Writing syle ... exactly what is it?

Your writing style is your unique writer's voice -- and flaws here are the hardest things of all to find and correct, because these are most often "spoken language" traits, "habits of speech." They pass over into the written word, where they don't belong, and where they glare off the page sounding clumsy, awkward, or just plain weird.

There is no five-minute fix for this point of copy editing, but many years ago a slim little book was written, Elements of Style. In 1918, William Strunk Jr., an English professor, attempted to touch down on every essential element and explain it with examples. In the following 90 years, the work has been revised several times; it was released into the public domain in 1995, and at the time of this writing you can buy it on paper (Macmillan, New York), or download it as an ebook.

Stay on this page, and a little further down, we'll lift the cover and take a peek into Strunk's slim volume.

Some errors of style are colloquialisms, or regionalisms — slang terms from a geographical area which don't mean much, a hundred miles away. For instance:

A "buttie" and a "sarnie" are the same thing. A sandwich. But only in the UK. "Miffed" means annoyed, so long as you're in the US. "Chuntering" is a cross between grumbling and chattering ... in the UK. "Chooks and snags and keks" are chickens and sausages and eggs ... so long as you're in Australia. "Pollies" could be parrots or politicians, depending on where you are. "Singlets and beanies" are undershirts and woollen hats ... in Australia. "Sourdoughs and Cheechakos" are terms making perfect sense, in Alaska! "Pootling" is a verb meaning "to drive slowly" or wander about at leisure ... in London.

So, watch out for colloquialisms and regionalisms in your narrative. You can use them in dialog, where they're important in the development of your character's unique voice. So long as the meaning is either contextually clear, or you make it clear, this is the place to use colloquialisms. It's when they escape into the narrative that the problem begins!

However, most errors of style that come out at the copy editing stage are speech patterns which don't work on paper. A good example of this is the passive voice. In speech, you can get away with using the passive voice; it sounds absolutely normal: "Insufficient time is being spent on the problem," is perfectly normal in speech.

However, agents, editors and publishers want the active voice, virtually to the exclusion of all else. In the active voice you would say, "The problem is being neglected."

Look at these examples of active and passive; sort them out and see the way to navigate through these rapids:

Passive:
The river was being progressively polluted by farming along both banks.
Active:
Farmer along both banks of the river were progressively polluting it.

Passive:
The little boy was brought to school by his father.
Active:
The man brought his little boy to school.

Passive:
The book had been read by a thousand students.
Active:
A thousand students had read the book.

Passive:
The intruder was mauled by three guard dogs.
Active:
Three guard dogs mauled the intruder.

Passive:
Maureen was made a fool of by Uncle Arthur.
Active:
Uncle Arthur made a fool of Maureen.

Here's the trick: look for the verb. (Above, the verbs are bring read, maul, make, and "progressively pollute.") Look for who performs the verb. Reword the sentence to make sure that the subject is actually performing the verb:

Passive: The cat was rescued by two young girls.
Verb: rescue.
The girls performed the rescue, not the cat!
The verb was performed ON the cat -- he was rescued!
Therefore,
Active: Two young girls rescued the cat.

Editors are quite strict about this point. It's usually active voice or the rejection pile.

Watch out particularly for catch phrases. For instance, "A fine performance was given by all concerned," sounds fine in your ear, but on paper, editors want to see the active voice: "All concerned delivered fine performances."

Copy editing is the time to be thorough, and meticulous ... and to know the rules.

Another excellent example of an error of style is to overindulge in "wordiness." When we're speaking, our speech patterns govern how we talk, describe things, relate other conversations, and, again, we can get away with almost anything. However, in text, wordiness soon becomes apparent. Your copy editing will be an interesting experience for some time, as you discover how to weed passages like this:

I was told by one of the teachers that Roger is a much better than average student with a fairly good attitude toward the other children in the class, and, in reality, the only area in which his behavior is below-par would have to be his hobby, which — it would be absolutely accurate to say — is inclined to make rather a mess.

