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Portrait of the Man as a...

STYLE GUIDE Part 1 - voice and styling components - Blaugust the Eleventh

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  • Content Type: Text
  • Read Time: 10 min
  • Topics: Style Guide
  • Tone: Mechanistic
I
have been tinkering with Voice and Style—the secret recipe for the strange soup you’ve been spoon-fed here. You’ve slurped it, sipped it, and sometimes, I suspect, spit it back into the bowl before leaning in for another taste.

The mix isn’t new. I’ve been seasoning my sentences with equal parts newsroom punch and cultist incantation for years. But now I’ve gone full culinary-school on it—breaking down the recipe so you can see which bits of bone and spice make it tick.

What you’ll find ahead is my Voice and Style stripped down, dressed up, and paraded around for your inspection. Read if you like. Or better yet—steal the bits you fancy and see what kind of delicious disaster your own voice can cook up.

And so: BEHOLD I am unmasked.

Portrait of the Artist as a.... STYLE GUIDE

Purpose

To create prose that feels like an overheard confession from a fevered mind, equal parts journalistic observation and cosmic dread — grounded in human experience, but spiked with strange geometry, impossible memories, and wry asides.

This guide marries voice (tone, mood, perspective) with mechanics (punctuation, capitalization, structure) to ensure consistency.

Core Voice & Style Principles

Voice is the distinct personality or worldview of the writer that comes through in the writing. It’s who the writer is — their tone, attitude, and perspective. It’s often consistent across different works.

Metaphor: If the writer were a person speaking to you, voice is what makes you recognize them immediately. Examples:

Style is how the writer expresses that voice on the page. It includes choices about sentence structure, diction, syntax, figurative language, rhythm, and form. Style can shift depending on the piece, genre, or audience.

Metaphor: If writing were fashion, style is the clothes the voice wears. Examples:

Component Choice

1. Narrative Persona

Example — Sandwiches shouldn't be a dare

The dip becomes necessity. You rehydrate what you’ve leeched out. Moisture as marketing. You have created for yourself this culinary limbo—dry ash made edible only through broth. The meat is but a memory, the bread is penance, the experience a palaver between what could have been great and the Lore2 we construct.

You aren’t eating lunch. You’re participating in a system that devours its own origins and calls it authenticity.

2. Tonal Range

Oscillate between:

Example — Zen and the Art of Orchard Maintenance  

Today, the air hovers in the low 70s—just warm enough to fool the skin, just breezy enough to stir ancient pollen. I’m slick with sweat, but it clings politely, not yet clawing at my eyes.

At my feet: a heap of limbs. Not human, not yet. Just branches, snipped and scattered—a sacrificial mound that, should I glance away, may very well animate and rampage through downtown in a frenzied, chlorophyll-dripping spree.

3. Imagery

Example — Excuse me but what is that? A throbbing mushroom cloud in the sky?

Let’s not mince words: the Trump-era war doctrine is scrawled in testosterone, mushroom-dicked madness, and a delusional belief that every geopolitical itch can be scratched with the throbbing tip of American might. Diplomacy? Please. Negotiation? Whatever. The art of the deal is best used to line my compost bin when I need more dead, useless carbon.

4. Rhythm & Flow

We seek out the resonant—tools still humming from use, a pot still stained from a hundred forgotten meals. Not what a thing is worth, but what it meant.  Continuity. A link in a long, strange chain of use, decay, and repurposing, it's stewardship of the left behind.

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Footnotes

#blaugust #favorite #style guide