To capitalize or not to capitalize. That is the question. And it's a tricky one, which is why we are going to cover this subject sooner rather than later, to save you a ton of time-consuming, pesky edits in the future.

We've all been there, especially those who write fantasy, historical and sci-fi genres. It is the Commandant or the commandant? Is it the Queen or the queen?

What about writing in the possessive? Is it the King's chariot or the king's chariot? 

Or what about specific places and locations? Do we write the Temple or the temple? 

In The Lost Valor of Love, my capitalization errors were raised by the copy editor (and that's the job of a copy editor, to catch the micro issues in the manuscript, unlike an editor whose job is to cover the macro issues like character development, plot, story arc and pacing). I was politely told my errors were not only wrong, but amateurist and any reader worth their salt would spot my mistakes a mile away. They sent the manuscript back, leaving me to figure out the ins and outs of which nouns get capitalized and which ones don't. Easier said than done.

It turned out to be a much steeper learning curve than I expected, involving a lot of emails back and forth to my copy editor to clarify trickier nouns. It took me almost a week to wrap my head around the nuances of capitalizing nouns (and there are some very shady areas of gray).

So let's take an example from my book - the very first line, in fact. 

In the sweltering heat of the Egyptian sun, the Pharaoh's eyes are cold, like the icy, silent winters of Tarhuntassa.     

I presumed because I was writing about Ramesses specifically I could capitalize his title, 'pharaoh', which I understood was allowed when one wished to use the character's title in place of their name. However I learned I could not because 'pharaoh' was preceded by the word 'the', a big no-no for capitals (with just one exception, more on that below).

When I removed the capital, it felt wrong, even though the sentence was correct. I felt readers wouldn't know who I was talking about. But as it turned out, it was a non-issue, it's just a matter of perception, and there is actually less confusion when errant capitals are removed from a manuscript. If someone had enlightened me about the subtler rules of capitalization it would have made my writing clean, consistent and professional (and saved me several days' worth of frantic researching and searching for a multitude of stray capitals under a tight deadline). 

Here is the correct version of the first sentence that went to press.

In the sweltering heat of the Egyptian sun, the pharaoh's eyes are cold, like the icy, silent winters of Tarhuntassa.     

It turns out the capital in the first version added no value whatsoever. So why do we capitalise common nouns? It appears to originate from how we visualise the narrative in our head as we are writing; we need the important characters and places to stand out from the rest of the background noise and this naturally translates into our writing (fine for a first draft, not okay for a submission to an agent). Even though it seems counterintuitive, we are not allowed to capitalize anything that isn't a proper noun (and the tricky part is stopping yourself from capitalizing nouns which seem like proper nouns but aren't - and they are out there just waiting to catch you unawares). 

So to help clarify the nuances of noun capitalization in writing, I have put together a little cheat sheet to help you based on what I learned from my copy editor and from my own research. I hope it helps you see the differences between honest-to-goodness proper nouns and rogue imposter nouns that look almost exactly like proper nouns but aren't. 

Proper nouns are capitalized, common nouns are not. This includes the titles Your/His/Her Majesty and Your Highness since these are considered proper nouns. 

For historical fiction, titles such as sir, ma'am, my lord, my lady, milord, milady are not capitalized, ever. (This counts even in dialogue, even if someone is directly addressing said lord or lady, it is still left in lowercase.) However, Lady Arabella would be capitalized since it is her name and title and therefore a proper noun. 

Nouns that are proceeded by a possessive (my, your, our, his, hers, ours) cannot be capitalized.

It's my dad, not my Dad; your uncle, not your Uncle; his commandant, not his Commandant; my prince, not my Prince.

Beware of the rare exceptions to this: "My Lexus" or "Our Samsung television" - brand names will still be capitalized even after a possessive because brand names are proper nouns.

Family names are only capitalized when used in place of their name. ie. "Dad, where are the car keys?"

Terms of endearment are never capitalized: sweetheart, honey, love, dear, etc, are all lowercase, even when used in dialogue (ie. "Yes, dear.")