Try this:

Roger's teacher says he is a good student who responds well to classmates, though his hobby makes a mess.

The simplest rule is: never use five words to say what you can say in three! (Editors and agents can spot this at a glance, and they will know (or think) your work is padded out to make a short story much longer. Some magazines pay by the word, and even though its only 3c or 5c per word, if you can sprawl the story out over an extra thousand words, you just picked up another fifty dollars! Expect strict editing from magazines that pay by the word, for obvious reasons.)

Literally hundreds of bad speech habits shadow every word we speak aloud, and none of them matters because the spoken word vanishes into the ether. The trouble starts when they're written down. They come back to haunt us. For this reason, political speeches are written long ahead of time, by professional speech writers!

Having said all this, it is also very important to find your own unique "voice" as a writer, and hang onto it. If 250 different writers were to obey every rule of the little book Elements of Style, they would sound almost identical.

This might be fine for academic writing -- but not for fiction, where it's a writer's unique treatment of words, sentences, dialog, narrative, discription, that go together to make successful fiction happen. We don't want or need romances, westerns, historicals and science fiction to all sound alike!

Copy editing is a process in which you must use your judgement. Don't get so wordy that editors and agents constantly reject you ... at the same time, don't let adherence to the Elements of Style strangle out either your voice or your creativity.

At times in this area of copy editing, it will be as if you're walking on a tightrope. When you begin to feel overwhelmed, STOP. Instead of editing yourself to death, or rewriting for the tenth time, go for a walk. Put on some music. Make coffee (apple tea will also get your brain going). Put your feet up. Pick up a couple of dozen books by other writers, in your genre, if you're writing in a niche. READ. See how other writers express themselves by flipping through the books and touching down on a paragraph here and there. You're not looking at the story or the character development, or the descriptive narrative. You're looking at the flow of words.

And some of the time, you're going to see thoroughly sloppy writing. Best-selling writers are allowed to break the rules. When you're breaking into the industry at the bottom, you have to know what the rules are, and play by them. However, if you pick up a dozen books and read a few pages here and there, you'll see some extremely good writing, as well as dross.

Be analytical. Try to key, or focus, on what these writers are doing that works, and works well. See if you can get into the habit of writing concisely. If not, fall back on copy editing to prune, or weed, sentences which are too wordy. The more you do this, the easier it will become. Eventually, you'll be able to do it without even thinking about it.

Errors in style ... the Elements of Style ... is an absolutely vast subject. An in-depth study would take a whole book, and indeed, entire books have been devoted to this topic. Copy editing, as a job, involves knowing most of the rules and making personal judgements: where do you conform to the rulebook? Where do you diverge, to protect your unique writing style?


William Strunk Jr.'s Elements of Style is the skinny volume we recommend. In the space of around 110pp, he looks are every imaginable awkward use of the language and, through the means of examples, smooths out the wrinkles.

Here's an example:

Keep related words together.

The position of the words in a sentence is the principal means of showing their relationship. The writer must therefore, so far as possible, bring together the words, and groups of words, that are related in thought, and keep apart those which are not so related.

The subject of a sentence and the principal verb should not, as a rule, be separated by a phrase or clause that can be transferred to the beginning.

Poor
Wordsworth, in the fifth book of The Excursion, gives a minute description of this church.

Better
In the fifth book of The Excursion, Wordsworth gives a minute description of this church.

Poor
Cast iron, when treated in a Bessemer converter, is changed into steel.

Better
By treatment in a Bessemer converter, cast iron is changed into steel.

The objection is that the interposed phrase or clause needlessly interrupts the natural order of the main clause. This objection, however, does not usually hold when the order is interrupted only by a relative clause or by an expression in apposition. Nor does it hold in periodic sentences in which the interruption is a deliberately used means of creating suspense (see examples under Rule 18).

The relative pronoun should come, as a rule, immediately after its antecedent.

Poor
There was a look in his eye that boded mischief.

Better
In his eye was a look that boded mischief.

