If I Were (A Bit More Of) A Grammar Geek

IF I WERE (A BIT MORE OF) A GRAMMAR GEEK Right here at Fantasy Author’s Handbook I actually have beneficial some primary style guides that each author should have on his or her shelf, and I don’t want anybody to think that this submit in any method reverses my opinion on any of those sources. But that having been mentioned, if I were (a bit more of) a grammar geek, I would compile a brand new style guide, specifically for artistic writers. The Chicago Manual of Style tries and almost succeeds at being a kind of “umbrella” style information, touching as many different kinds of writing as it can. There are a couple that are extra specialised, just like the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook which is written for journalists, or the American Psychiatric Association Publication Manual, which is for scholarly/scientific works. There are others, too, however I actually have yet to seek out one good, solid authority on the way to edit fiction. This is not to say that I ever need inventive writing to be as strictly codified bec ause the scientific journals, and even the better venues for print journalism. Creative writers need to maintain the liberty to experiment with the shape, regardless of my occasional complaints on the contrary. There are things that bug me as a replica editor, and it may be onerous to show off that a part of my mind, however nobody puts William S. Burroughs in a field in my town! Still, there is some fundamental structure to the English language and as long as this proposed book begins with a statement of flexibility and forgiveness like: Rules are made to be damaged. Take this recommendation into account, decide and select from it as you see fit in the context of every project, and throw it out fully do you have to want. Then I’m okay. I have to have a spot to clearly state things like where the citation marks go in relation to punctuation. What is a verb of talking and why, when, and how do you employ them? Why fiction ought to never embody the semi-colon, and I mean NEVER EVER. The distinction between a short sentence and a sentence fragment. The care and feeding of (what should be the rare, elusive) exclamation mark. One scene/one POV. Multiple tense and lazy tense. Why all bets are off in dialog. The difference (if any) between parentheses and em-dashes, and what, exactly, and em-sprint is and why it’s totally different from a hyphen, two hyphens, or an en-dash. The listing goes on and on. And I’m pleased to “train the controversy” on plenty of things (besides semi-colons, which are simply evil) in order that this isn’t some type of exercise in creativity-destroying didacticism. If such a book already exists: So-and-so’s Guide to Fiction Style, PLEASE report its existence in the feedback and I will rush out to secure my own copy submit haste, then begin complaining about all of the ways it doesn’t match up with what I was taught by numerous mentors past and present. I actually have seen books like Christopher T. Leland’s The Creative Wri ter’s Style Guide, but this looks like one other how-to e-book on story structure and writing (pacing, effective dialog and outline, etc.) than a true fashion guide, and there are LOADS of how-to books out there. I wrote one myself. What I need is a technical handbook, like the CMS. Please think about this post a call to motion. Who’s with me? WE NEED THIS! â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Hell, sure. If such a piece exists, i’d love to find out about it as a result of i’d love to have the ability to advocate it to the fiction writers i work with. And if it doesn’t exist, we must always positively write it. I suspect one of the causes that such a e-book doesn’t exist is that for newspaper and academic writing, it’s relatively easy to provide you with lists of how issues should be. However, fiction is so nebulous and wide open that it implicitly creates guidelines that defy easy categorization, and which contradict one another at every flip. (“Don’t do A.” “But here’s a e-book where the guy does A and it totally works!” “Yeah, properly… shut up.”) The trick can be to distill out the “core guidelines” of fiction fashion and formatting, on which every creator creates the “home rules” that make each fiction project distinctive. Fill in your particulars under or click an icon to log in: