Styles, for Writers

Style—grammar, punctuation, paragraph construction, capitalization—is an inexact science. Consistency on the page often supersedes textbook guidance, and there remains a lot of room for artful flair. Even the title of this article, with that comma, for example, demonstrates a bit of artistry.

However.

Conventions are important, and when submitting narrative prose to an agent or publisher—or perhaps even a critique group—an author should follow expected convention as much as possible. In the United States, the formatting of your manuscript should ideally follow the industry standard manuscript format (reference page: The Industry Standard Manuscript), and your prose should adhere closely to guidelines found in The Chicago Manual of Style. The Associated Press Stylebook defines the style expectations for newspapers and news websites, magazines, PR, press releases, and marketing copy. Blog posts and online content, though more naturally aligned to the AP style of content, often will follow the CMOS, or the author's bespoke preferences.

Note, this page addresses an American-specific editorial expectation for narrative works. British English-based publications follow a different set of standards.

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Common considerations . . .

Oxford Comma

There really is no excuse not to use the Oxford comma—the comma before the conjunction in a list of three or more—except in rare artful presentations. The oxford comma adds clarity. Choose clarity.

✔ The red, yellow, and green balloons. YES
✗ The red, yellow and green balloons. NO

Punctuation has an impact on meaning

Be aware of how comma usage can change meaning.

Eats shoots and leaves.
. . . describes the eating habits of certain tree-dwelling animals.

Eats, shoots, and leaves.
. . . suggests someone just got murdered.

(See also Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss, Gotham Press, 2004. Notice she doesn't use the Oxford comma in her title. Probably to drive American writers to drink.)

Ellipses

How ellipses are to be implemented within a publication
(and not within your manuscript)

The Chicago Manual of Style prefers three spaced periods (suspension points) with additional spacing (with exceptions) around the set of dots. The spaces between the dots require the use of nonbreaking spaces in order to facilitate correct word-wrapping of the ellipsis as a unit. If punctuation follows an ellipsis, an additional nonbreaking space is added between (exception: ending quotation mark) so that punctuation wraps with the ellipsis.

I.e., if you look at the model description below, there is a nonbreaking space before the exclamation point, but no space at all between the third period of the ellipsis and the quotation mark.

When your book goes to production, this will very likely how your book publisher will format they ellipses. And if you self publish, you really should make the effort to implement this correctly.

Examples of usage demonstrating the spacing requirements.

✔ "I . . . Um . . . Er . . . So . . . Do you want to go out on Saturday?"

✔ "I . . . ," he said, then scratched his head. "Well, I forgot what I was going to say."

✔ Everyone knows that the Declaration of Independence begins with the sentence "When, in the course of human events . . ." But how many people can recite more than the first few lines of the document? —Example taken from CMOS 18th ed., 12.64 (17th ed., 13.55). Notice the dropped space between the ellipsis and the ending quotation mark.

✔ "I thought he was coming to the party, but now . . . ?" —Note that if that question (?) mark was instead a period (.) marking the end of a sentence, a fourth period could be added (now . . . ."), but Chicago suggests you drop it for clarity's sake: (now . . .").

How ellipses are to be implemented within your manuscript
(and not within a publication)

The manuscript author exception:

The Chicago Manual of Style in 18th ed., 12.68 (17th ed., 13.50) makes a convenience allowance for manuscript authors to use the individual ellipsis character instead:

12.68   Spaced periods versus the ellipsis character. A Chicago-style ellipsis consists of three spaced periods . . . like that. [. . .] Some publishers instead use the horizontal ellipsis character (…), defined for Unicode as U+2026. This character, which has the advantage of not breaking over a line, may also be preferred by some authors when they are preparing their manuscripts (alternatively, three unspaced periods, which will also stay together, may be used, provided only one type of ellipsis appears throughout a document). A space should be used before and after an unspaced ellipsis … like that, except when the ellipsis is followed by a comma or other mark of punctuation …, like that. Copyeditors imposing Chicago style will replace these characters with Chicago-style spaced periods, adding nonbreaking spaces as needed.

The model: _. . ._   _. . ._!_   _. . ."_
Those ellipses are single characters. For the sake of not fighting the particularities of word-wrapping, you could even drop that space, _. . .!_, between the trailing punctuation and the ellipsis. The publisher will fix it later.

The reasoning is simple: juggling those dots and nonbreaking spacing is difficult at the keyboard level and should be left to the publisher. They will search and replace all of those character combinations with dots and nonbreaking spaces.

So, for your manuscript, use the ellipsis character and honor the spacing so that your publisher can easily format it to their desired pattern using search and replace.

Em Dashes

Em dash usage is relatively straight forward. And the model of formatting is simple. Em dashes are essentially super-commas and they can also be used in place of parentheses in most cases. They are also used to show interruption. They are almost always used without spacing surrounding the em dash unless the em dash is truncating a sentence.
(See also, post "Minuses, Hyphens and Dashes. Oh, My!")

Examples:

The em dash interruption (CMOS 18th ed., 12.42)

✔ "I think we should—wait, did you hear that noise?"
✔ "I think we should— Wait, did you hear that noise?" (preferred, but depends on pacing)

Parenthetical em dashes (CMOS 18th ed., 6.91)

✔ The three core ingredients—flour, water, and yeast—are all you need to begin your baking journey.

