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Irvine Valley College Online Creative Writing Workshop Writing 10 - Introduction to Creative Writing Spring 2012 - Ticket # 64580 Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, Instructor |
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With a Style You Like Online Lecture for Week 5: Is Style Everything? Some writers consider it the hallmark of a good writer - some even think style is the ONLY thing a writer needs to worry about. Style tends to be much more important in poetry than in fiction; in poetry the concentrated nature of the text draws attention to word use and order. But I am going to come out right away and say that of all the basic elements of writing, IMHO, style is the most over-rated. Let me explain. Writing is a process of sorting priorities. In drafting even a single sentence, a writer has to make numerous choices. One of the most important of these choices, I believe, is that of meaning. The sentence needs to be constructed so that the meaning is clear according to the context of the piece. Even the placement of a dependent clause, for example, will shift the meaning ever-so-slightly: look at this: Having forgotten her wallet, she proceeded to the Race Track. But the sentence is very different if we put the wallet material in its own clause: She remembered she had forgotten her wallet once she had started for the Race Track. And that sentence has a shade different meaning from Once she had started for the Race Track, she remembered she had forgotten her wallet. In each of these cases, we have escalated the serious nature of the forgotten wallet - if it is going to be an important plot detail, it needs to have the most emphatic sentence structure. Other things that we consider in sentences might be rhythm, flow, relationship to the rest of the material. Now, writers who consider style first, consider it first. If they believe that one kind of style is best, they often use it to the detriment of the story or the poem. You may see this in poetry, for example, when you see a very simple idea all decked out in flowery, superfluous, neverending, toomany, allovertheplace words. A simple idea might be expressed in simple language. What I am suggesting, then, is that the best style is the one that seems to be the natural way of expressing the idea. I always think of the rule in "fashion" about style: you don't want someone to compliment you on your dress, you want them to say how good you look. If the outfit calls attention to itself, then one has missed the point of fashion. [I am aware that this is not so true any more - in the movie world, looking good is not enuf, and you have to wear something that shouts Hey Look At Me!!!!] But movies aside, you can look at poetry and fiction you like and train yourself to see that stylistic elements are almost always there - and are often more deftly done in work that seems not to have a style at all. Your class reading for the week includes a Matthew Arnold poem and a Richard Ford short story. Let us address the style of Arnold, first. Arnold is a poet who writes both musical and complicated lines - and yet, we do not notice his style in the same way we notice the operative style in Byron or Shelley. For one thing, Arnold does not feel as though he needs to address "Oh ye Gods" every other line, or use repeated references to classical figures and concepts. There is a weariness and a maturity to Arnold's style - even when he waxes enthusiastic, he chooses words that hesitate a bit, allow room for shadow and doubt. Now, we could say that this style comes about as a quality of Arnold's position in history. The "Romantic" poets saw a world full of promise, whereas Mid-Victorian and later poets were less sanguine about the fate of civilization. {I am thinking here, too, of the beautiful lines of "Dover Beach" where Arnold observes that the world has "neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor light Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;" Yet, Arnold's style is not the result exclusively of "who he is." He took the time to think through and write about his position both as a poet of personal truth and as part of a tradition. His critical writings indicate that he sifted through every word to create a "style" that was both "of his time" and for all time. This style includes specific elements: sounds like educated speech (but not like a "poet"), uses words of appropriate complexity, expresses ideas of depth, avoids extremities of image (he uses very simple images, really - places we might all have visited, neither exotic nor overly specific). But perhaps this hidden style is easier to see in the work of Richard Ford. Ford has been labeled - painted all over, really - with the critical color "minimalist." Of course he is a writer of his time - but his time saw a much more diverse crop of literary styles, including the rich, image-laden style of Magic Realism, the spare, angular style of many symbolic Postmodernists, and the distinctive "wall of words" of Pynchon and his followers. Minimalism, then, reflects only one style of the era. It is often argued that the minimalist style does emerge from the setting and the characters. Richard Ford's description of his characters says a lot: they are "people who could hope for something better." But real observation of real people in the K-mart and at a soccer match would indicate that they neither talk in simple sentences with functional verbs, nor do they think that way. One thing that seems to often characterize folks with disorganized lives is a tendency to think and write in quite disordered sentences - sometimes verging on the incoherent. But Ford's characters are always cogent and to the point. He uses the catch words and phrases of his era, but his minimalism is not an imitation of life, per se. Rather, he has carefully crafted a very recognizable style that builds a story in carefully-wrought, understated language - individual sentences that each carry a certain heft and weight - smooth building blocks. And, probably most important and ironic - Ford builds these very modeled stories as a vehicle to convey extremely subtle and sophisticated ideas. The subject matter may be the ordinary guy and gal, but the ideas are challenging to even the most well-read literati. While I have tried to place within the range of all the skills that writers try to improve - characterization, plotting, setting, and "greater truth" - we all know that authors are frequently recognized by their style, first. And, indeed, many starting writers are looking for the style that will come to characterize their work, feel right for them. We can try on other styles - the assignment this week is to try a style that you don't normally use. If you tend to be restrained, try writing a flowery poem. If you think your writing is prolix, try using as few words and images as you can to convey the same idea in a little sketch. By and large, however, your writing style will probably come from the way that you feel most comfortable using language. Any style that you have to "construct" is going to hinder your writing going forward. Probably the best style-building practice comes not from "dressing up" your words, but from making sure that the truth of your characters, story, and meaning are developed to the best of your ability.
*Style: in this discussion we will not be talking about standard grammatical and punctuation issues, except as they signal a larger attempt to establish a look-feel for the text.
Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, your Instructor, is a Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Languages Irvine Valley College, Irvine, California
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