What is Style?: Part II

At the beginning of the semester, I had only a vague idea of a definition of style. I still think an exact definition is difficult to pinpoint, but I have a more clear idea now of what style is. I think now, that style has two distinct parts to it. The first part is about clear rules: rules on how to write for your audience, use grammar and syntax, organize, and generally convey information in a logical way. These rules of style are present in any variety of writing, I now know. Whether writing for a class, a comic book, or the web, there is a style governing the writing.
The second part of style ventures into the realm of the fuzzy. Though clear rules dictate style, there are other elements of style that defy definition, that cannot be taught in a handbook. The bits that make a piece of writing interesting often have nothing to do with following rules. A work can adhere to all of the style rules, but still not be anything special. Style is also a voice or tone, a clever turn of a phrase, and interweaving personality into everything else in writing.

"The Most Important" Web Style Rule

I think the most important web style rule is to logically organize one's site. Individuals seeking something on the web are called users (as opposed to readers) and, in order for a site to be successful, it has to be usable. With the wealth of material available on the web, users have a choice in where to find what they are looking for. Unless a site is easy to use, visitors will give up and move on to the next site.
The issues surrounding organization, or lack of organization, of websites are interesting. Since the web is such a (seemingly) different mode of communication than the traditional written word, I think people often forget that websites need to be as organized as other modes of communication. In their online web style guide, Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton write the following: "Although networked interactive hypermedia documents pose novel challenges to information designers, most of the guidance needed to design, create, assemble, edit, and organize multiple forms of media does not differ radically from current practice in print media." The idea for web style in this passage is to distribute information in a logical way even in a non-linear medium. The difference in structure in the creation of web media should not temp people to put whatever they want on the web without consideration of the way it can be understood by the user. Lynch and Horton warn: "Don't get so lost in the novelty of web pages that basic standards of editorial and graphic design are tossed aside." The web is much newer than our other methods to create and communicate with other people, but the tried and true rules it took so long to establish in those other methods is still viable for the web. Of those established rules, organization is the most important there as well.
When I revised my English 328 website, I attempted to logically organize what I had already done. My first website was the equivalent of me blurting out anything over the web because I was just learning how to put a website online. I did not organize at all. For the second website, I was required to include all of my work for the class, so I could not simply throw all of that material on a site and hope a visitor could make sense of it. I organized it with a first page linking to another page which links to all of my projects separately. This organization scheme is not linear like a book, but one item follows another in a logical order. My new site is highly usable for anyone visiting it because I adhered to the web style rule I believe is most important.

Connecting "Paper Style" with "Web Style"

Paper style is all I know and I have not even perfected that yet. I have never had a reason to consider the elements of web style until now. My introduction to it has been through SpiderPro's Styleguide and Lynch and Horton's Web Style Guide. At the risk of sounding contradictory, I was surprised to learn both how similar and how different paper and web styles are.
One similarity between the styles is the necessity to write appropriately for the reader. The very first SpiderPro tip is "Do know your audience." They go on to say "Write and design with your visitors in mind. Don't get tempted to write for yourself." Lynch and Horton offer a similar tip when they write "Web sites are developed by groups of people to meet the needs of other groups of people." They expand on SpiderPro's quick advice by explaining that sites need to be suited to the individuals intended to use them. The same is true of paper style: writing style has to be tailored to the reader or the work will not succeed.
Another similarity between paper and web styles is the need for clarity. Part of achieving clarity is to consolidate information and, to this goal, SpiderPro's guide suggests not to "split topics." Lynch and Horton make this connection between paper style, web style and clarity when they write "We seek clarity, order, and trustworthiness in information sources, whether in traditional paper documents or Web pages." They proceed to make several suggestions toward making a web site with the utmost clarity for the user.
The major difference in paper style and web style is how clarity can be achieved. It isn't exactly simple to be clear on paper, but there is a built-in order to it. The writer begins at the beginning and fills pages that will be read from front to back in a physically ordered sequence. Web sites have no such implicit order. SpiderPro's and Lynch and Horton's web style guides devote many of their tips to navigation, the way clarity is achieved on a web site. Both of the guides have sections about setting up your web site so the user can find their way through the information provided. The tips in both guides focus suggestions foreign to paper style such as ways to keep the user from getting "lost" in the site. In a paper document, all that is required is a page number...links are as simple as flipping a page.
Another difference I found interesting between paper style and web style is the "updating" both guides suggest. I was fascinated because the idea is that returning users to a site expect new material and changes where this is almost impossible with a work on paper. There is a permanence to paper. Once something is committed to the print form, it will remain the same unless it is republished, but this almost never happens. I imagined all the authors who might wish to revisit a work and "update" it according to any new thoughts or insights they wish to add. Web sites are so instantaneous, that changing them is a reasonable expectation.

