“People Will Think We’re Amateurs”

"A living, breathing, beautiful organic lifeform."

This endearing comment from a client of mine this week who cares–really cares–about perfection. And why shouldn’t he? His entire career has been based on his meticulous choice of words, and he’s an incredibly skilled writer. What was he so worried about that he thought our reputations depended on getting it right? Well, we were operating under different rules for what exactly qualifies as a “bad break,” or an inappropriate way to split a word in two when it falls on two lines of text. Yup, we publishing types fight bloody wars to break words between lines where we see fit.

I don’t mean to rag on him in particular. In fact, in general we see eye-to-eye on issues of style: He’s the only writer I have ever allowed to misuse the subjunctive case, because he doesn’t believe in using it at all–and that is part of his style. That kind of purposeful use of the English language is admirable, in my opinion, because it means he has thought out why he should or shouldn’t use the subjunctive and has a method to his madness. And that is my point, dear reader. Style is not there simply as a ruler to rap your knuckles.

So back to amateur night. I respect a passion for perfection. But this comment reflects a point of view that I have largely abandoned, and that is that writing can be perfect. Writing can be perfect in the same way my daughter is perfect–as a living, breathing, beautiful organic lifeform. While I am quite competent at following a style guide and crossing all my Ts, I don’t subscribe to the notion that a piece of writing can always be made just right by following one set of rules. Writing needs to breathe like its author, needs to reflect his tone and at least some of the idiosyncrasies of his speech. And don’t forget the audience. All writing has an intended audience, even if it is the author himself, so the form of a piece of writing must also follow the function. And that requires flexibility in style rules to accomplish the objective.

I am adamant about consistency, so don’t think this is an excuse to throw all rules out the window or be lazy. It can be quite challenging to determine the right approach to editing a piece of writing, as I imagine it must be difficult to figure out the right approach to disciplining a child whose temperament is the polar opposite of her sibling. When there is no one-size-fits-all, you have to think.

This is what it boils down to: I believe that writing has a soul–the soul of the author–and needs to be treated with respect and a little flexibility. These are couture garments we are creating; this is not an assembly line. Just thought you might like to know… your editor might have a soul after all, too.

What Are Style Rules and How Do You Choose Them?

Many people seem to misunderstand, or underestimate, what an editor does to polish up a manuscript or article for publication. Yes, we do proof for typos, but typos are the bare bones of copyediting. An editor missing a typo in your copy is like your mechanic not noticing that a wheel is missing from your car: you should expect a lot more! Just as your mechanic should check your vehicle for fluids, worn brakes, engine problems, rust, a leaking clutch cylinder, an editor should check your words for not only typos but also consistent and practical style usage, proper formatting, and a logical organization of thoughts and words.

So what are style rules?

Some grammar and punctuation rules are flexible, meaning you can choose which version of the rule to use to fit a certain type of writing. Style rules are choices between these versions of grammar rules that help determine how formal or informal your writing appears. Ideally, your style rule choices are logical so they help your writing become even clearer to a reader.

Common style rule choices are:

• Series comma or no series comma? In a book, which often has a more conservative style (which means slower-reading and more spelled-out style), you will often find a series comma, a comma before the last item in a list–”Tom, Dick, and Harry.” In a blog post or a magazine article, which are shorter and more informal kinds of writing (which means the reader wants a quick read), you often will not find a series comma–”Tom, Dick and Harry.” Once an editor chooses which version of the series comma rule to follow, it must be consistent throughout the book.
• Number formatting: spell out numbers up to 10? Up to 100? In a book, you will often see numbers spelled out up to 100 (ten, twenty-one, nintey-nine, 100, 101… ), which is a standard rule governed by the book editor’s Bible, the Chicago Manual of Style. Magazines often follow the AP Style Guide format, which dictates that numbers should only be spelled out up to 10, which saves precious space on the page (one, eight, nine, 10, 11…). Blogs hopefully choose a simple style and stick to it, but often blogs are run by people who write but don’t edit, so you will see no rules followed. That’s what makes blog writing look so informal: if the writer follows consistent rules about how to present their writing, suddenly it looks polished and professional–and that’s why these rules exist: to make your writing clean and easy to read.
• The most common spelling of a word is used for its main dictionary entry, but variations on that spelling are often listed underneath. When there is a choice to how you spell a word (gray or grey? V12 or V-12 engine?), an editor chooses which way the word will be spelled throughout their entire lineup of books (an in-house style guide), or in a particular book, hopefully following an author’s lead.
• Time formatting is important because using inconsistent formatting of times in a book or article can look really messy and make it difficult to read. An editor may follow the author’s lead on which format to use, based on which format the author uses most often in his work, or may have a reason to make everything follow a particular rule. The options include “3 p.m.” “3 o’clock” “three in the afternoon” “3:00″ “3:00 pm” “15:00″ an so on. You might choose “15:00,” military time, for a book about the military or to give the effect of a military environment. “3 o’clock” would be a good choice for a story where specific times are not used, because it is a rounded number. And “3:00 pm” is a good choice when you want to be specific about times, as in “3:12 pm.”
• Number formatting is a similar issue to time formatting: an editor chooses whether “three million” will become “3 million” or whether percentages are spelled out (“ninety percent” vs. “90 percent”) and if four-digit numbers include commas (“3000″ vs. “3,000″). These rules may or may not clarify your writing in particular, but they become very important in an article about a car’s engine specs. If the publication has rules for how to format numbers, it is easy for the reader to compare one torque figure to the other, because the similar formatting helps the numbers jump off the page. No number formatting rules = number soup.
• Ellipsis spacing is a minor issue, but you want to look polished, right? Ellipses are the “…” symbols at the end of sentences that imply that the sentence continues or trails off. You should always use three dots for an “internal ellipsis,” or an ellipsis that leaves out words within one sentence, and four dots for an ellipsis at the end of a sentence, because that fourth dot is really a period. BUT, there are several ways to format those three- and four-dot ellipses, with a space between each dot (. . .), without any spaces (…), and with a space after the final dot (… ).
• Uppercase deity pronouns are the province of Christian book publishing for the most part, but they’re important. Deity pronouns refer to pronouns used to describe God, or gods, and you need to decide if you’re going to capitalize them. So, should “he,” “him,” “his,” and so on become “He,” Him,” and “His” when referring to God? Publishing houses often have style guide rules to cover this across the board, but if you have a choice, think about whether capitalizing these pronouns appears to give the deity more authority and whether or not that is the effect you want to achieve (i.e. Does Satan get his pronouns uppercase as well?).

