urgent capitalization issue

[ritaxis]

So in this phase of my story I'm often referring to characters by their occupational titles because there is a cast of thousands and most of these people walk on, deliver some portentious lines or do some portentious deed and walk away never to be seen again, or only to be seen again once or twice more.  However, there are some more enduring and sometimes more important characters who seem to be most conveniently referred to in this way too.

This leaves me confused as to when to capitalize the label. Obviously if it's descriptive it doesn't get capitalized.  If it's part of a name -- Lieutentent Kargburn -- it does.  If it's in lieu of a name, though -- as in "The Lieutenant is always like that" -- as opposed to when it's purely descriptive -- "there was a lieutenant in the wagon" -- that's a little less clear. Because sometimes it's sort of both. "The corporal emerged from the office, saying 'The Lieutenant will see you now.'  . . ."

I need more finely-tuned guidelines for capitalizing these things, because I think I'm being rampantly inconsistent at the moment.

Comments

[redbird]

I would go with lower case on "the lieutenant is always like that" unless it's a nickname that isn't the person's actual job title: "the Colonel is always like that" for a retired officer who now runs a pub.

That said, it's not an urgent issue. Your job is to write the story. The copyeditor can sort out those inconsistencies later (or, if you self-publish and don't pay for copyediting, you can worry about it at some stage of revisions).

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

What she said in both instances, with the addendum that if worrying about capitalization with your forebrain allows your backbrain to move on with the story, then go ahead and worry. If worrying about capitalization is cat-vacuuming that keeps you from getting on with the story, well, that cat is clean enough for now.