McCloud #2

For part 2 of this blog, I read Lucas’s part 1 entry (found at www.lholt.blogspot.com). He wrote about an ongoing comic (strip) called “Player vs. Player.” He connects this comic to making use of words and pictures. This is one concept of the nature of comics discussed in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Lucas points to McCloud’s idea that describing comics as words and images working together is too limited a way to think of comics. I agree with Lucas that, in the case of PVP, that definition works just fine.

I would like to add another concept of the nature of comics discussed in Understanding Comics that relates to PVP. McCloud writes (and draws) about the complex ways in which makers of comics attempt to “depict sound in a strictly visual medium” (134). One such method is to insert word balloons. PVP does have many word balloons, but what is more interesting is the use of word balloons containing non-words. McCloud says that “symbols are constantly being appropriated or even invented to cover the non-verbal” (134). Some such examples of this phenomenon in PVP are: “glug glug glug,” “sigh,” and “snnnrrkk.” This interjection of words that are not words is a fascinating tool for comics because it attempts to capture and make meaning out of sound in a way that goes beyond providing simple narrative for the images.

McCloud #1

The online comic I read was Nowhere Girl by Justine Shaw (www.nowheregirl.com). It was pretty terrible. In the first chapter, the main character, Jamie, is whiny and over dramatic about wanting to commit suicide. She even goes to tell her only friend goodbye before offing herself. Of course she doesn’t follow through, so the rest of the storyline revolves around Jamie worrying that her friend Daniel isn’t really her friend and revealing a semi-horrific high school experience to a stranger who then becomes her new only friend. At the end of the chapter, Jamie leaves town on a bus. In the second chapter, Jamie pops up five years later with a cool new computer job, a less irritating attitude, and the possibility of a new girlfriend. Really nothing interesting happens in Nowhere Girl, but I’m not here to critique the content of the comic itself. As unsatisfying as it is, Nowhere Girl exemplifies some of the concepts described in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.

McCloud’s book was written to explain the many complexities of comics as a genre. He first strips away the stigma associated with comics: that they are insignificant as art and literature, something just for kids. McCloud attempts throughout the rest of the book to explain how comics make meaning. The concepts I find most relevant to Nowhere Girl are in Chapter 6, “Show and Tell.” In this chapter, McCloud describes the several ways comics can balance words and images. Comics can tell a story dependant on the images or on the words. Nowhere Girl is the latter. It is what McCloud calls “word specific.” This means “pictures illustrate, but don’t significantly add to a largely complete text” (153). Aside from a few instances, the entire story of Nowhere Girl could be read and understood with no assistance from images. The images are like an added bonus to the story. Actually, at times, the comic form almost detracts from the text of the comic. As McCloud points out, comics “capture the very essence of sound” with the now iconic word balloon (134). Nowhere Girl is so word specific, the images don’t assist in the progression of the story at all, that the word balloons and thought squares that do progress the story often obscure the images and are arranged awkwardly so they are hard to read.

I was looking for the magic that happens between panels, what McCloud calls closure, but I found that in a word specific comic, less is left up to the reader to impose on the comic between images.

What do others think?

