A house style is a kindness

A style sheet looks like fussiness from the outside. Serial comma or not. Numbers spelled out under ten. Whether you capitalise the job title. People assume it is about being correct.

It is about the reader. Every time a publication is inconsistent, the reader has to decide whether the difference means something. Is e-mail here and email there a signal, or just two writers on different days? That small hesitation is work, and you are making the reader do it.

A house style takes those decisions off the page so the words can carry the meaning instead of the formatting. When I sub-edited, the point was never to flatten anyone’s voice. It was to clear away everything accidental, so what was deliberate could land.

Keep the sheet short enough that people actually read it. Ten decisions everyone follows beat fifty that live in a document nobody opens. Write down the ones you keep re-deciding, and leave the rest to judgement.

Consistency is not the enemy of voice. It is what lets a voice be heard without static.