Poor
He wrote three articles about his adventures in Spain, which were published in Harper's Magazine.

Better
He published in Harper's Magazine three articles about his adventures in Spain.

Poor
This is a portrait of Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry Harrison, who became President in 1889.

Better
This is a portrait of Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry Harrison. He became President in 1889.

If the antecedent consists of a group of words, the relative comes at the end of the group, unless this would cause ambiguity.

Poor
A proposal to amend the Sherman Act, which has been variously judged

Better
A proposal, which has been variously judged, to amend the Sherman Act

Poor
The grandson of William Henry Harrison, who

Better
William Henry Harrison's grandson, Benjamin Harrison, who

Modifiers should come, if possible next to the word they modify. If several expressions modify the same word, they should be so arranged that no wrong relation is suggested.

Poor
All the members were not present.

Better
Not all the members were present.

Poor
He only found two mistakes.

Better
He found only two mistakes.

Poor
Major R. E. Joyce will give a lecture on Tuesday evening in Bailey Hall, to which the public is invited, on "My Experiences in Mesopotamia" at eight P. M.

Better
On Tuesday evening at eight P. M., Major R. E. Joyce will give in Bailey Hall a lecture on "My Experiences in Mesopotamia." The public is invited.

...and so on! The book is very "dense," meaning Strunk doesn't waffle on. He jumps directly from one sin to another, deals with each in a minimum of words and proceeds to the next. The book is invaluable if you're still in the stage where you're learning to analyze the language ... perhaps trying to figure our which combination of words is actually correct. If you're "playing by ear," this is the book for you.

You can actually download it: Click here to do just that! However, a book is so nice to have on the shelf, and you can also order it from Amazon.com, using the button to your left.

If Elements of Style sounds too dense -- too hard -- then by all means stay on this blog and check out a number of other posts. We're covering the same ground, but we're doing it with a coffee in one hand and a cookie in the other...!

Here are some more posts which will help you work out what Style is all about, and get it under control:

Being wordy: how much is too much?!

Is B following A, and Z following Y ...?! Are you sure?!

Is there an echo in here?!

Writing with consistency

Writing with absolute clarity

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Is there an echo in here?!

Repeated words, and terms or phrases used too often: Broken Record Syndrome!

"Repeated words" are instances where the same word, or its root, or a version of it, appearing two or more times in the same sentence for no good purpose; or in consecutive sentences; or consecutive paragraphs, if each individual paragraph is very short.

Notice that the words "sentence," "paragraph," and "consecutive" appeared twice each in the previous sentence — and then "sentence" appears FOUR times in this sentence! There are times when it's absolutely correct to use the same word repeatedly ... but many more times when it's an oversight. You're on the lookout for the oversights, and at all times when you're copy editing, you'll be seeing things like this:

He leaned both elbows on the railing and, while Samantha brought out the wine, leaned out to watch people in the street, far below. [Leaned]

The car sped up the highstreet, scattering shoppers to left and right, before it cornered too fast and sped down a sidestreet toward the river. [sped]

Like fireflies, sparks flew upward above the fire. I watched, half tranced, and hardly noticed as bats flew over from the bridge to the old warehouse. Then an idea sparked in my mind. [flew; sparks/sparked; fireflies/fire]

Copy editing is actually quite interesting. It doesn't have to be boring, but a lot of writers are quite reluctant to actually get into it, because (and this is interesting) it means they have to read their own work critically, several times over, which can actually be quite hard. [quite; interesting; actually]

The flags nodded in the breeze overhead, colorful against the brilliant blue sky.Without hesitation Adam nodded his agreement with the ambassador's proposal. [Nodded]

With a shrug, the girl dropped her bags on the bench. "Oh, I dunno," she grumbled. "Wouldn't you think you'd get help with this sort of trouble? Then again ..." She shrugged the problem aside. "Let's grab some lunch." [shrug/ed]

The umbrella was wet, and the elderly lady carefully shook it out before stepping inside. A visually handicapped young man was ahead of her at the counter, accompanied by an elderly seeing-eye dog. [elderly]

With a great splooshing sound, several dolphins broke the surface. Janine turned to see them, but the surface was so bright, she cold only squint. [surface]

The other kind of repeated words are known popularly among writers as (!) "purple light words" ... because a certain author will use a word or phrase so often, it gets to be funny, or aggravating, to the reader.

