept internal.

 

[F. King Daniel]

And before anyone asks, I don't believe this is anything which is likely to be made publicly available.

What if...
*slides $20 across table*

 

[DEWLine]

US Navy Style Guide...okay...that could be useful.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And there are a couple of media outlets that just seem to refer to ANY navy vessel as a "battleship".

Well, there's an old Pete Barbutti bit. He was recalling a conversation he'd had with a man in a U.S. Navy uniform. He'd asked him what class of ship he was stationed on, and the reply was "Frigate." He acknowledged to the audience that it was a legitimate class of naval ship:

. . . Just not one you use promiscuously in non-naval company. If you walk up to somebody on the street, and say, "Battleship," he'll give you a funny look and walk away. But if you walk up to somebody and say, "Frigate," that's not the end of the conversation. . . .

(He then went on to bring up other words that could be taken the wrong way. Like "Torque," and like a word the Ford Motor Company stamps on its parts, "FoMoCo.")

 

[Jim Johnson]

Perhaps the closest thing we have comes in the form of the poor soul tasked with copyediting the novels. We've been fortunate to have the same person doing them for quite some time, and I imagine he keeps some kind of reference for his own use, as he'll make references about consistency in terminology when I read his notes. Either that, or he has the freakish ability to remember all of that crazy stuff.

And before anyone asks, I don't believe this is anything which is likely to be made publicly available.

Yeah, our fearless copyeditor maintains a fairly comprehensive style guide that he uses on all his novel copyedits. He adapted the same style guide for us to use on the Star Trek Adventures RPG. I'm fortunate to know him and was able to draw on his expertise for the game line to give some consistency between the novels and the RPGs. Most readers probably don't notice, but our CBS review team sure did.

 

[KRAD]

Both "Starship Enterprise" and "U.S.S. Enterprise" are trademarked by CBS/Paramount/Viacom/whatever in those formats, as are the other ship names (Defiant, Voyager, Discovery) so they have to be rendered that way. For consistency, all other ships are designated the same way, but it's only actually required for the "lead" ships.

 

[Mysterion]

US Navy Style Guide...okay...that could be useful.

Well, here you are then: https://www.navy.mil/submit/navyStyleGuide.pdf

 

[DEWLine]

Thank you kindly.

 

[DS9forever]

David George wrote an article which is very helpful:

https://drgiii.com/writing/2017/3/21/i-submitted-my-novel-manuscript-now-what