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What Are Zombie Rules in Grammar?

Zombies are fueled by mindless hunger, and this mindlessness is part of what makes them scary.

If you have a choice between reasoning with a zombie and bashing one in the head with a shovel, the latter approach is more likely to help you avoid becoming one of the undead yourself.

Zombie rules in grammar (“rules” that have no grammatical basis but nonetheless refuse to die) are frightening because they’re driven by much the same brand of mindlessness.

You can probably reel off your favorite zombie rules the same way you’d reel off your favorite zombie flicks. “Never end a sentence with a preposition,” “Never start a sentence with a conjunction,” and “Never split infinitives” are the Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, and Shaun of the Dead of the grammar world.

More obscure zombie rules stalk the landscape as well: the number of items between can apply to and the use of double negatives (think Dead Alive and Cemetery Man).

People faced with zombie rules generally arm themselves with reasonable arguments that often involve Latin, John Dryden, and Winston Churchill quotes (“This is the type of errant pedantry up with which I will not put”).

But zombie rules wouldn’t be zombie rules if they were easy to kill (though people won’t stop trying, and there are seemingly billions of blog posts devoted to grammar rules that aren’t really rules).

Why do people hold on to zombie rules?

(1) They were learned as absolute truths during one’s formative years and have never been questioned. If pressed, most will cop to their certainty about a grammar “rule” as coming from an elementary school teacher or some other distant authority.

So changing one’s stance on ending a sentence with a preposition might involve a slight shifting of a long-held world view. Doing so might cause a little tremor in your foundations. But evaluating and resetting your world view is a good thing, and we should all reevaluate our beliefs on a regular basis.

(2) It’s hard to admit you were wrong. Changing your view on rules such as these can feel like you’re admitting you’ve been wrong for years, possibly decades. But this is a sting that can be lessened by the realization that most “rules” aren’t rules, and that what we’re really talking about are styles and conventions.

Audience and levels of formality and register often determine the guidelines you’ll follow. Language conventions are ever changing, and embracing this can be quite freeing (while there was no shortage of debate sparked by the major style guides’ lowercasing of internet, a good number of copyeditors undoubtedly felt a rebellious thrill when they first started taking down that I).

(3) The “rule” makes you feel superior. People love to correct other people’s grammar. Check any comments thread and you’ll quickly find someone attempting to invalidate someone else’s argument by pointing out a misstep in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

People’s use of grammar is also tied up in their self-perception and it’s used to broadcast their level of education. It’s also used as a barricade to prevent others from accessing their realm.

But people can love grammar and not be an ass about it. Inflexibility and a rigid adherence to “rules” across all situations are probably your best ways of advertising how little you actually know about language. Let’s try not to use our knowledge to hurt or exclude others. Let’s try to be kind, share knowledge generously, and open ourselves to the idea that we have much to learn.

I suppose I could say more, but I’m off to watch Return of the Living Dead III.

ABOUT JAMES GALLAGHER

I’m a copyeditor and the owner of Castle Walls Editing. If you have a manuscript and need a copyeditor, contact me through this site or email me at James@castlewallsediting.com.

October 28, 2018
Three Quick Tips for Grammar Quizzes
Online grammar quizzes pop up all over the place, and I often find them hard to resist.

I’m a copyeditor, so why bother with quizzes I should breeze through? Isn’t it like shooting fish in a barrel?

Yes, but it always feels good to ace something, and people working outside traditional office settings often need all the pick-me-ups they can get.

Indie editors work largely in isolation. Positive feedback from our authors is one of the best parts of the job, but we may or may not get any feedback at all, even when the author is ecstatic.

And we certainly don’t have the daily face-to-face interactions you find in an office, so even getting a little positive feedback from a quick electronic quiz can provide a mental boost.

I won’t go into any irritation over grammar quizzes that are more concerned with spelling or less strictly grammatical matters. Or how they often promote zombie rules. Or how they are sometimes poorly edited. Or how sometimes the “correct” answer is, at the very least, debatable.

Oh, look at that. I guess I just made those points in a decidedly cowardly manner. To be fair, for the first point, most see the grammar umbrella as covering a wide area. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

The following are three quick tips for nailing high marks on grammar quizzes. (For a giant measure of extra credit, you can also grab a copy of Bryan A. Garner’s The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, an excellent resource.)
1. Read carefully.
People read differently online and are much more likely to scan for information. But this isn’t a good practice for multiple-choice quizzes, and it’s easy to start to read the question, think you know what’s being asked, and move on to the answers.

More often than not, the reason you made an incorrect choice is because you misread the question and selected the first answer that matched the question you thought was being asked. Questions also contain words like “does not” or “never” or “always,” and these will change the answer you select.
1. Get that nonsense outta here!
With online quizzes, the process of elimination makes your task a whole lot easier. You can normally throw out an answer or two that you’re absolutely certain isn’t correct. So on quizzes with four possible answers, you can easily increase your odds of getting the answer correct from 25 percent to 50 percent.

As mentioned above, read all the answers carefully. You might think the answer has to do with comma placement and find yourself going back and forth between two possible choices — until you see that one of those answers has a “their” that should be “there.” Problem solved.
1. Don’t overthink it.
Unless you’ve failed to read the entire question carefully and are thus either operating under a false assumption or not seeing something obvious, going with your gut is usually a good thing. Most of the time your first thought is the correct one.

Don’t let the quiz masters get in your head. Madness lies down the road of “They are probably thinking I’ll think this, and so I should think this, but they might anticipate my thinking that as well.” Don’t succumb to it. Choose the best answer and let the chips fall where they may.

ABOUT JAMES GALLAGHER

Copy editor and writer James Gallagher is the owner of Castle Walls Editing. To hire James, email him at James@castlewallsediting.com.
October 23, 2018
Writing Sprints for NaNoWriMo and Beyond

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is fast approaching, and many writers are biting their nails hoping they can find the time to pound out 50,000 words in November.

“Not enough time” is a constant refrain among hopeful writers — and an understandable one. Day jobs, family, friends, chores, outside-of-work appointments, life(!) all come between writers and actual, honest-to-God, sitting-down-at-your-computer writing.

But a piece of advice you’ll hear again and again from successful writers is that writers write. No one has the time, but if you really want to write, you’ll find the time. You’ll make the time.

Sprints are one way you can do this.

WHAT IS A SPRINT?

If you’re familiar with the business world, you’ve probably heard about Agile and Scrum and Scrum sprints, or timeboxed activities that take place over a short time (usually a month) with a clear goal. Sprints help businesses stay on task, cope with change, and deliver better products.

For our purposes, especially if words like deliverables and iterative processes put you to sleep, sprints are short bursts of a single, uninterrupted activity.

You might sit down and write for half an hour, take a break, and then conduct another sprint. People also join group sprints through social media, the camaraderie adding further incentive to meet your writing goals.

BENEFITS OF SPRINTS

The following are ways sprints can help you during NaNoWriMo and beyond.

You accomplish a short-term goal. Micro habits are small, achievable tasks you can do every day to give you a sense of accomplishment, which in turn increases your ability to tackle larger projects. Even making your bed in the morning lets you tick an item off your to-do list and feel better about the day’s challenges.

Lack of confidence is a barrier writers struggle with. No one can write a novel. I mean, come on. It’s too big a task. Too daunting. But you can write for half an hour. You can pound out 500 words. And if you do this again and again, you’ve written a novel without being crushed under the enormity of mentally tackling the whole thing at once.

You separate yourself from distractions. Writers are great procrastinators. Let’s face it: writing is hard. It requires discipline and facing our own fears. You can’t hide from yourself on the page.

Writing is something many writers feel they were meant to do, something they feel is their calling, perhaps even the most important thing they’ll ever do. That’s a lot of pressure, and it’s easy to shy away from it. You can’t fail if you don’t try.

But you also can’t succeed.

Our world also presents us with more distractions than ever. (Is your Twitter feed calling?) Sprints make you block all that out, at least for the duration of the sprint. You don’t check email, Facebook, or Twitter. You don’t answer your phone. You ignore the kids. You do what you have to do.

You instill discipline into your writing routine. Muscles develop day-by-day with exercise, and the more you exercise, the better shape you find yourself in. Your brain benefits from exercise too.

The more writing sprints you run, the more you train your brain to jump quickly into writing mode.

People who have trouble sleeping are told to make the bed a place for sleep only, so your mind associates it only with sleep and will therefore slip into sleep mode faster when you crawl under the sheets. Writing sprints help you do something similar when sitting down at your computer.

You send a clear message to those around you. Has anyone ever struck up a conversation with you while you’re reading in a public place? I always feel like the person sees you reading and thinks, Oh, God, they’re reading. What a terrible fate! I better go rescue them! It’s infuriating.

Family and friends can do the same thing while you’re writing. Hanging up your DO NOT DISTURB sign or doing whatever it takes to tell friends and family that you’re writing for the next hour (or half hour, or whatever the duration of your sprint is) helps create that space.