As a general reader you might not have noticed this; on the other hand, you could easily have stumbled over this sloppy writing in pulp fiction, and even in genre fiction which sells well.

Tip: established writers can get away with blue murder! Best-selling authors are allowed to go to press with some pretty crummy writing! However, publishers, editors and agents won't let a new writer get in through the door with bad writing. You'll think to yourself, it's not fair for the best-sellers to get away with bad writing while newcomers are penalized and rejected ... and you'd be right. But these are the unfortunate facts of the writing life, and you have to deal with them in the only way you can: Don't be good. Be GREAT.

The kind of sloppy writing errors you've probably noticed in published books are briefly outlined below. Be vigilant — don't get into these habits. Editors and agents will notice, and before you're established in the industry, they won't forgive you. Watch out for these:

He started running... She started screaming ... They started driving... We started worrying... I started suspecting... It started gurgling... He started growling... She started arguing... [

The word "started" will be making readers shudder by page 50. This is slap-dash writing, bereft of good, creative style.

Also, watch out for the dreaded "there was" and "there were" echoes:

There were several books on the table...

I saw there were six scones left...

There were only a few...

Frank sat down, but there were no chairs left afterward...

She told me there were eleven kids...

In the paddock there were nine beautiful horses...

There were several dozen sheep in the meadow...

Across the park, there were at least two hundred trees...

Years ago, there were no high-rise parking lots...

When I was young, there were trackless wastes here...

In the state of NSW there were once bushrangers galore...

There were two big dogs in the garden...

Mavis saw how there were no adults in charge, and yelled for help...

"There were" and "there was" are so easy to use, and therefore overused. It's fine once or twice, but don't indulge in it four times on every page. A professional editor will pick up this in a few pages, and will know you haven't done your homework. Decades ago (the industry was much more affluent in those days), it was financially possible to assign you a copy editor who would go through the manuscript and tidy it up for you. These days, your editor is on the lookout for the rare manuscrip that arrives on his/her desk not needing this work! If you can get it right before submission, your chances of publication are enormously higher.

Use copy editing to find the over-usages, and use good, creative sentence construction to switch words around and achieve variety in your writing.

The next "purple light word" to watch out for is "that" ... and let's play a game. Could the usages of "that" in the following paragraph:

That summer, Brenda hired the yellow skiff that was always moored at the end of the jetty. I knew that boat well; I had often taken it out myself, and old Jim Johnson told me that he had been hiring it himself, years before. That little craft had been rebuilt so often that it was more paint and fiberglass than boat! I watched Brenda handle it, and knew that the poor little skiff had reached the end of its life. If it reached the end of that summer unsunk, I would be amazed by that sheer stroke of luck.

The tiny word "that" can soon come to be like bamboo under the fingernails. Editors will see it used up to 25 times on a single page ... say, 8,000 times during a book-length manuscript ... and this is another sign of careless writing. Be aware of what you're doing; use copy editing to pick out ALL the usages of "that" and weed them down to only what you need. Three or four to a page is fine, and correct. More can swiftly become so aggravating, the repetition of these four letters will be cause of your rejection slips!

So, if you're not going to repeat words, what's the plan? Let's work backwards from the wrong answer! Here is an exercise in not repeating the word "said," which results in literary itching powder:

"Pardon me?" said Jim.
"I said," repated Sam, "you need to come here."
"But, why?" insisted Jim.
"There's something you need to see, " growled Sam.
"I'm busy," grumbled Jim, "later."
"It won't be here later," warned Sam. "now!"
"I haven't time," snarled Jim, getting annoyed now.
"Suit yourself," sighed Sam. "It's your loss."
"My loss?" echoed Jim.
"If you don't see it," coaxed Sam.
"Let me get this through your head," began Jim.
"Oh, who cares?" yelled Sam. "Have it your way!"
"Thanks," bellowed Jim, "I will!"

