Most Common Writing Errors (ONGOING)

Style Over Substance

This chapter covers the title: Style over substance in writing.

Read the disclaimer if you haven't already.

Something to keep in mind is that this whole style over substance thing won't apply to every story and everyone has different writing styles and reading preferences. This is just my perspective on the matter.

I'm sure most people are aware of what style over substance is, but in case you are not, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's when you prioritize the style of something (in art) and not the substance.

An example is Euphoria season 2, where the director is more caught up with making the shots look pretty than writing the plot (not that Euphoria has one), characters, themes, etc.

While it can be argued that style is inherently substance, especially in visual media like film, to that I say this:

No.

I'm sorry, but a pretty shot of Maddie dancing is cool and all, but it tells me nothing about her character, the themes, or the plot, especially since her character introduction in season 1 was of her dancing, so the dancing doesn't even show us that she likes dancing because we know that already. 

What substance do we get from pretty shot #231 of Maddie dancing? If you can cut something out and it wouldn't impact the story whatsoever, then I don't believe it is substance. You can have style while also having substance, y'know? 

That's not to say you can't have any style-only moments at all, especially in film, but I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about using style over substance, AKA overusing style.

Style should enhance the substance, not outshine it. Euphoria's style outshines the substance. When people talk about the positives of Euphoria s2, notice how one of the first things people mention is the cinematography. It's outshining the substance.

Style over substance exists, and it exists in writing too.

Most commonly, style over substance occurs when writers unnecessarily use overly complex vocabulary and/or sentence structures to describe their stories.

There's nothing wrong with complex vocabulary and sentences, but it is a problem when they are overused (or used unnecessarily) and take away from the substance of the story or make the story too hard to read.

If you're consistently writing pretty sentences for the sake of writing pretty sentences, that is style over substance. Complex vocab and sentences can still add to the substance, so I'm not saying don't use them, but I am saying it can be detrimental if overused or if you're just using it because it sounds prettier.

It also depends on what kind of story you're writing. For example, for my work, something like Spiderkook in the Multiverse of Madness (MOM for short) isn't nearly as complex as Like Crazy. Spiderkook is a superhero fic, and while it is a dark story covering difficult topics like PTSD, I save most of my more advanced vocabulary for the intense emotional moments to make them stand out more. Meanwhile Like Crazy has more advanced vocab throughout because of the story genre and target audience.

This might sound harsh, but I don't find it very impressive when an author has a complex vocabulary, especially in modern times where thesauruses are programmed into writing platforms like Word.

Sentence structures I'm a little more impressed by since that demonstrates a solid grasp on language, but I'm not going to list it in my top 5 favorite things about a story.

I'm not saying it's not impressive at all or not something to be proud of, but I'm not going to be impressed by the story based solely off of complex vocab and sentence structure.