Specifying a definitive amount of time also helps wall this time off, because it prevents the “as good a time as any” approach to interrupting that someone can take if there are no definitive boundaries around your time.

WHAT ARE THE KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL SPRINT?

You can do a few things to get the most out of your sprints.

Prepare. The most important thing is to work steadily and productively through the sprint. If you sit down and write nothing, you haven’t made it out of the starting blocks.

For NaNoWriMo, you can outline your novel ahead of time (but it’s almost November and the clock is ticking!). Another trick is always ending your writing session before the end of a scene, so in the next writing session you can pick right up where you left off.

In your free moments (washing dishes, driving home from work, conducting brain surgery), think about what you’re going to write. This prevents you from having no idea where you’re going when you sit at the computer or take out your notebook and pen.

Commit. The busiest time of the year at any gym is usually right after New Year’s. Everyone is packing the place and is committed to New Year’s resolutions to exercise more. But check out the same gym in mid February and count the tumbleweeds blowing by.

You have to commit to your sprints and make them productive. With NaNoWriMo, it’s easy to start strong but end up jumping ship when fatigue sets in. So the depth of your commitment will be tried.

NaNoWriMo provides great progress reports, and that “words per day to finish” feature can help or hurt your confidence. So try to come out of the gates quickly to keep that number as low as possible. And then use sprints to manage your one-day-at-a-time approach.

Communicate. As we talked about above, those around you can both support and hinder your writing efforts, and many times this is well meaning or unintentional. Someone who doesn’t write may want to help but end up invading your mental space.

So it’s important to set your time boundaries and enforce your do-not-disturb policy. And then be exceedingly kind to the people who enable your writing by watching your kids, giving you that space, or providing any of the other kindnesses and allowances loved ones make for this demanding endeavor.

ARE EDITING SPRINTS GOOD OR BAD?

I’ve seen more and more talk online about editing sprints, which follow the same concept. A fairly recent ACES: The Society for Editing chat even centered on this topic, and a lot of great editors extolled the virtues of editing sprints for tackling their work.

I like the sentiment. It’s hard to argue that an uninterrupted period of activity is bad for editing. There’s no doubt that ignoring email or social media while editing is a good thing, but I also feel like this should go without saying.

More than anything, though, I don’t like the word sprint associated with editing. With writing, it’s often important to get that first draft on the page at any cost. But editing needs to be slow and methodical — never a frantic, rushed activity.

So while I think the idea of an editing sprint is a good one, I don’t like the word in this context, and I would prefer editors use it for admin tasks or some other activity that doesn’t require the slow, methodical mindset.

When I worked at the audiobook company Recorded Books, we proofed thousands and thousands of audiobook covers. The covers came fast and furious, and there was always temptation to rush to handle the workload.

So I put together a sheet of Editing Rules of the Road, with the first rule being to “Slow Down!” When it comes to editing, this is always good advice.

ABOUT JAMES GALLAGHER

ACES and EFA member James Gallagher is owner/editor at Castle Walls Editing. If you’re in need of copyediting, send a message through the contact form on this site or email James at James@castlewallsediting.com.

October 17, 2018
Four on the Floor with Monica J. O’Rourke

Monica J. O’Rourke, whom celebrated horror author Brian Keene called “probably the best copyeditor currently in the business,” is both a horror author and copyeditor. Pretty damn cool.

Enjoy the interview below and then go check out her work. And who knows? Her editorial fingerprints may already be all over some of your favorite novels.

Bio: Monica J. O’Rourke has published more than 100 short stories and is the author of Poisoning Eros I and II (with Wrath James White), Suffer the Flesh, In the End (collection), Only Darkness, and What Happens in the Darkness. Monica also works as a freelance editor, proofreader, and book coach.

Gallagher: Tone and atmosphere are especially important in horror, and dread is one of the most difficult things an author can invoke. How does a good copyeditor contribute to cultivating the spell a reader must fall under?

O’Rourke: If I’m copyediting (as opposed to line or content editing), it usually means the author has a decent handle on his or her work. I look for the author’s voice and decide how to move from there. If I feel something is lacking throughout, that’s obviously more of a problem, and I’ll tag through comments where I feel emotion or atmosphere is lacking and try to coax it out of the author.

Sometimes it works … sometimes the author thinks he did a good enough job. And hey, ultimately, it’s not my book. But it’s frustrating when an author thinks it’s “good enough” when it could be great. The sign of a rookie is an author looking for praise, not proper edits. I think we’ve all been there, in the beginning …

Gallagher: How does being a writer help you as a copyeditor? Does it present any challenges?

O’Rourke: To be honest, being an editor has made me a better writer. I see the mistakes others make, which I often missed in my own writing. I see my impartial edits of their work—how much easier it is for me to “kill their darlings” (advice often attributed to William Faulkner, Oscar Wilde, G. K. Chesterton, Anton Chekhov, and Eudora Welty).

Even Stephen King wrote, “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings”—and I know I can’t do my own work editing justice. Everyone needs an editor, including editors (which I admit I learned the hard way with the publication of my last novel). Writers are too close to their work, so they easily miss the mistakes and the opportunities to make their prose sing off the page.

Gallagher: What are the challenges and rewards of editing an author for the first time?

O’Rourke: Learning a new (new to me, anyway) author’s style is a challenge and a reward. Sometimes you find that crazy diamond … and sometimes you’re ripping every hair out of your head. It’s a crapshoot.

I once had a writer thank me for my edit and say, “I agreed with 80 percent of what you suggested!” And I thought, Wait—80 percent? Is that all? It’s a bit of an ego bust if someone doesn’t think my editing is brilliant and they don’t accept 100 percent of my changes. (Yes, I’m kidding!)

I may argue rules of grammar, but much of editing is also opinion—I might suggest a rewrite of a paragraph, for example, but the writer may have intentionally written something a certain way. Sometimes they’re stylistic choices, and as long as they’re intentional, I can respect that. Like Picasso said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” Or was it the Dalai Lama? “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.” There’s a big difference between stylistic choices and sloppy prose.

Gallagher: What’s the last book that made you want to scream from the rooftops that everyone needs to read it? Is there a movie or series that you’re currently obsessing over?

O’Rourke: Funny, I was just thinking how it’s a crying shame that Rick McCammon’s Swan Song hasn’t yet been made into a movie. Travesty! If you haven’t read it, run, run to your nearest bookstore and correct this egregious error!

My latest obsession is Criminal Minds. I didn’t start watching until a few months ago, so I had 12 seasons to catch up on. And with my TV marathoning, I’m just about caught up!

September 27, 2018
Five Tools That Help My Editing Business

No electronic tool can match the mind of an editor when it comes to making judgments informed by training, widespread reading, on-the-job experience, and lessons shared by peers and mentors.

Searching the #spellcheckcantsaveyou hashtag on Twitter, for example, will give you tweet after (often-humorous) tweet of spellchecker fails.

But that doesn’t mean spellcheckers aren’t useful (if limited) tools. You just have to know the limitations of your tools so you can let them help you without relying on them in areas where they fall short.

I regularly use the following five tools and am happy to have them at my disposal.

PerfectIt

PerfectIt from Intelligent Editing is essentially a consistency checker that looks at such areas as spelling, abbreviations, capitalization, hyphenation, house style, and bullets and lists.

You run PerfectIt from within Word and can set customized styles for clients. I run it on every document I edit, and if it occasionally turns up something I might have missed otherwise, then I’m thankful for the assist.

Editor’s Toolkit Plus 2018

Editor’s Toolkit Plus 2018 from the Editorium is a Word add-on that collects easy-to-use macros for doing such things as fixing ellipses, finding and replacing multiple items, cleaning up common editorial problems, and extracting embedded footnotes.

The 2018 version includes Editor’s ToolKit, FileCleaner, QuarkConverter, NoteStripper, ListFixer, MegaReplacer, QuarkConverter, InDesignConverter, Puller, and WordCounter. Many of these features are great time savers (and editors can always benefit from making their processes more efficient).

Toggl

Tracking time spent editing is essential for estimating editing fees and managing your schedule. Toggl is a time tracker with handy reporting features for generating client reports.

I haven’t compared Toggl to other time-tracking tools, but I find it easy to use and am happy with it. (My only complaint is that I occasionally forget to turn it on or off, but I can only blame myself for that!)

Google Docs

I use Google Docs for my style sheets and small writing jobs. I wrote this post, for example, on Google Docs before copying it to WordPress. (I find writing on WordPress a bit maddening, and my experience has been that you’re much less likely to lose your work when writing with Docs.)

DropTask

I proofread for a publisher that uses DropTask to move covers through the proofing process.

DropTask uses lively visuals so workflow can be managed by dragging and dropping jobs (and all their accompanying files) through stages represented by circles and icons. DropTask is easy to use and is even quite a bit of fun (if you’re into that kind of thing).

Special Mentions:

In addition to the above, I’ve been using the following with various clients: Miro (an online whiteboard and collaboration tool), Basecamp (project and document management and team communication), Paymo (project management and time tracking), and PayPal (payments).

Poor carpenters may blame their tools, but I’d say that poorer ones refuse to use the tools at their disposal. What tools do you use?

About James Gallagher

Copyeditor James Gallagher serves clients through his business, Castle Walls Editing. Email James at James@castlewallsediting.com to find out how he can help with your writing projects.

September 27, 2018
Five Book Mentors for Editors
While there’s no substitute for a mentor of the flesh-and-blood variety, the five “book mentors” below provide indispensable advice on the processes, philosophy, and business of editing.

(Note that these are not writing or style guides. Click here for my look at the major style guides.)

The Business of Editing by Richard H. Adin

A collection of essays by Richard Adin (aka the American Editor), The Business of Editing: Effective and Efficient Ways to Think, Work, and Prosper collects Adin’s sage advice on these key aspects of the profession:
- Roles
- Tools
- Processes
- Profits
- The Career of Editing
- The Future of Editing
While these essays are free at the American Editor blog, the handy arrangement of selections helps lead you through the above topics, and I thought it well worth the purchase.

Of late, editor Ruth E. Thaler-Carter has taken over most writing duties on the site, including this post on backups for files and equipment. Thaler-Carter also organizes Communication Central’s Be a Better Freelancer conference, which I attended last fall.

The Subversive Copy Editor by Carol Fisher Saller

As senior editor at Recorded Books, I ensured that all the editors had a copy of The Subversive Copy Editor (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself).

In the book, Saller shares her kind, helpful approach to editing. Her “subversiveness” refers to her belief that editors are not the writer’s adversary but people who work in service to the author (and reader).

The second part of her subversiveness is her belief that editors often need to look beyond the “rules” and do what makes most sense for the work at hand.

Not so subversive at all!

The Subversive Copy Editor is broken into two parts: “Working with the Writer, for the Reader” and “Working with Your Colleagues and with Yourself.”

Saller also edits the Chicago Manual of Style Online’s Q&A. More about her can be found here.

What Editors Do Edited by Peter Ginna

With essays from the best editors in the field (including the above-mentioned Carol Fisher Saller), What Editors Do: The Art, Craft & Business of Book Editing provides a host of insights into the profession.

The book is broken into the following parts:
- Part I: Acquisition: Finding the Book
- Part II: The Editing Process: From Proposal to Book
- Part III: Publication: Bringing the Book to the Reader
- Part IV: From Mystery to Memoir: Categories and Case Studies
- Part V: Pursuing an Editing Career: Varieties of Editorial Experience
Many independent editors don’t have the opportunity to work in-house for a major publisher, and this books opens a window into that world.

Peter Ginna has been an editor and publisher for Bloomsbury Press, Oxford University Press, Crown Publishers, St. Martin’s Press, and Persea Books.

The Copyeditor’s Handbook by Amy Einsohn

The following quote from Kim Hawley of the Chicago Book Clinic says it all about The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications:

“A definite ‘must have’ for the beginning to intermediate editor or author, and even the experienced editor. An indispensable reference tool.”

The book, which includes exercises and answer keys, is broken into these parts:
- Part 1: The ABCs of Copyediting
- Part 2: Editorial Style
- Part 3: Language Editing
A professional editor for scholarly, trade nonfiction, and corporate publishing, Amy Einsohn also taught copyediting courses. A tribute to the late Einsohn can be found on Copyediting.com here.

Copyediting: A Practical Guide by Karen Judd

The oldest title on my list, Karen Judd’s Copyediting: A Practical Guide is still a well respected resource for copy editors and a good addition to any editor’s shelf.

The book begins with “What Is Copyediting?” and runs through the subjects of copyediting and proofreading symbols, punctuation and grammar, style and word usage, notes and bibliography, specialized copyediting, and other aspects of copyediting.

***

These are all books that have helped me in my copyediting career. I hope you find them useful as well.
August 22, 2018
Four on the Floor with Rio Youers

I can’t say enough about Rio Youers or express what a thrill it is to feature him here. So read on—and order Halcyon already!

Rio Youers is the British Fantasy Award–nominated author of Old Man Scratch and Point Hollow. His short fiction has been published in many notable anthologies, and his novel Westlake Soul was nominated for Canada’s prestigious Sunburst Award.

He has been favorably reviewed in such venues as Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and The National Post.

The Forgotten Girl was released by Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press in June 2017 and was nominated for Best Crime Novel in the Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing.

Rio lives in southwestern Ontario with his wife, Emily, and their children, Lily and Charlie.

