Writing ship's names?

[Juliana]

This is why I will need an editor when my story is done.

All of us! Because a good copyeditor knows all these niggly little rules most of us don't even notice.

 

[gdoc]

This is why I will need an editor when my story is done. I didn't even know I needed to italicize the names of my ships. Oops.

I agree, but there is also a place for beta readers; a much less expensive option. I only have two, and would love more. I have none for the short stories I am working on. So I will no doubt make a few blunders.

 

[Tim Murray]

A silly thing to be worrying about at first draft stage, I know, but it's annoying me...

In my current WIP I have a number of ships. At the moment, when I refer to them, either in dialogue or not, I italicize the ship's name. But the crew of my MC's ship has a nickname for their ship, and I'm leaving that without italics. So, question:

1. Italicize every mention of a ship, whether full name, abbreviated name (say, for example, the Ranger for the Queen's Ranger) or nickname (same example, Queenie – NOT the name of my ship, by the way!).

2. Italicize full and abbreviated name but not nickname, as I'm doing as present.

3. No italics at all.

I have ships named after living women. It is good to italicize the full name.Especially when the female and the ship are mentioned in the same sentence.

 

[StuartBurchell]

This is why I will need an editor when my story is done. I didn't even know I needed to italicize the names of my ships. Oops.

You don't need to, it's just a matter of preference.

Larry Jeram-Croft is an ex-Royal Navy pilot and is a writer of a series of 'modern' Royal Navy stories (his first book was set during the Falklands Conflict and he's yet to write into the twenty-first century). He does not use italics when he writes ships names.