Capitalizing titles

You only capitalize a title if it is a name. "The empress of China gave Empress Falingra a golden lion." "The empress summoned her chamberlain and dictated a letter to Private Grimsby." "All bowed to the empress when she entered." The idea is to keep capital letters to a minimum.

I agree with you on that, but for some reason I remember that the first time you mention a character in the book, you should capitalize his/her title. I could be wrong, which is why I posted to confirm

AskAndAnswerI agree with you on that, but for some reason I remember that the first time you mention a character in the book, you should capitalize his/her title. I could be wrong, which is why I posted to confirm

I've never heard that, and I can't imagine it's true, unless the idea is that you should introduce such a character with the full name and title to

Does the same go for "king'? Can you capitalize the word king if it stands on itself and if you're thinking about a specific king?

I guess I am confused because sometimes people capitalize words like "him" mid sentence to refer to a specific person—and I was wondering if you could use the same for ranks/titles.

This is what I found:

Royalty is also included. Any royal, imperial or position of office titles are also included in the title rule, although it is a little more complicated. You can say both the king and the King and either will be right depending on in which context it was used. When you are referring to a specific king, and this is clear, you can capitalise, for example,

"King" is like any other title. The only time "him" is capitalized is when you're writing about the Lord *** Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. If you're British, and you mean QE2, it's the Queen every time, and the same will go for King Charles.

The "rules" of capitalization are not etched in stone. You should buy a style guide and do what it says. Be warned, you have to love niggling

Thanks, that definitely clarified things for me.

I would like to ask you if you think capitalizing king or him when referring to a mythological *** is OK or not.

To my way of thinking, when you write fiction and poetry, you're on your own—there is no need to follow a style guide in respect to certain aspects of mechanics. That's between you and your editor. Just don't distract the reader unless you mean to. I would capitalize "him" in referring to Magbadung the Munificent and Eternal if the style of the piece called for it. I might capitalize "king" a la A