James Gallagher: Since reading your story “Old Man Scratch” a few years ago, I’ve been haunted by this line: “No, sir; he’s standing above me, ghost-like, blowing on my flickering eyes.” Is there a line you’re particularly proud of?

Rio Youers: It’s difficult to isolate one right now, or to choose a favorite, but I can say there are moments in every book and story—sentences or whole paragraphs, even single words—that I’m very proud of.

That said, it’s all subjective. What resonates with me may barely register with other readers. So you can’t pat yourself on the back too much. You just have to put your head down, follow the story, and do the best you can.

James: What has jumping to a major publisher (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press) meant to your career? Has it in any way changed how you address your craft?

Rio: It certainly feels like a substantial step forward. On a personal level, being with a major house was always the goal, so the sense of achievement is incredibly rewarding.

Professionally, my novels are in more places, so my readership has expanded. They’re also being reviewed on bigger sites and in reputable trade publications. I even have a movie agent now. So yes, being with a major publisher has elevated my career.

But it hasn’t changed the way I address my craft. Not at all.

James: Are there ways in which editors have pushed you or helped your development as a writer?

Rio: Absolutely. For example, Jaime Levine acquired The Forgotten Girl for St. Martin’s Press. One telephone conversation with her regarding structure had me thinking about the book, and subsequently writing it, from a different—stronger—starting point. Will Anderson took the reins after Jaime left the company, and helped with verisimilitude and streamlining. Both editors were not just valuable in their contributions, but essential.

James: What’s something another writer does that leaves you in awe? What’s an aspect of your work that shows Rio Youers at his very best?

Rio: My favorite writers convey everything with fewer words. I love when a simple sentence leaves me breathless. Graham Greene was a master of economy. Reading his work has been a delight and an education.

As for an aspect of my work that shows me at my best … well, I refer to what I said in question one: it’s all subjective, so I think I’ll leave that for the readers to decide.

For more information about Rio Youers, visit him on the web, check out his Twitter feed, or like him on Facebook.

July 8, 2018
I Like Your Style! A Quick Look at the Major Style Guides
Style guides promote consistency for clear and accurate communication. A consistent approach to style shows professionalism and builds trust with the reader.

Consistency also helps readers understand what is being communicated without having to question whether inconsistencies were intentional or a case of sloppiness or inattention. If two instances of the same term are styled differently, the reader might wonder if she’s being presented with two different meanings or if she’s missing something.

Fiction authors don’t want these questions to break the spell of the reading experience, as can also happen with typos or poor construction.

In academics, writing represents a kind of conversation that promotes knowledge and the spread of ideas. Standard citations, for example, help this conversation by creating a common language that can be easily understood and used.

But styles are almost always better thought of as “guidelines” rather than “rules,” and writers might break style for any number of reasons, not least to help the reader when a slavish adherence to style might do the reader a disservice.

The following are major styles you may encounter (there are, of course, many more, and links to free online style guides appear at the end of the post):
- AP
- Chicago
- Turabian
- MLA
- APA
- AMA
- CSE
The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law

Current edition: printed yearly and updated regularly online

Audience: newspapers, magazines, and public relations offices

Website: www.apstylebook.com

The Associated Press is an independent, not-for-profit news cooperative with teams in over 100 countries. AP style helps ensure consistency across worldwide distribution. Much of AP style is based on the premiums of space, so, for example, AP does not use the Oxford comma (except for clarity) or an s after the apostrophe when forming the possessive of singular nouns ending in s.

The 2017 edition of The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law contains new entries on fact checks and fake news, guidance on the use of cyberattack, a new entry on gender, a new entry on addictions, and revised drug-related entries.

You may buy a print copy (updated yearly) or subscribe to the AP Stylebook Online.

The AP Stylebook Online gives you choices for
- One or multiple users
- Subscription to Webster’s New World College Dictionary
- Twenty percent savings when signing up for automatic renewal
The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers

Current edition: seventeenth (2017)

Audience: writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers

Website: www.chicagomanualofstyle.org

For more than 100 years, the Chicago Manual has been the go-to reference for style, usage, and grammar.

While AP style meets the needs of a daily, 24-hour news cycle, the Chicago Manual addresses the longer planning cycles of the publishing industry. Editions may therefore be separated by six years or more.

Among the changes in the seventeenth edition are the lowercasing of internet and the dropping of the hyphen from email.

