The Muse

In today’s Dining In section of the New York Times, Sarah Kershaw writes about “menu psychology” — the science (or art?) of designing a menu that will most entice diners. So, really, someone does understand that the “99″ in just about every price (not limited to food items) does very little to promote quality.

One concept that strikes me is the similarities between a simple menu and a well-crafted manuscript. Kershaw brings up the analogy of music and lyrics, where one may be great but is utterly destroyed by the other (think of a ear-catching pop tune with absolutely horrendous lyrics), and the same may be said for a manuscript. Think carefully about the layout. If your story is about love and the human condition, you probably don’t want a font that is sharp-edged and bold. Or, if you’re going for an academic journal, you don’t want your tracking or leading so far apart that the page looks as though it’s mostly empty space.

A quarrel I have with the way some restaurants mentioned in this article do things is the melodramatic wording in the menu. Saying something is “slammed with flavor” is a turn-off for me, because I appreciate the nuances in food. (You’ll notice that places such as Applebee’s and Huddle House go for the thick wording, while higher-end places go for simple and pithy copy.) I can go to the local supermarket and pick up a Little Debbie cake that is “slammed with flavor,” or I can visit my local baker and get a blueberry scone that has many different flavorful, quality ingredients that work together. One is dominated with sugar and chocolate, the other allows me to experience many of the quality ingredients that the baker uses. I prefer nuance.

When creating your manuscript, I suppose you could ask yourself, “Do I want the equivalent of a laminated chain restaurant menu the size of a legal pad, or a simple, cogent menu from a quality independent place?”

        

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One issue in manuscript formatting that never seems to be cleared up is internal speech. When a character’s thoughts are written on the page, how should they appear? Some authors use italics, some use italics and quotations, and others precede the thoughts with “She thought.” Why the confusion?

Read more…

        

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Here’s a handy list of misused words & phrases.

        

fowlerjk style & usage phrases, usage, writing

Kevin Purdy over at Lifehacker has posted a piece about the Periodic Table of Typefaces. For a freelance writer and editor, this is nothing short of invaluable. For anyone else who has touched a keyboard at least once, it is nothing short of invaluable. I see typefaces mixed and poorly chosen often, and I have pined for quick comparison of assorted typefaces arranged in some meaningful way. (The WYSIWYG display in the latest editions of programs such as Microsoft Word is nice, but it’s arranged alphabetically, which is about as useful as arranging hundreds of books alphabetically by title.)

Print this table out and plaster it on your desk. Better yet, make it your desktop wallpaper.

        

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The Atlantic’s word guru, Barbara Wallraff, clears up a problem I’ve always wondered about: isn’t “I would like to thank” somewhat redundant?
Apparently not. Wallraff writes:

In “I would like to thank…,” “would like to” means “I’m doing it even as I speak.” But you won’t find that meaning of in dictionaries — at least, not anywhere you can find it, in any recognizable form. I believe this is called an “implicit performative utterance” — “performative” because the statement actually does what it refers to, and “implicit” because it doesn’t do it literally and directly, the way, for instance, “I hereby thank …” would.

        

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