This little conversation is the exact opposite of using the same word over and over. In an attempt at variety, this writer is using a different verb on every speech line ... and it turns into a "stamp collecting" exercise which shreds the reader's nerves. This can't be called sloppy writing, because the writer probably worked very hard to find a dozen alternatives to "said." The sad fact is, all his/her work was wasted, because the end result is no good.

The trick is to find a happy medium, and find other ways of expressing communication. Be watchful, while copy editing, for passages like this, and try something like this:

"Pardon me?" said Jim.
"I said," repeated Sam, "you need to come here."
"But, why?"
"There's something you need to see."
"I'm busy." Jim was grumbling outrageously now. "Later."
"It won't be here later." Sam's voice held a warning note. "Now!"
"I haven't time." Jim had begun to snarl as he became annoyed.
"Suit yourself." Sam breathed a heavy sigh. "It's your loss."
"My loss?"
"If you don't see it..." Sam's brows rose coaxingly.
"Let me get this through your head," Jim began, spoiling for a fight.
"Oh, who cares?" Sam was sick and tired, and yelled, "Have it your way!"
"Thanks," Jim bellowed back at him, "I will!"

Being wordy: how much is too much?!

This part of copy editing is a little more difficult, especially when you're editing your own work. There are several good reasons for keeping it simple (the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid!) and the first is, if you get too clever with rare, offbeat words, some of your readers won't know what you're talking about!

Think of your readers as your customers. They have to buy your book, enjoy it, and be eager for your next one to come out. This is how you build a reader base, and a career. And if you're too verbose, too "clever" in your writing ... perhaps you like to show off a massive vocabulary! ... you can lose customers. They just can't follow you without hitting a dictionary too often. (Here's a mildly worrying fact: few people in 2009 even own a dictionary.)

Copy editing is about picking out and correcting all kinds of errors, including errors of style. And one of the mistakes you can easily make is to trip yourself up by simply using the wrong word.

How good is your vocabulary? Seriously. How sure of it are you? If your vocabulary is vast and you never use the wrong word — you already have a head start over other "entry level" writers. However, always keep in mind that your reading levels, and your readers' abilities, can be very different.

It turns out that the majority of readers in the book-buying public are only reading at Grade 7 level. If you get "too smart" with your wording, a significant part of your potential readership will put the book down ... and won't even borrow your next one from the library.

The trick is to find the happy medium. Don't "dumb it down" to the point where you insult intelligent, well-educated readers, but at the same time don't flaunt your vocabulary and baffle average readers. Copy editing gives you the priceless opportunity to take three steps back from the work and look at it through someone else's eyes. You put on your copy editing hat, and you examine the structure of the novel on every level, right down to the choice of words.

You want to sell copies. You want to quit the day job and write for a living. You need to please as many readers as possible, and certainly insult none! Copy editing is your "safety net," where you double- and triple-check everything.

If in doubt, ask for a friend's help. Give him or her a felt pen and tell them to "swoosh" anything they didn't understand at first glance. You might be surprised. In fact, if you have a massive vocabulary yourself, you might be shocked.

There is another sizable problem about using a lot of large, difficult, offbeat or technical terms. If you're not absolutely as smart as you think you are ... you can misuse them. Using the wrong word is a technical sin everyone commits from time to time. The object is to do it very, very rarely.

Here's a list of words which are in common usage; you hear them so routinely, they're quite familiar. Yet ... do you know what they really mean?