The manual is divided into three main parts:
- Part I: The Publishing Process
- Part II: Style and Usage (including a chapter on grammar by Bryan A. Garner)
- Part III: Source Citations and Indexes
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students & Researchers (Kate L. Turabian)

Current edition: ninth (2018)

Audience: students and researchers

Website: www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/turabian

Since Kate L. Turabian assembled guidelines for students at the University of Chicago in 1937, Turabian style has been a reference standard.

The manual’s ninth edition covers the research and writing process, from planning to production; all aspects of source citation, including both notes-bibliography style and author-date style; and style matters, offering guidance on spelling, punctuation, and numbers.

The notes-bibliography style is frequently used in the humanities and social sciences, while the notes-bibliography style is more often used in the natural and physical sciences.

The eighth edition diverged in small ways from the Chicago Manual, but the ninth edition aligns completely with the Chicago Manual.

Turabian/Chicago style paper-formatting tip sheets can be found here.

Modern Language Association (MLA)

Current edition: eighth (2016)

Audience: scholars, journal publishers, and academic and commercial presses

Website: www.mla.org/MLA-Style

As expressed in the preface by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, the purpose of this edition is to offer a “truly flexible documentation practice that will continue to serve writers well in a changing environment.”

The handbook is divided into two main parts. The first part addresses the principles of MLA style and covers the reasons for documenting sources, plagiarism, and the Think, Select, Organize model.

The second part addresses the details of MLA style, including treatments for names, titles, quotations, numbers, works cited, and in-text citations.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA)

Current edition: sixth (2009)

Audience: scholars and others writing in the the social and behavioral sciences

Website: www.apastyle.org

Maintaining styles for scientific communications, the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association is favored by writers, editors, students, and educators in the social and behavioral sciences.

The contents include the following:
- Writing for the Behavioral and Social Sciences
- Manuscript Structure and Content
- Writing Clearly and Concisely
- The Mechanics of Style
- Displaying Results
- Crediting Sources
- Reference Examples
- The Publication Process
APA Style employs the author-date system for citations.

AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors

Current edition: tenth (2007)

Audience: authors, researchers, institutions, medical editors, publishers, and members of the news media who cover scientific research

Website: http://www.amamanualofstyle.com/

The AMA Manual of Style is geared at the medical and scientific publishing community: authors, researchers, institutions, medical editors, publishers, and members of the news media who cover scientific research.

The tenth edition features expanded electronic guidelines, increased attention on ethical and legal issues, and guidelines on authorship, conflicts of interest, scientific misconduct, intellectual property, and individuals’ rights in scientific research and publication. The manual examines research ethics and editorial independence and features new material on indexing and searching as well as medical nomenclature.

The manual is also available online.

Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers

Current edition: eighth (2014)

Audience: authors, editors, publishers, students, and translators in science and related fields

Website: www.councilscienceeditors.org/publications/scientific-style-and-format/

Scientific Style and Format is aimed at authors, editors, publishers, students, and translators in science and related fields (physics, chemistry, genetics, biological sciences, and astronomy). The eighth edition was updated for electronic and online environments and for changes in international standards and policies.

The manual contains style instructions for numbers, units, mathematical expressions, and statistics; information on managing tables, figures, and indexes; guidance on plagiarism and other aspects of academic integrity; and information on copyright law and Creative Commons.

With coverage ranging from style conventions to publishing procedures to citation practices, Scientific Style and Format offers clear guidance on both print and electronic publications.

Scientific Style and Format is available in print and online. You can visit scientificstyleandformat.org for a free trial.

Free Online Style Guides
June 10, 2018
Four on the Floor with Stevie Kopas

In the previous Four on the Floor interview, we were treated to insights from one of horror’s leading new lights, Stephen Kozeniewski. For this interview, we get the perfect follow-up: Kozeniewski’s Slashvivor! coauthor Stevie Kopas.

Bio: Stevie Kopas was born and raised in New Jersey. She is a gamer, a writer, and an apocalypse enthusiast. Stevie will never turn down a good cup of coffee and might even be a bit of a caffeine addict. Stevie is the managing editor of the website Horror Metal Sounds, and she is also a writer/reviewer for the site.

Stevie’s works include the Breadwinner trilogy (The Breadwinner, Haven, and All Good Things), Never Say Die (collection), Slashvivor! (with Stephen Kozeniewski), and Madness Burns (collection).

Now here’s the interview!

James Gallagher: Horror can be beautiful, unsettling, terrifying, universal. If a Cenobite were forcing you to choose one thing you love about the genre, what would it be?

Stevie Kopas: Look, if a Cenobite were talking to me, I’d probably piss my pants. But I guess if I have to choose just one thing from the horror genre that I’m in love with, it would be the apocalypse. The reminder that humans aren’t invincible and we are more problematic than we think is great. I seem to always gravitate toward apocalyptic fiction of every media type, so that’s definitely my thing.

JG: Writers are always told to pen tales that only they could write. What do you bring to your writing that’s pure Stevie Kopas?

SK: I suppose I try to incorporate personality elements of people I know or have interacted with in my life into the characters I create. That makes them feel more real to me. Plus, I can take out my frustrations on anyone I feel like in any way that I want when I’m writing, so it’s definitely therapeutic. I also think I have a tendency to play on the sarcastic side of things. Writing is just more fun that way.

JG: How have your feelings about editing and the editing process changed since you began writing?

SK: I have a huge respect for editors and the editing process. It’s a lot of work for both the writer and the editor (mostly the editor lol) and that respect increases with each thing that I write.

JG: What’s a recent book that you think everybody should be reading? Are there any movies or series that you can’t stop talking about?

SK: A recent book everyone needs to read? Well, I’m going to take this opportunity to shamelessly promote myself here! lol My most recent release, Never Say Die: Stories of the Zombie Apocalypse, was super fun to write and I think it’s a fresh and unique collection of zom-poc fiction for lovers of the genre.

As far as recent movies, I’m totally obsessed with Alex Garland’s Annihilation. It’s a beautiful horror film with stunning visuals and a haunting story, so people need to watch it!

For more information about Stevie Kopas, look for her on Twitter, Facebook, and her website.

April 29, 2018
Four on the Floor with Stephen Kozeniewski

Stephen Kozeniewski’s novel The Hematophages was named by horror legend Brian Keene as the number one book of 2017, so I was thrilled to have Stephen take part in one of our Four on the Floor interviews. Enjoy!

Bio: Stephen Kozeniewski lives in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the modern zombie. During his time as a field artillery officer, he served for three years in Oklahoma and one in Iraq, where due to what he assumes was a clerical error, he was awarded the Bronze Star. He is also a classically trained linguist, which sounds more impressive than saying his bachelor’s degree is in German.

James Gallagher: Who are your writing heroes, and has mentoring played a role in your development as an author?

SK: Well, barring your Douglas Adamses and your Dostoevskys, Tolkiens, and Vonneguts, my greatest writing hero is Brian Keene. The others being dead, I felt it incumbent upon me to tell him at a signing once. I guess he liked the cut of my jib or something, because I haven’t been able to get rid of him since.

His mentorship has opened many doors for me, as he’s introduced me to editors and publishers, and given me opportunities to work with people and on projects I never would have broken into alone.

Networking is absolutely vital in this business, and at the end of the day it’s never really stopped being an apprenticeship industry. Other authors have helped me get to where I am, and I always try to pass along what I can to aspiring authors as well.

JG: What do you find particularly exciting about the horror genre, and what do you most hope readers take away from your writing?

SK: After decades of being the rented mule of the redheaded stepchild of literature, it definitely seems like horror is finally having its day in the sun. It was the highest grossing horror film of all time last year—a genuine horror blockbuster.

Meanwhile, films like Get Out and The Shape of Water are getting critical respect and taking home awards. The Walking Dead is still a major television phenomenon, and shows like Black Mirror and Stranger Things are blowing up Netflix. I think it’s a terribly exciting time for the horror genre and I’m just pleased to be a part of it.

I hope my readers enjoy themselves. I hate to be pat about it, but that’s the long and short of writing for publication. If you’re not writing with the hopes of bringing your audience some pleasure—whether it be intellectual, vicarious fright, or even just titillation—then there’s no point publishing. Just keep it on your computer.

JG: In what ways has editing (both editing your own work and having it edited by others) sharpened your writing or contributed to the evolution of your writing process?

SK: Not in the slightest. No, I’m just kidding. Before my first professional edit I didn’t know what I didn’t know, if that makes sense. Now I feel fairly confident when doing self-edits that I can identify the major flaws in the piece as well as some of my personal tics. It’s really something you can only learn by doing, I think.

JG: Speaking of your process, do you more often outline your stories or do you start with a more general image or idea and then just let it rip?

SK: Primarily the latter. I’ve tried numerous methods, such as writing extemporaneously (Braineater Jones, Billy and the Cloneasaurus), plotting heavily (The Ghoul Archipelago), and outlining on a whiteboard (Every Kingdom Divided). But when it comes to the debate between pantsing and plotting, I remain firmly agnostic. I just do whatever feels best for the project.

***

Check out Stephen’s blog or follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

March 21, 2018