Before they became great American writers, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis shared one thing in common: they all worked as beat reporters for the Kansas City Star.

While he only worked at the newspaper for six months, Hemingway credited The Kansas City Star stylebook as “the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing.” The full stylebook doesn’t appear to be available in public domain. However, there are several high-level guidelines and excerpts that any modern writer will find valuable and striking in their simplicity:

The three tenets:

• Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.
• Never use old slang.
• Eliminate every superfluous word.

More dogma:

• Be careful of the word also. It usually modifies the word it follows closest. “He, also, went” means “He, too, went.” “He went also” means he went in addition to taking some other action.
• Be careful of the word “only.” “He only had $10″ means he alone was the possessor of such wealth; “He had only $10,” means the ten was all the cash he possessed.
• In writing of animals, use the neuter gender except when you are writing of a pet that has a name.
• Try to preserve the atmosphere of the speech in your quotation. For instance, in quoting a child, do not let him say “Inadvertently, I picked up the stone and threw it.”

You can get more info on proper writing styles and mechanic from the Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, and the Associated Press Stylebook, which was influenced by classics stylebooks from the Kansas City Star, The Boston Globe, and others.

 

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