There, see? Your editor is paid to do more than intimidate you. These are just a few rules out of many, otherwise the Chicago Manual of Style wouldn’t be heavier than my front door. Style rules are important, but if you can master just a few of them, your writing will shine and you will be way ahead of the pack getting published and making nicey nicey with your editor, who will love you for valuing what she does.

Do you have any style rule questions? Beefs? Important additions to this list? I’d love to hear them in comments.

Grammar Tips: How To Know When To Use I/Me, He/Him in a Sentence

Here is a quick trick to help you look smart: it will help you always use the correct pronoun—“I” or “me,” “he” or “him,” “she” or “her”—in the right context. It’s simple: just replace the pronoun that you are thinking of using with “we” or “us,” and see which replacement makes sense. If “we” makes sense, you should use “he” or “she,” and if “us” makes sense, you should use “him” or “her.” This ALWAYS works.

Here is why:

“We” is used when people are the subject of a sentence; it is in the nominative case. Use nominative case when the people referred to are doing the action in the sentence.

e.g. We went to rob the bank.

“Us” is used when people are the object of a sentence; it is in the accusative case. Use accusative case when the people referred to are the object of the action in the sentence.

e.g. That security guard shot us.

“He” and “she” are also in the nominative case, to be used when a person is the subject of a sentence. “Him” and “her” are the accusative case, used when a person is the object of the action. People confuse these a lot, hyper-correcting their speech to use “I” when they should use “me,” and the like, so it can be hard to tell by ear whether “I” or “me” is correct, “he” or “him,” and so on. People never confuse “we” and “us,” though, so what you’re doing here is falling back on the pronoun forms that people always use correctly to remind you which case you should be using.

So let’s try it. Here is my sentence I am unsure of:

e.g. Him and I stole a car.

Trick: If this were plural you would say, “We went to the store,” not “Us went to the store,” so you know right away that you should use the form that “we” is in: the nominative case. The nominative form of “him” is “he,” and the nominative form of “I” is “I,” so one of these is correct and the other needs fixing. Now you know the sentence should read…

Fix: He and I stole a car.

Try it. I promise this trick will never fail you, and it only takes a second.

Can You Help My Emoticon Lose Weight?

My husband loves to send me this xkcd comic about the “emoticons in parentheses” problem. It’s hilarious, but tricky. Many editors just dismiss it with a wave: “You should never use emoticons in professional writing!” Well, how simple. But email is devoid of emotion, and emoticons can clarify your tone. I find myself using them more and more often even in professional emails, to smile it up a bit. Otherwise, I seem to come across like Ben Stein.

Here is one solution: simply convert your emoticon to a smiley face before transmitting. But that doesn’t always come through. What happens if my “angel” smiley face turns into “(A)” before it gets to the recipient? Message not received.

My solution is inelegant, and it bugs me every time I use it, but I think this may just have to work for now:

(My Emoticons Get Double Chins : ))

Yup, my emoticons are fat, and they will remain fat until one of you can give me a better solution to this little problem. Can you help my emoticon lose weight?

Chicago Says, Place Commas Wherever You Might, Pause…

The Exclamation Point Freaks Out Again by andrea_daquino, Flickr

Okay, here goes with my new experiment discussing nitty gritty grammar and style….

Here’s one that annoyed the crap out of my former managing editor and has ever since bugged me: The Chicago Manual of Style lists the usual rules for comma usage (use around appositives, between items in lists, after or before direct address, etc.), but then totally cops out with a CYAQ (Cover Your Ass Qualifier) that states you should use a comma whenever you would pause in speech. Um, okay. I get that–commas do indicate a pause in speech–but what about people who talk slowly? Are we doomed to trip and fall over all those commas, which make the page look like a pen sneezed on it? It’s slow death by commage!

Thoughts on this one? How do you decide whether or not to use a comma? What other style and grammar issues grind your gears? Let me know in comments.