Aurealis House Style Notes
A house style is a set of formatting, punctuation and spelling rules that a publishing house follows when editing work for publication. Following the Aurealis house style when submitting your story will not affect your story’s chances of being selected, but it makes our lives easier if we do decide to publish your story.
The house style will be added to from time to time.
Spelling
As a general rule, use Australian English rather than American English and follow the Macquarie Dictionary. The following list shows Aurealis’s preferred spelling and capitalisation of some common words.
| A | J | S |
| acknowledgement | judgement | screensaver |
| air-conditioning | K | seatbelt |
| all right (not alright) | knowledgeable | secondhand |
| analysed | L | see-through |
| anticlimax | laneway | self publish |
| artefact | lifeblood | semicircle |
| as-yet unwritten | lifetime | shapeshifter |
| Aurealis | light-year | shoestring |
| Aurealis Awards | line-up | sizeable |
| B | liquorice | spaceport |
| backyard | livingroom | state-of-the-art |
| bi-annual | M | T |
| billy-can | make-up | traveller |
| blackmarket (adj) | marketplace | travelling |
| boatshed | mass-market | trenchcoat |
| C | middle-aged | t-shirt |
| changeover | matte black | U |
| cheque | melee | USA (noun) |
| chequebook | Mmm | US (adjective) |
| co-operate | moustache | V |
| crisscrossed | Mr, Mrs, Ms no points | verandah |
| cut-throat | N | W |
| D | night-time | website |
| desktop | no man’s land | well-known |
| Dr no point | non-fiction | whiskey |
| E | no one | woollen |
| O | workstation | |
| equalled | okay | worldbuilding |
| F | ongoing | X |
| favourite | online | X-ray |
| first-hand | open-plan | Y |
| five-figure sum | P | yellow dwarf |
| flagship | percent | Z |
| focused, focusing | PhD no points | |
| forever | pinstripe | |
| four-wheel drive | postmodern | |
| G | prehistoric | |
| g’day | printout | |
| H | program | |
| half-baked | Q | |
| hand-made | R | |
| historical, a (not an) | reanimation | |
| I | red dwarf | |
| ice-cream | riverbank | |
| initials: NE Smith not N. E. Smith | role-playing | |
| Internet |
Punctuation
- ellipsis (…) no space before, one space after
- text dash: use non-spaced em dash (—)
- single quote marks ( ‘ ‘ ) for speech, in-text phrases and short-story titles
- double quote marks ( ” ” ) for quote within quote only
- book and film titles in italics
Formatting
- indent each paragraph, with no line space between
- new sections start flush left
- for section break to indicate long passage of time, use three centred asterisks:
* * *
- for scene change but no long passage of time, indicate with a blank line
Numbers
- spell out one to ninety-nine, except when used in measurement (eg. 40 kg) or list (eg. 2 cows, 5 horses and 1 sheep)
- 3000 (not 3,000) but 30,000
- 31 January 1998 no punctuation
- September 97 not ’97
- 90s, 80s, 70s no apostrophe
- 19th century but hyphenate if adjective
- nineties, eighties no caps
- 8.30 pm
- 44 BC small caps
- 100 kg, 50 cm, 1000 mL space before units but 37°C, 100%