Chicago Manual of Style

Right now I'm paying the $35 per year (in my second year) and use it regularly. It works out to about $.067 a week. Of course, I probably should be using it more than I am. I agree with Jack's assessment--dealer's choice.

MLA and APA are for academic writing, yes? Chicago and the AP Style book are valid choices for fiction. I believe AP is more referenced by journalists, while Chicago tends to be the choice for publishing houses who take on fiction (I think). My personal feeling is that matters of style at the micro level are mostly for the final round of edits, & can be handled by one's editor. (I think most publishing houses have their own preferred style book, so some of these edits would be moot until right before publication anyway.)

The most important thing in early drafts is probably just to be consistent.

Dirk, have you thought about buying the latest print version of Chicago rather than going for an online subscription? I'm not sure if that fits your goals at this point, but unless you need the latest updates to Chicago as they're developed, I don't see the advantage of a yearly subscription over a print version? Something to think about, anyway. Probably the online version is worth your money if you want to be up to date constantly. That seems like something a journalist or a professional writer who expects to be published pretty consistently might need -- to stay relevant. It seems like the print version would work (even an early version) until the final round of edits. And like I said, a lot of the style details would be handled in partnership with your editor. And you could probably borrow the latest Chicago from the library while you're editing.

Only my thoughts...

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If you renew, consider looking up the proper use of italics.

http://tinyurl.com/zzq8spc

Why is an editor correct, and a competent author not? Aside from final publishing-house-rules edits -- which means the book has already been accepted -- I see there is an implication an editor is needed at all. Why is that?

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G. Stein was not primarily a novelist, and I have never read any, nor think to do so.

And generally as to 'proofreading' function, and not so much for anything else, for which CMS is a needed guide, of a hired editor, there is a line to draw between if editor will catch, say, a couple of mistakes in a chapter and if far more; if the latter, the author is a bad writer who can't be trusted to offer any value more than plot ideas.

To get to the other side!

Well, hello, Charles. Always nice to encounter you in one of these threads. Let's see what we have today. Ah! A debate about the relevance of editors before submitting in the middle of a discussion on whether or not a yearly subscription to Chicago is worth the money.

At first glance your interruption appears to have an intellectual seed: I have said something in my post which you read as an implication that I believe an editor is necessary before submitting, and that an editor knows better about stylistic choices than a "competent" author. You disagree.

If your goal was simply to spotlight this topic as one worthy of discussion, you would have calmly presented your opinion on the matter and put it up for healthy discussion. I'm sure people would have joined in on such a thread, as it is relevant to our field here at the site, and there are surely diverging opinions. You might have referenced your interpretation of my post and stated an opposing position, sticking to facts and your own view. Instead, you make the debate about what I think, rather than the topic itself. You cast yourself as the defender of the rights of scribes, and cast me as some sort of opponent who demands an editor be hired, leaping from your interpretation of my post to a demand for its justification. This suggests that either a) you give my opinion a great deal of weight and cannot possibly rest until you know my thoughts on the relevance of editors before submitting, or that b) your actual goal when you posted above had nothing to do with a rational dissection of the relevance of an editor before submitting, and everything to do with establishing your power in a combative moment fabricated from thin air.

Listen, Charles. It isn't that I don't find the topic potentially constructive, but past conversations with you have proven that we have opposing goals in a discussion. I consider you to be combative and illogical. I don't see this conversation going anywhere sensible, and I can see already that your goal here is merely to nail down someone (ANYONE) to a viewpoint you hold so that you can establish intellectual dominance and feel again the surge of power that is the trademark of the forum troll.

I have no wish to continue being dragged into your strange worldview just to serve as the catalyst to your weekly energy boost. If you need self-confidence, seek a therapist. If you want to discuss writing, try being open-minded and presenting your ideas with a little humility.

Please take my silence in response to any future efforts to engage me in strange debate as evidence that I continue to doubt your maturation as an intellect, and that I consider any conversation with you a waste of my time. You seem to like collecting my opinions, and that's certainly one to bat about divinely.

With best wishes for your writing. Corra

Corra, I think your posting could be condensed into "My discussions with you, Charles, tend to decay into polemic.  I do not like to spend time in polemic, so I'm declining the discussion with you.  Please regard this as an apology if you need one."  Is this a fair summary?

For example, the Oxford comma is optional according to publication house, but the comma before a conjunction between two independent clauses is not. This last mistake is common here on TNBW and so too is the attitude 'Who cares about commas and that is for the editor to take of.' Comma mistakes, if not rare mistakes from fallibility, and especially the attitude, is a mark of an incompetent author.

Phraseology and word choice is a different matter. However, I also believe, contrary to common opinion, an author's editing while writing minimizes this problem even if it does slow down the writing.  The context is on whether the book is part of a production scheme in which an author has 'his people' do the menial tasks, or  the author has an emotional attachment to not only on what is said but on how it is exactly said. I have never had an 'editor' type provide me with the mot juste but a friend and a TNBW reviewer or two and not usually unless I ask directly.

Also consider the role of the more senior editor by using this example of when Edward N. Zalta took charge as editor of The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy sometime before 2015:

(2003) Karl Marx (1818–1883) is best known not as a philosopher but as a revolutionary communist.

becomes

(2015) Karl Marx (1818–1883) is best known not as a philosopher but as a revolutionary.

Moreover, one of the fairest explanations of the philosophy of Ayn Rand had inserted into it a new introduction exhorting the reader to believe that Rand is never taken seriously by academic philosophers.