What is a stylesheet? Well, you’ve probably at least heard of or at best worked with style manuals such as The Chicago Manual of Style, the Associated Press Handbook of Style, or the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association. You might even be familiar with The Elements of Style! These manuals tell you how to present your work in such a way that it’s clear and consistent. Wikipedia says, “A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field. The implementation of a style guide provides uniformity in style and formatting of a document.”

A style sheet begins where the style guide leaves off. Essentially it’s a document in which you maintain the “right” way to do things for the specific manuscript you’re working on. If it’s a nonfiction manuscript, you’ll want to include formatting issues, header information, and so on. If you’re dealing with fiction, then stylesheets are truly the best way to keep continuity: how many stories have you read in which Mary has black hair on page 14 but red hair on page 362?

Now I expect that most writers who are reading this will by now be shrugging it off. Isn’t that something my editor should do? Why should I be bothered?

There are a couple of reasons you should create a style sheet:

• It’s the kind thing to do. I didn’t create a style sheet for a recent novel, and doing so would have saved both the editor and myself a great deal of time, as I had to change some of her changes back to the original, and explain why. It would have been far better to have made that explanation upfront.
• It’s the efficient thing to do. How many times have you had to flip back in your book to remind yourself of a minor character’s last name, to check a date, or to remember what you said about Aunt Sophie? Easier just to turn to your style sheet to find the answers.

For nonfiction writers, style sheets are essential to keep you on track and eliminate long conversations with your editor when the time comes.

Many if not most publishers have their own style sheets (sometimes referred to as style guides); ask for them. It’s always easier to set up a manuscript correctly than to go back in and correct it later! Do that, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

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What is “fine writing”?

Obviously people will differ, but the term seems to me to be pejorative. Nobody should feel put out if someone is called a fine writer, or some short story is called a fine job, or even if someone says about a piece, “That is fine writing!”

But if someone says, “I only read (or like) fine writing,” that sounds snobbish, for sure.

I certainly don’t think clever to brilliant metaphors or similes are in themselves bad, and I can’t imagine that anyone does. On the other hand, sometimes I read something that screams that the author has sweated for hours: “I just have to put in a great metaphor here!” Similes and metaphors should not shout at the reader, but be smoothly integrated into the piece. That’s not always easy to do.

I remember a paragraph in John Updike’s “Rabbit Run” that simply stood out as an attempt on Updike’s part to do some “fine writing.” That kind of thing certainly puts me off, and I dumped the book.

To me, really fine writing is smooth as silk. Remember the early creative non-fiction, when somebody like Tom Wolfe wrote things like “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”? Surely it was unusual, not what readers might expect–but it was very good indeed. When James Joyce wrote “Ulysses,” it was praised or condemned as something very different from the usual novel. Was it “fine writing”? Not necessarily, but it was worth reading, I thought. Then he went on to write “Finnegans Wake,” which almost nobody reads. A page or two was plenty for me. Was that “fine writing”?

Time was nobody even talked about “literary” writing–either a novel was good, or it wasn’t. I have read “literary” novels that were superb–”good reads” if you will. But others have left me cold. Usually that has to do with the content of the book; does it tell a story that interests me, or not?

Offhand I can’t think of a novel that isn’t in the “beginning, middle and end” category. In some cases the story may appear to have no end, but it’s there, sometimes for the reader to supply.

As for the “great” novels of the past, like “Moby-Dick,” obviously some will find them fascinating, others will not. Tastes vary. I’m sure some people would insist they would never read a mystery, a romance, an SF novel. That’s snobbish, all right. Some of the genre novels are far better written than some that are dubbed “literary,” and probably most are not. But it’s always a question of personal taste. I’ve read and enjoyed most of the “classics,” but some, like Henry James, I can do without.

My own taste is catholic. I can’t think of a novel genre I have not read and thoroughly enjoyed, including romance, SF, military fiction, “mainstream” and “literary” fiction. My tastes in non-fiction are much less varied. I like to read history, but it can be so badly written it’s not worth the effort. Some, however, are superb. “I’m in the middle of “Roosevelt and Hopkins” right now, and it’s fascinating. Most memoirs–but not all, for sure–I don’t like, though there’s a list on my website of some I tell my students they’d do well to read. I’m amazed that several really fascinating books on politics and economics are published fairly often, though a lot of them on those subjects are abominable.