Because this could be: The three core ingredients (flour, water, and yeast) are all you need to begin your baking journey.

Em dashes help avoid "comma soup" (CMOS 18th ed., 6.91)

✔ The delegates—hailing from France, Germany, and Italy—refused to sign the treaty until the terms were clarified.
. . . instead of . . .
✗ The delegates, hailing from France, Germany, and Italy, refused to sign the treaty until the terms were clarified. (Note, this is not incorrect, per se, but simply less clear.)

The em dash terminal expansion, i.e., replacing the colon (CMOS 18th ed., 6.91)

✔ After years of searching and thousands of dollars spent, he finally found the perfect gift—a vintage 1968 typewriter.

Trailing off using em dashes . . . (CMOS 18th ed., 12.42)

✔ "But I thought you said that the—" She stopped, realizing she had already said too much.
✔ "Did he really say—?"

Those indicate a more punctuated trailing off. But if you wanted a bit more drift in the pacing, you could have done (see also CMOS 18th ed., 12.43, etc.):

✔ "But I thought you said that the . . ." She stopped, realizing she had already said too much.
. . . or . . .
✔ "But I thought you said that the . . ." She stopped, realizing she had already said too much. —the manuscript author exception

✔ "Did he really say . . . ?"
. . . or . . .
✔ "Did he really say . . . ?" —the manuscript author exception

Plurals for words that end in an S sound (CMOS 18th ed., 7.5)

This is an easy guideline. You add es.

✔ Bus → Busses (or buses^*)
✔ Box → Boxes
✔ Waltz → Waltzes
✔ Dish → Dishes
✔ Jones → Joneses

^* Neat! Both 'busses' and the more common 'buses' are acceptable.

Singular Possessives (CMOS 18th ed., 7.16)

This is an easy guideline. You add 's.

✔ Todd's website is great.
✔ Keats's poems are particularly rich with imagery.
✔ Stephen Graham Jones's novels are an example of literary, upmarket horror.
✔ Marx’s theories
. . . and not . . .
✗ Keats' poems are particularly rich with imagery.
✗ Stephen Graham Jones' novels are an example of literary, upmarket horror.
✗ Marx’ theories

The idiomatic exception (CMOS 18th ed., 7.21)

✔ For goodness’ sake.

When it gets clunky, the CMOS suggests rewording the phrase:

✔ "The plays of Euripides" instead of "Euripides’s plays."

Plural Possessives (CMOS 18th ed., 7.16)

For plural possessives that end in an S sound . . . you add an apostrophe.

✔ The team met at the Joneses' house for dinner.
✔ My classes' schedules changed.
. . . and not . . .
✗ The team met at the Joneses's house for dinner. (That would be inSSSanity!)
✗ My classes's schedules changed. (Again . . . INsssSSSanity!)

Punctuation and the Ending Quotation Mark (CMOS 18th ed., 6.9–11)

Punctuation goes inside the ending quotation mark, but there are some exceptions.

✔ "I’m headed to the store," he said. "I'll be back in an hour."
✔ "Are you coming with us?"
✔ "Stop right there!"

If we were quoting someone . . .

✔ Did he really say, "I'm never coming back"?
✔ I can't believe she called that "a minor inconvenience"!

But, if it ends in a period for this last example . . .

✗ I can't believe she called that "a minor inconvenience".
✔ I can't believe she called that "a minor inconvenience."
. . . because, English. 😭

Punctuation Mark	Position	Example
Period (.)	Always Inside	"This is the end of the story."
Comma (,)	Always Inside	"Wait," he said, "I'm coming too."
Semicolon (;)	Always Outside	He called the car "vintage"; I called it a wreck.
Colon (:)	Always Outside	She had three "must-haves": coffee, silence, and a book.
Question Mark (?)	Contextual (Inside)	He asked, "Where are you going?"
Question Mark (?)	Contextual (Outside)	Did he really say, "I'm leaving"?
Exclamation Point (!)	Contextual (Inside)	"Stop right there!"
Exclamation Point (!)	Contextual (Outside)	I can't believe he called that "a minor delay"!

What if the inner quote is a question?

✗ Did he really ask, "When are you coming back?"?
✔ Did he really ask, "When are you coming back?"
✗ He asked, "When are you coming back?".
✔ He asked, "When are you coming back?"

Asking a question about a question someone asked?

✔ He called the performance "spectacular"; however, the critics disagreed.
✔ She had three "must-haves": coffee, silence, and a good book.

Scenario	Placement	Example
Outer sentence is a question	Outside	Did he really say, "I'm never coming back"?
Inner quote is a question	Inside	He asked, "When are you coming back?"
Both are questions	Inside	Did he really ask, "When are you coming back?"

Hyphenated Words (and Compounds)

This section is not complete yet. Please reference CMOS 18th ed., 7.87–7.96.

Minuses, Dashes, and More

I have posted (way back in 2019) a whole article on this topic: "Minuses, Hyphens and Dashes. Oh, My!".

More to Come

This may look like a list of pet peeves, but it's really more of a list of common issues that even experienced writers struggle with at times. In the end, editors can be rather forgiving (editor dependent) and they may even state a clear preference. Consistency often supersedes the textbook guidance. But it is best to adhere to The Chicago Manual of Style as much as possible since it is tacitly "the standard."