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

[ellarien]

I have much the same problem -- I always thought my main character deserved/needed to be the Admiral with a capital A, back in my fanfic days, but formal style tends to disagree. I have no advice to offer, other than what I did in November, which was to do it utterly at random and hope to fix it in revisions.