If somebody posted on gamedev like Strunk and White wrote that paragraph, with such a snide tone and the use of loaded words like "cost of the violation", they would probably get warned for borderline trolling. Consider all that the phrase "cost of the violation" implies: that not following the rules of rhetoric is equivalent to breaking a law, and always costs something. Absurd. What does it cost you to decide that a particular sentence needs to end with a ?! to convey the proper emotion? Does it cost anything if I decide to end a sentence with a preposition or begin one with a conjunction? Or, horrors, an incomplete sentence? The rules contained in S&W do not allow for the normal way people abuse language in dialogue, and which, when replaced with proper English, makes dialogue sound unnatural, stiff and stilted. And that doesn't even touch on the issue of postmodern or experimental fiction...

I have a book called "Character Development And Storytelling For Games" by Lee Sheldon, and I really like it.

- Cerasti

The thing that you're not mentioning there, sas, is that it's pretty obvious what following Elements of style gets you as a starting writer: grammatical correctness. Having proofread half a dozen works prior to submission to publishers, I can honestly say that I believe that is an advantage beyond compare. Very few things will get you rejected from a professional market faster than having material that consistently fails to observe EoS's guidelines. There IS a cost associated with personal style - it is harder to read. EoS-compliant writing may be dull on some levels, but it is not difficult to read.

Writing book recommendation:
On Writing, Stephen King.

Not a proper how-to-write book, really, but you'll learn a lot about how to write by reading it all the same.

I just want to add: Any book that begins with "How to..." is usually bullshit.

Anyway, my pick is Stephen King's On Writing. It doesn't so much tell you how to write a story, it's more like telling you what are the common mistakes bad writers make and how to tell a story that isn't boring or too unoriginal.

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
If somebody posted on gamedev like Strunk and White wrote that paragraph, with such a snide tone and the use of loaded words like "cost of the violation", they would probably get warned for borderline trolling. Consider all that the phrase "cost of the violation" implies: that not following the rules of rhetoric is equivalent to breaking a law, and always costs something. Absurd. What does it cost you to decide that a particular sentence needs to end with a ?! to convey the proper emotion? Does it cost anything if I decide to end a sentence with a preposition or begin one with a conjunction? Or, horrors, an incomplete sentence? The rules contained in S&W do not allow for the normal way people abuse language in dialogue, and which, when replaced with proper English, makes dialogue sound unnatural, stiff and stilted. And that doesn't even touch on the issue of postmodern or experimental fiction...

Dialogue is a completely different beast when it comes to grammar. Dialogue is normally contained by quotation marks, suggesting that a person is a speaking (or has spoken) the words within, which tells the reader that they should not expect a flawless formal style, rather they should expect an informal delivery that is often associated with dialogue. I have really never heard anyone make this complaint about grammar, I thought it was generally understood that spoken English, especially in an informal setting, is held to a different standard than written english, which has the potential to be revised and corrected multiple times before it is shared.

I think it's fairly obvious that EoS seeks to clearly define the rules of formal grammar and EoS does especially well explaining some of the curve balls.

If any of you have read Neal Stephenson's books (and I strongly recommend you do if you haven't already) you may have noticed that most of what he writes is a sort of character's private thoughts put in the shape of homodiegetic narrator with a funny way of talking. It's kind of NOT canonic at all, and still, the guy is successful and pleasant to read. My ideal way of writing, along with Pratchett and Werber...

Quote: Original post by Fournicolas
If any of you have read Neal Stephenson's books (and I strongly recommend you do if you haven't already) you may have noticed that most of what he writes is a sort of character's private thoughts put in the shape of homodiegetic narrator with a funny way of talking. It's kind of NOT canonic at all, and still, the guy is successful and pleasant to read.

Not all of his books are pleasant to read. The Diamond Age is, in particular, suffering coalesced into book format. Snow Crash, on the flip side, is usually cogent and buttery.