Breaking the rules of Capitalization

Rules

There are only so many places where you're allowed to capitalize words. The first word of a sentence. Proper nouns like the White House or Robin Williams. The rules are drilled into us in grade school.

Why?

Why do we capitalize words, though? And why do we have rules about when to do it?

The capitalization of a word draws attention to it. If overdone, this can make for a confusing experience for readers.

Janice Hardy gives the following example in her article A Capital Idea! Knowing What to Capitalize.

Grundark made his way through the Emporium, carrying his Pouchblade and three bags of Elbonquin wine for the Regent's Flowering Ceremony. Crowds of Hillmen bumped into him, but the shy Filmori stayed at the edges of the street.

I have to admit that when I read this, I feel overwhelmed. The cognitive overload that is created here would keep me from continuing forward in the story. Mentally, I'm trying to weigh the significance of each of the following entities and/or events before I can determine what actually happened in this scene: Grundark, Emporium, Pouchblade, Elbonquin, Regent's Flowering Ceremony, Hillmen, Filmori. I may as well be trying to sift through ads in a clickbait article to find what I was looking for in the first place when I clicked the link. What was it again?

Breaking the rules

I understand why we need rules, but I've also been fascinated by writing that seemingly breaks these rules.

No, I'm not talking about the garbage posts on social media where people scream in all caps or capitalize every word to make a point. This is low-quality communication. It is an abuse of the English language in an attempt to hijack the attention of the readers. Similar to clickbait.

The writing that I'm referring to is mostly fiction. There are a plethora of articles on the web that give rules on capitalization, but very few of them talk about the liberties that fiction writers take to bend the rules.

Artistic liberties

Anne Stameshkin writes that capitalization has often been used as a stylistic device.

Take, for example, the usage of the words light and darkness in A Tale of Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

Genre-specific rules

Science fiction and fantasy books have an interesting set of rules about capitalization due to invented groups of people, creatures, and objects. Lisa Binion wrote a fascinating article called The Capitalization of Species and Races in Fantasy & Science Fiction. She explains that the rules for capitalization differ between science fiction and fantasy. In science fiction, the names of races are capitalized. For instance, in this passage of For the Ones Who Rebel (a book that she edited).

Earth was destroyed and Humanity left without hope. Samsara Fleet and a small group of skilled soldiers named the Skulls have restored a glimmer of that hope and have led the fight against their attackers.

Lisa points out that fantasy books typically use lowercase for races. For example, you have hobbits, dwarves, elves, and so on.

Crystal Shelley mentions a few additional rules in her article, Capitalization in Fiction.

Many science fiction and fantasy books have one or two elements that are important above all else in the world, such as a deity or evil force. You might see terms like Supreme Ruler or Big Brother or the Evil Empire capitalized because they’re the Big Things in their worlds.

... if your world has characters who work as Binders (they bind books, say), then that might be capitalized so your readers don’t think you’re talking about the three-ringed kind. If that’s the case, capitalize all professions in the world for consistency.

And finally, Carol Saller gives this great list in Who Gets Capitalized in a Novel?

Reasons to uppercase regardless of style-guide advice:

• You want a being to appear larger than life and unique: the Giver; the Great and Powerful Oz; the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
• Your beings are otherworldly and exotic: the Borrowers; the Orcs; the Shadowhunters.
• Your character is an iconic type that’s not meant literally: the Girl Next Door.
• You’re going for parody or playfulness or irony: She Who Must Be Obeyed; the Self-Aware Person.
• The word or phrase is used as a name or nickname: yes, Father; aye, aye, Captain; Old-Green-Grasshopper.

Even with all of these extra rules, each of these writers makes it clear that consistency is key and that capitalization in these cases should be used sparingly. You don't want to overdo it.

Mystery

My favorite reason for breaking capitalization rules (and the reason I decided to write this article) is the air of mystery, adventure, and intrigue that is added.

I'll quote Carol again, since her article does really well at touching on this.

Different genres have different conventions, and their readers are used to them. One of those conventions is the tendency to capitalize certain words in order to make their specialness more obvious.

Just before this quote, she includes this passage from Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January.

When I was seven, I found a Door. There—look how tall and proud the word stands on the page now, the belly of that D like a black archway leading into white nothing. When you see that word, I imagine a little prickle of familiarity makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. . . . Because there are ten thousand stories about ten thousand Doors, and we know them as well as we know our names. They lead to Faerie, to Valhalla, Atlantis and Lemuria, Heaven and Hell, to all the directions a compass could never take you, to elsewhere.

I love being drawn into worlds that I understand. What is a Giver? What makes it so important and different from being a giver? Who is Big Brother? Is it the actual big brother of one of the main characters? Or is it something more ominous?

Concluding Thoughts

The key takeaway I have from my reading about capitalization is that in fiction writing, it's not about the letter of the law (no pun intended). It's about the spirit of the law. Capitalization is a powerful device for world-building.

I've really enjoyed reading about the nuances of capitalization. I'm not a fiction writer myself, but I believe that a case could be made for applying some of these principles to non-fiction writing as well. Now, I'm a very ideological person. There are certain words that I hold to be valuable in my life and that merit more attention than language affords them. When I use words like Light, Knowledge, and Truth in certain contexts, I'd like to grant them the significance they deserve and provoke thought in their readers. These are words that, to me, have eternal significance. They do not become corrupted or lose value, as do men or riches.

Which words do you want to capitalize?

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