Gotta Have Style

When I was in journalism school, in the mid to late 80s, we were taught to write in a style that conformed to what Canadian newspapers were using. Naturally, that was Canadian Press (CP) style.

Every student in the program required a copy of the CP Stylebook and we were expected to know it. In first year, we were actually quizzed on our knowledge of it, and I made it a priority to know it from cover to cover.

When I wrote my first novel, JT, I applied CP style to it.

In 1999, when I began my career as a technical writer, my knowledge of CP style helped a bit, but there were other style guidelines I had to learn. First and foremost, I became familiar with the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications (MSTP) but at Corel Corporation, where I was working, had its own style—tightly based on the Microsoft style guide but with a few variations.

I memorized them, both.

In 2005, when I was hired at PCI Geomatics, I was taken on not only as an editor, I was tasked with coming up with a unique style guide for the writers in the company. The documentation manager didn't want to use MSTP because she felt it largely appealed to an American audience and we were more international. For me, it was a great job because not only did I work with some pretty awesome people, I got to dictate the voice for our documentation.

Thankfully, I had kept my Corel style book, which I thought had a lot of good style choices, and I used it to compare with other style guides: CP Stylebook, The Chicago Manual of Style, The Associated Press Stylebook, and of course, MSTP.

It took me about six months or so to come up with the style guide and a few more months for the writing team to review it and provide feedback. But in the end, I had written a style guide that I could be proud of.

When I worked at Motorola Solutions, I was hired primarily as a writer but I was also relied upon to be the editor for the other writers. I was the authority on style and other writers turned to me for help in making all of our documents read as though they came from a single writer.

We relied heavily on the MSTP but we also turned to The Chicago Manual of Style, and I also kept a copy of the AP Stylebook on hand, in case I couldn't find what I was looking for in the other sources.

You would think that when I have all of these styles in my head, it would be really easy for me to write my fiction. And you would be wrong.

Because I have so many styles in my head, it's hard to break certain habits—habits that don't work when you're putting out something creative. When I wrote Dark Water, I realized that there is a lot in a style guide for technical documentation that just doesn't work for fiction.

In technical documentation, I used the subordinating conjunction that a lot. I had to. For example, I would write

Select a value that represents the option that you want to change.

If I remove the second that, the meaning doesn't change.

Select a value that represents the option you want to change.

So, why include the second that? It doesn't matter for an English audience, but if you were to translate that sentence to French, for example, the second that becomes important.

A lot of documentation I wrote was translated into many languages. In English, that is optional unless it's used with relative clauses (a value that represents the option).

In Dark Water, there were a lot of unnecessary uses of the word that. Thanks to one of my reviewers, who was a career news editor, I've culled hundreds of these pesky words.

I don't expect my book will ever be translated but I'll leave that up to localization people.

I've also struggled with the use of numbers in my book. From journalism to technical writing, I've always written out numbers zero to nine and added numerals to all others, with a few exceptions: that is, for large, round numbers, like a million or fifteen hundred, I've written them out when writing an article.

Also, when a small number is used to refer to measurement, I've learned to write the numeral.

6 metres
1 GB

In Dark Water, I made a conscious decision to write out all numbers, except when they were used to indicate an exact time, a flight number, or an emergency number (specifically, 9-1-1). It was a style choice but I learned that some of my readers found it awkward, so I changed the numbering style so that it flows from a narrative perspective.

Many style guidelines recommend writing out numbers that are less than 100, so I'm adopting that style.

References to time have been keeping me on my toes, whether I write out the numbers ("I told her to pick me up at ten thirty"), use a.m. and p.m., or use the 24-hour clock ("the nine-one-one call came in at 0813 hours" and "the timestamp on the video read 22:28"). All are used througout.

All of this to say that now that I'm in the final stretch, putting the finishing touches on my book, I need to know that my style is consistent. And that's what's most important: it doesn't matter which style you use as long as you use it consistently throughout the story.

I've read Dark Water at least eight times. I'm not changing the story at all, at this point. I like it and so do my reviewers. But I'm currently reading it one more time to ensure that the style I've chosen is used throughout and there are no inconsistencies in that regard.

Next comes the big leap: sending it to a publisher. Stay tuned.