What matters more in writing, style or substance? It is an age-old debate, and there is no clear answer, other than “it depends.” It depends on what type of piece you are writing and the ultimate intent of the writer. A literary poem is heavily weighted toward style, while a technical essay is heavily weighted toward substance. However, some essays can be highly stylized, such as those by David Foster Wallace. Fiction sits somewhere between poetry and essays. Some fiction is much more about the style of the prose than the substance of the plot, as in most literary fiction. The unique voice of the writer is more important than the plot, which sometimes doesn’t even exist. Meanwhile commercial fiction (romance and page-turning thrillers) is much more about the substance of the plot and characters. Readers of commercial fiction don’t care about highly stylized prose—in fact that is a distraction. They prefer straightforward, journalistic essay-like prose that delivers the story clearly.