Masters of Content

I recently had a glimpse of a publisher’s handbook to authors. This was a handbook for academic books. Not that I ever personally have had use for one, but anyway, curiosity drives feline morbidity. A great deal of the handbook deals with ebooks.

This got me to thinking—since publishers are so beholden to electronic publication, the use of technology is now driving how authors write. We are being limited by our own devices. Consider: any books should now be readable via internet, Kindle, Nook, iBook, iPhone, Android, you get the picture. Many of these platforms have their own programming requirements.

I never ran into the word “chunky” in academics before. To me, chunky is an adjective appropriate to ice cream or peanut butter, not units of text. I was, of course, wrong.

Chunky text is text that keeps information in small blocks. It allows for skimming, not taking the time to absorb content. As someone who has written seven books (none published), I know that should I ever locate a publisher, my desire would be that readers read what I wrote. Am I a chunky writer?

The handbook goes on to specify that books should be written chunkily—the use of the adverbial form is mine, but the idea isn’t. If you can’t write this way, use short paragraphs, the author is instructed.

I have no problem with short paragraphs—in fact, I prefer them. Despite the fact that I read copiously, it is still useful to stop at the end of a paragraph, and if you’ve got an emergency such as dinner burning, a baby crying, or an email update from Amazon, you need to be able to pick up where you left off. Just don’t tell Tolstoy, Hawthorn, or Melville.

As I gaze toward that unknown country called the future, I see writing itself conforming to electronic style. Books, I hope, will never become extinct. And a book is made of paper, not silicone. Nevertheless, if publishers insist that chunky writing be applied, we will see that filter down into the writing style even of novelists and other thinkers. After all, discoverability is key.

If you’re like most people, you’re just skimming this. I, on the other hand, am thinking of chunky ice cream as I read each word.

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