Titles used in place of the name are only capitalized when used in dialogue and said person is being directly addressed.  

Titles such as captain, king, queen, commander etc remain in lower case unless being used as a proper noun. For example:

"I asked the captain when we would arrive to port" and "I asked Captain Smith when we would arrive to port" are both correct. To capitalise captain in the first sentence is incorrect.

The exception exists when the title of a person is used in place of their name in dialogue and only when they are being directly addressed. Here are two examples for comparison:

"Ah, Commander, your humility pleases me well." The commander is being directly addressed, with his title is being used instead of his name, therefore his title is capitalized.

"See that the commander receives food and wine." The commander is not being directly addressed so the title is not capitalized despite the fact his title is still being used in place of his name. Confusing? Was for me. But if the word 'the' is in front of the title, it's a giveaway which can help guide you in your decision if the noun is holding the position of a proper noun or not. It takes a little while to wrap one's head around these rules, but eventually it becomes second nature and you will 'see' what is a true proper noun and what isn't. If you persevere I promise you will get the hang of it.

The appearance of the word 'the' before a title

The use of the word 'the' before a noun like king or queen is a good rule of thumb for avoiding incorrect capitalization.

"The king picked up the scroll and read it." not  "The King picked up the scroll and read it."

There is an exception to the 'the' rule, which occurs in instances where the title must be preceded by the word 'the' to make sense and the title identifies the person in the current position/role. ie. "The Queen of England will be present at tonight's gala." 

So let's go back to the first sentence of my book, I could have written it like this, and it would have been correct. 

In the sweltering heat of the Egyptian sun, the Pharaoh of Egypt's eyes are cold, like the icy, silent winters of Tarhuntassa.  

Fantasy and sci-fi - Capitalization of places and things not normally capitalized

For those who are writing fantasy and sci-fi, capitalization brings forth a multitude of issues. If a writer is creating a whole new world, then the question of what becomes a proper noun and what doesn't can be critical. What is important is that the writer uses capitals sparingly. Decide early on what absolutely must be capitalized. ie. Aes Sedai and what can be ignored ie. Torch, Sword, Vial, City.  Best rule of thumb, if a magical item has a title ie. Wand of Doom, then call it that, abbreviating it to 'the Wand' can lead to over-capitalization and this can become tiresome to readers, best to establish the back story of the Wand of Doom and then from that point on stick with 'the wand', with the occasional referral to the Wand of Doom perhaps in dialogue just to refresh things if its title hasn't been used in a while, but in general, in the hands of a good writer, readers will know what wand the author is referring to. 

The same goes for sci-fi, perhaps it is the frequent use of the name of a starship, ie. The Wayfarer. It shouldn't be capitalized as the Starship, it would simply be the starship, readers having been made aware that the starship's name in question is The Wayfarer.

Capitalization in dialogue

Capitalize the first word of dialogue even if it follows a dialogue tag. If a dialogue tag is in the middle of a character's statement, the first word after the tag is not capitalized unless it is a proper noun. All the examples below are correctly capitalized.

Mary sighed, "As you wish."

"I will not obey," George retorted, "to you of all people."

"You can't get there in just a few hours," Amy explained, "Mars is very far away."

CMOS and OMOS

There are two manuals of style to which one can refer online, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) for US English and the Oxford Manual of Style (OMOS) for UK English. I have added a link to the capitalization questions section for CMOS to the External Link; if you have a look you will see the some of the questions are tricky and the answers counterintuitive. It pays to have a look through the questions just to come to grips with just how nuaced this subject can be.

I have tried to distill the essence of capitalization down to its most useful and simplest guidelines for writers of fiction. However if you are uncertain about something, it pays to check CMOS or OMOS. There are many shades of gray, and assumptions should not be made if one is uncertain since the answers from the guides can be surprising. It's worth investing a little time to understand the rules of capitalization, because besides the enormous perk of your work looking professional even in its early drafts, it will save you hours of boring, eye-numbing searches during the editing process. Who could say no to that?