Style Manuals

One of South Africa's Nobel Laureates for literature once did a radio interview. The interviewer went into his punctuation choices in-depth, and Coetzee could justify every single comma. There was no mark in that novel that went unconsidered. Writing is like music, and mechanics like punctuation and word choice allow you to set the pace. That's particularly important in poetry, but prose writers should be just as intentional. 

A few days back I gave you a list of things new writers should begin learning straight away. Today, we're delving into the glory of the style manual. 

Style manuals are syntax and punctuation rules that publications use to make sure all writers are doing the same thing. Oxford insists on Oxford commas (duh). The New Yorker does not. The Chicago manual uses the word "percent" and Associated Press uses the symbol. 

If you write for a client, you will need to use their style manual, so it pays to begin learning one of them. Any will do. 

Boring, right? Well, no. Style manuals raise every contentious issue in the writing universe. How does an Oxford comma affect the pace at which the reader absorbs the sentence? What clarity can really be gained from colloquial speech? Is there any value in writing formally? How can I control the pace of my poems? 

Style manuals force you to look more closely at the mechanics of your work, and that's fun. It can take your writing to an entirely different level. 

Some style manuals are more common than others. The most popular ones are: 

Associated Press (which has a Facebook page you can follow to get posts on their manual. Debates get pretty heated so it's quite fascinating.)

Oxford University Press

Chicago Manual. 

Chicago manual is favoured by unpretentious, practical people, so most respectable writers prefer it. These manuals can be expensive, so I'm uploading a copy of the Chicago Manual under this post. It's going to look pretty dull, but scroll. You'll find lots of interesting things there. If you really can't get absorbed, go to the AP Facebook page