If You’re a Writer, You Need a Personal Style Guide.

Here’s how to create one.

Shaunta Grimes
The Write Brain
Published in
7 min readOct 8, 2024

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Photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash

In the late 1990s, I was baby newspaper reporter in the actual Armpit of America.

When I showed up for my first day on the job, there was an AP Style Guide on my desk. That little yellow book was a revelation to me. It had all the rules, all neatly indexed, right there for me.

Should I write out numbers or use numerals? Is there a period after Dr? Should I use an Oxford comma?

Later, as a student studying English, I used the MLA (or Modern Language Association) style guide. Same deal, slightly different rules.

And now, as a novelist? I mostly use my very own personalized style guide.

My first novel was published by an imprint of Penguin in 2012. Pretty soon after turning in my draft, I got it back all copyedited. And it came with a personal style guide.

The copy editor who worked on my novel created it for me, filling it with all of the edits they had…

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Shaunta Grimes
The Write Brain

Learn. Write. Repeat. Visit me at ninjawriters.org. Reach me at shauntagrimes@gmail.com. (My posts may contain affiliate links!)