Let's play a game ... look them up; award ONE point where you were right, and subtract TEN points where you were wrong. Why take away ten points? Because if/when you use the wrong word in a professionally-submitted manuscript, it glares out of the document like a searchlight ... on the other hand, no one even notices when you use words correctly. It's this easy to scuttle your chances of being published!

circuitous
turbid
turgid
morbidity
moribund
inchoate
truculent
intractable
penultimate

importunate
malapropism
misanthrope
perfidious
portentous
parsimonious
concurrent
erstwhile
cogent
decimate
soporific
existential
pedant
pedagogue
misogyny
sanguine
ennui
proletariat
polyglot
bifurcate
prevaricate
procrastination
feculent
physiognomy
pontification
plenipotentiary
dystopian
meretricious
merritorious
immanent
protagonist
ancillary
antediluvian
cantilevered
mercurial
indefatigable
inimitable
inimical
endemic
quixotic
hagiographer
inexorable
transpire
epigram
perfunctory
cursory
narcissism
punctilious
ingenuous
virgule

How did you score? You'll know by now if you need to work on your vocabulary, or if you're just too smart for your own good! The best tip is simply this: take pity on your readers! Remember that some of them are speaking English as a second, even third language. Get too clever for them, and they don't have a chance ... and in fact, nor do you, because they won't buy your next book!

Style editing ... it's editing for style

This is where you make sure your readers are definitely understanding you, and you're using the right words, and they're in the right order ... you're not overusing words, not repeating them, not inadvertently using regionalisms, which can sound unintentionally comical — or mean nothing at all to your readers. At this level of editing, you ensure that pivotal points are revealed once, while nothing is skipped over and forgotten. Material is not repeated, or repeated too often.

For example, a phrase used too frequently soon becomes annoying. Or funny. 'I'll be back.' Speaking of which, you'll be on the lookout for clichés! (Editing to the rescue.)

As you edit, you'll be making sure enough detail makes it onto the page to 'paint the scene,' but not enough to become boring. Modern readers will skip over too much description, and if there happens to be something crucial buried in the middle of this passage, they'll miss it utterly. This is how they 'lose the plot' and put the book down, saying it's incomprehensible and it's all your fault, as the writer.'

And you'll be on the lookout for several more 'writer beware' points. Hazard flags go up when something isn't right, like the black warning flags signaling 'oil on the racetrack.' Words have a way of flowing together naturally, every writer has a unique 'voice,' and so will you; but you must be in control of how the words flow, why they flow, and where they're flowing to. Here, freelance editing crosses a line of fuzzy logic into a form of art.

For instance, Jilly Cooper and Clive Cussler 'sound' very, very different indeed. Both are fine writers, but not only is their material a world apart, they also approach the 'job of writing' from different angles. They're from different parts of the world, different social backgrounds. Their words have a way of flowing together naturally, but the similarity ends right there!

Both writers, being consummate professionals, choose their words to suit their readership. Comparing a social comedy and an industrial thriller is exactly like comparing apples and oranges. Sure, they're both fruit, but every other quality is different.

The trick is, as your own freelance editing guru working on the fly as you write, to choose your words to suit your readership. Moreover, you'll soon 'get a nose' for what works, and you'll automatically, instinctually, choose your words to suit your changing material, from scene to scene within the same novel. In your intimate scenes, the words flow together in one way ... in action scenes, they flow another way.

If you're one of those 'natural, born writers' who make this happen without even thinking about it, bravo! Mother Nature gave you an advantage. The rest of us need to develop the instinct for words. The good news is, it doesn't take long.

Here's a grossly-exaggerated example, which will make the point. A short poem by John Macefield, entitled Cargoes, where the choice of words speaks for itself:

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

'Style' has little to do with how you spell or punctuate your writing, and whether the grammar is perfect. 'Style' is about how the words flow together ... which words you choose for what purpose ... and within all of that, keeping a tight grip on your own unique voice.

Daunted? Don't be. If you know how to score tennis, understand the offside rule, can put together flatpack furniture, bake a carrot cake, follow a knitting pattern, and program the DVD recorder, you can crack editing. It's an instinct, a 'nose' for writing and editing. And developing it is actually a whole lot of fun.