I have been experiencing writing information overload and haven't had the time to fully absorb all I've learned from the two writing guides I've just read: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White and Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Williams. I was feeling pretty stupid, to tell the truth, because I haven't yet figured out the way to deal with and apply the writing tips. After reading the blogs of my colleagues, I have the sense they might be in a similar state of mind. Much like what I wrote in my own blog comparing the guides, nothing I read was highly specific in regard to rules and applying them. I enjoyed reading everyone's entries though I didn't find anything that furthers my understanding of Strunk and White and Williams. What I did get from my reading and some commonalities within it was an idea of the particular angle at which I can approach my writing a style rule essay.
An idea recurring in the blogs is Strunk and White's guide being more useful as a reference material and Williams' guide being more useful to writers overall. I wrote about that myself as well. About Strunk and White, Mary wrote "you could just look through the book and find the advice you need" but, she says, "You could never do that with Williams's book." Amber describes Strunk and White as a "quick go-to book," but doesn't think Williams is "as easy to use as a reference guide." The notion reflected in these thoughts is the arrangement and succinct presentation of information in The Elements of Style allow for bite-size tips that are immediately useful.
The trade-up for Strunk and White having easier to find writing tips is their tips lacking depth. Though it requires a closer (slower) read, Williams' guide delves much deeper into explanation and plans of action as far as creating good writing and correcting bad writing. Mary thinks "applying Williams's rules would improve a person's writing more than applying Strunk and White's rules." Amber appreciates the way Williams' guide "step by step tells you how to build your writing" by beginning with crafting sentences and moving to paragraphs and entire documents. The notion in this set of thoughts is Williams' explanations and parts-to-whole approach help to shape writing and style generally.
The positive attributes of each guide that add up to their usefulness seem to be polar opposites. The difference is intriguing to me and has given me the idea to attempt to blend Strunk and White and Williams while writing my style rule. I want to write a rule that is memorable and brief yet is helpful in organizing a work in its entirety.

Comparing Strunk and White with Williams

In my previous blog about The Elements of Style, I addressed Strunk and White’s advice about holding to a design, about style, and about word usage. Williams discusses those same issues in Style, but in a different way.

About design, Strunk and White emphasize virtually every type of writing must adhere to a shape and that shape must be designed and then followed. What Strunk and White call design, Williams calls coherence. Coherence is distributing topics in a paragraph or longer writing in a way that makes sense to the reader. Williams says “we always have to choose our topics, to design topic strings that focus the reader’s attention on a particular point of view” (82). By discussing design and coherence, the authors of both books are stressing the need to organize writing to convey information in a readable way. Williams’ advice for this issue is more useful (and usable) than the advice offered by Strunk and White. Strunk and White stress the importance of design, but do not offer an avenue to creating that design or recognizing when or why that design has derailed in a piece of writing. Williams devotes two chapters to coherence and describes in detail how to create coherence and correct lack of coherence.

One of the more readable chapters in Strunk and White about style and the difficulty of developing style since it is not something that can be explicitly taught. Williams also concedes the complexity of style, but offers more information on the elements that add up to style in writing. Chapters on concision, length, and elegance are all advice from Williams that go beyond creating clear sentences and paragraphs and move toward developing style. Where Strunk and White claim style is hard to put one’s finger on, Williams claims the same but still offers suggestions about identifying pieces of style.

Word usage as an issue Strunk and White and Williams handle in a more widely different way. Strunk and White are highly specific about words, almost to the point of ranting, usually words not to use. Williams even alludes to some of the tirades about certain words in his chapter on usage that is more relaxed and informative. He acknowledges that “good” English is often arbitrary and explains how it came to be that way. He does outline the grammar rules that must not be broken in writing, but writes about words only that can easily be misused, not about words that personally irritate him.

I believe Williams’ Style is more useful overall than Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style because it allows a writer tips to recognize and correct bad writing. One way I believe Strunk and White are more effective is in their approach to organizing their book. The Elements of Style is easy to reference upon having a specific question. Style’s approach to organization makes it easy to read as a whole but also makes it difficult to find specific advice.