Newspaper style sheet inspired Hemingway: KC Star's one-page list still good advice today.

Ernest Hemingway's clean, spare prose was groundbreaking in American letters. His robust, yet understated, style was born during six and a half months with The Kansas City Star, Mark Zieman, editor of the Star, told NCEW members during the Kansas City convention.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Hemingway was only eighteen and fresh out of high school in Oak Park, Illinois, when he joined the Star in October 1917. He got the job because an uncle who lived in Kansas City knew the Star's editor.

Hemingway left the paper on April 30, 1918, to join the Red Cross ambulance service as a driver. He would be seriously wounded and fall in love with a nurse while recuperating, experiences that would inspire his novel, A Farewell to Arms.

While at the Star, Hemingway was influenced by C.G. "Pete" Wellington, the assistant city editor, who pushed Hemingway to adopt a cleaner, more forceful prose style and to look for telling detail, Zieman noted.

Years later, Hemingway fondly recalled The Star Copy Style sheet, a one-page list of writing rules as useful today as then. "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.... Never use old slang."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In an interview in 194o, Hemingway said they were the best rules he ever learned about writing, Zieman said.

Hemingway learned to go where the action was, whether that meant covering a fire, a mistaken shooting of two revenue officers or to Union Station to see whether any famous people had come into town. The teenager learned other useful things during his time in Kansas City, such as how to sober up drunks and that newspaper editors sometimes kick back expense reports, Zieman said.

While covering a fire, he got too close to the burning building, and his suit was pockmarked by sparks. He filed an expense report for fifteen dollars to cover the damage, but his bosses refused to pay. It was a valuable reminder about newspapers, Zieman joked. "We're cheap."

Hemingway's apprenticeship in Kansas City was seminal. During his days at the Star, Hemingway learned to value "absolute truth and accuracy" and the importance of making a difference in the world, Zieman said.

"He took what the Star gave him, and he gave back a vivid, forceful, economical writing that today we call the Hemingway style."

David D. Haynes is deputy editorial page editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Email: dhaynes@ journalsentinel.com