Unfortunately for me, a lot of the literary magazines and webzines are full of things somebody thinks is “fine writing.” They try unusual formats as well–Gary likes to give us examples of that sort of thing in the CNF group, and, oddly enough, some people like them, and some don’t. I admit that I’m a bit of a traditionalist: “Just the facts, ma’am.” Or “Tell me a story!” So “fine writing” to me means something I find interesting, informative, or fascinating.

Chacun a son gout!

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Now it’s your turn. What does the term “fine writing” mean to you? Tell me your thoughts, an then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Entries for 2011 include:

• Viral: an illness can be viral; a YouTube video is not.
• Epic: “an epic annoyance,” say the editors. My favorite comment: “Standards for using ‘epic’ are so low, even ‘awesome’ is embarrassed.”
• Fail: no, it’s not a noun. It’s not even an adjective. It’s a verb. If you can’t use it as a verb, don’t use it.
• Refudiate: just because Sarah Palin is stupid doesn’t mean that we have to be, too.
• Just sayin’: “Do we really need a qualifier at the end of every sentence? ” No, I say, no! (just sayin’ …)

There are many more here for your reading pleasure.

Not that it matters, of course. Lake Superior State University is not the University of Chicago, after all, and it seems improbable that this website is going to change labguage usage … perhaps it just is there to give those of us who care about this sort of thing a chuckle. Or a moment of despair.

What words would you like to banish from the present crop of neologisms, verbisms, and general Humpty-Dumpty speech? Let me know, and then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

A friend recently asked me to narrow down what I do (good luck with that!). She gave me a choice: as a writer, do I practice an art or a skill, or is it all a matter of talent?

I felt that it wasn’t all that simple, so I put it out to my Facebook cronies, and one of my friends added in discipline. He’d like William Safire’s thought, wouldn’t he?

But how can you get in touch with your thoughts? I have a few ideas:

• Write to just one person. No matter who you’re addressing, it really is just one person, even if it’s every single person in a crowd of people or one single reader among a million readers of your novels. So keep it direct, keep it simple, keep it clear. In order to communicate with just one person, you’ve got to organize your thoughts; and the best way to get them organized is to write them down. Determine your message, order the way you’ll be presenting it, and edit/refine it until it’s tight and clear.
• Be clear about your goal. Safire called it “giving your words a purpose.” Do you want to instruct? to persuade? to entertain? Some combination of them all? Your goal will shape the way that you communicate your message or story. It shapes your style, it shapes your storytelling, it shapes your presentation.
• Finally, Safire tells us to cut out the confusing parts. That’s called editing, folks, and the writer should take several stabs at it (called drafts) before turning it over to an outside editor for work. You cannot edit yourself beyond the first few rounds: use your resources.

So there it is. Communication. Content. Stories. Speeches. Articles. Poetry. They all have the same driving force, at the end of the day: to touch another person in some way. These tips should help your outreach. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

“All of the comma usages you demonstrated would have been perfectly correct in 1869. Such details of punctuation are the stuff of style more than grammar, which is to say that they are conventions chosen arbitrarily and therefore subject to arbitrary change. Grammarians writing about usage made choices (as the editors of Chicago continue to make choices today) in situations where someone else might choose differently. They then set forth their choices as standards people might choose to follow so as to be consistent from page to page and chapter to chapter.

“While a foolish consistency may indeed be the hobgoblin of little minds, and while consistency in comma usage might be seen by some as foolish, nonetheless, authors don’t want their books held up to ridicule or dismissed as unworthy on the basis of inconsistent editing.

“So there is value in having a style and sticking with it until the last page. But styles change. Style guides fall into and out of fashion. And so on. By the time Stein was complaining, fashions in comma usage were changing radically. The Autobiography was published in 1933. Elements of Style was published in 1918.”

While these two people were discussing comma use, Dick raises a point that I find myself consistently trying to get across: the difference between grammar and usage. And I like the analogy of usage with fashion. Yes, it can be arbitrary. Yes, you might not like it a great deal. But using it consistently, while not making you a fashion guru, will at least keep you from making a fashion faux pas.

And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!