The Elements of Style - Strunk & White

The Elements of Style

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

William Strunk Jr & E.B. White

A must read for anyone writing anything in the English language. 

It is amazing that Shrunk wrote this in 1919 and it's still relevant today. Why? B/c he took pity on the reader. Reading is not an easy thing when thrown a jumble of words – which is where his rules and principles come into play. He stresses clarity, so readers can just read and not have to work at it. This kind of goal is timeless.

This book will give you a run down of the rules of writing – punctuation, tense, and the frequently debated possessive apostrophe when the subject ends with an S! Don’t get me started on that!

These rules are also something you can get from other how-to-write books, basic grammar books, that kind of thing. You will also pick up these rules while reading. Which is why you must read a lot, and read a variety of writing styles and authors.

If you can get past this first section of The Elements of Style (which is a must-know, but dry and academic), you will be rewarded with tips on how to write better, more clear, and with timeless style (as the title implies).

Punctuation works!

It is the second section, the principles of composition, that are more up the creative writer’s alley.

I'll highlight a few that I found particularly relevant:

Principle 12 – Plan ahead – choose a design and stick to it. 

Most forms of composition have structure. “The skeleton to which the writer brings the flesh and the blood. The more clearly the writer perceives the shape, the better are the chances of success.”

Principle 13 – Make the paragraph the unit of composition.

A single idea fits nicely into a paragraph. 

Breaking up the writing is used to help the reader. 

When you move on from that single idea, that is when you start a new paragraph. This is a sign to the reader: we are moving onto a new idea.

Optics come into play as well. Long blocks of writing can look formidable to a reader. This is where the art/craft of writing comes into play. You can break theses walls of prose into bricks that are not as intimidating looking and easier for the reader to work with.

Typically dialogue is broken up into new paragraphs each time a new character speaks. However, there are exceptions to this. Sometimes authors will keep a conversation of characters together in one paragraph. Eg. When there is a question and quick answer by another character.

Principle 14 – Use the Active voice.

This means putting the subject before the verb. You say who is doing what. The subject is actively doing some verb.

Spinning it around turns it passive. The verb is happening to the subject.

Read that again - the verb is happening to the subject...make sense?

Again, this is a general rule that works great 90% of the time. But, sometimes you want a different tone or feel to your writing, and a passive voice will sound more like what you are looking for. 

Principle 16 – Use definite, specific, concrete language.

In most cases be specific instead of general. This does not mean give every detail possible, but when details are given they are to be accurate and vivid, allowing the reader to imagine the scene (or better yet, themselves in the scene).

Principle 17 – Omit needless words.

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine have no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”

You’ll run across all kinds of quotes from writer like Mark Twain, Stephen King, etc that bang this home. My opinion is again, 90% of the time this is true, but you have an ear to your writing. Trust that ear. If you want to add an extra word or two, maybe a redundant opening to a sentence…go right ahead. But, do it sparingly.

Omit needless words

The final section of the book is "Words and Expressions Commonly Misused."

20 pages full of words and phrases that must have come up so often to a College prof like Strunk that he felt he needed to write them all down. I can attest, there are few in there I could see myself using wrong. Sometimes you just don't know that phrases like To Make Ends Meat (are not actually about being so down and out that you need to use the cut off pieces of meat to survive), are actually To Make Ends Meet. You don't want to submit a piece of writing with a noob error like this. Which is why going through this short and sweet manual is something all writers must do, and do early, and maybe every few years as well.

To make ends meat

Island by Aldous Huxley

Island

Island by Aldous Huxley

- Aldous Huxley -

I think I wasn't in the mood to read this.

This book had been calling me for a few years now. It was sitting on the shelf in the library, in the same spot, in it's ragged form, for years now. It looked to me like nobody had taken this book out in decades. I had read Brave New World and liked it, and recently I ran across a few references to Island. That (and a lack of other books in hand) made me borrow the book.

I knew the general idea - a Utopian island. It started out okay with a shipwreck, some talking parrots, and an introduction to a new society. An isolated society built on the principles of doing what didn't work in the rest of the world (and specifically European society). 

The writing was detailed and flowery (especially the details about the flowers). So, it was a slow read. But then it got even slower when Huxley started explaining the Utopian society. It felt like a personal rant on things he didn't like, and thought he could do better with. Things like medicine, spiritual tranquility, the role of work in one's life, industrialization, Capitalism...it went from shipwreck to political theory in a few chapters. Action to political theory. I had to put the book down. It felt like Huxley was preaching, was being selfish, and not really moving the story along. Which is a bit of a let down since I had really enjoyed Brave New World. I assumed it would have been similar. 

Oh well, I gave it a shot. I will say it wasn't really the writing or the story that turned me off. It was just personal taste I suppose. There were some great ideas in there. But, a lot of words too (as in huge blocks of conversation preaching about how bad things are in the world). This may be just the book for you. So, don't take my opinion and go with it, there are plenty of other great reviews to consider before mine.

I had also just come off a binge of the HBO documentary - The Anarchists. So I was probably at my brain capacity for extreme political ideas.

The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet

Using a beat sheet

My Beat Sheet

I'm trying something new.

The Beat Sheet.

I've been very lucky (and ignorant) with my writing for a long time. I've never outlined my plots, used a three act system, or anything like that. I've just naturally written in that style - an opening, a problem, a climax solution, and an ending. And it's worked out for me. Probably b/c I've kept the story simple, or copied (aka been heavily influenced) by other's writing/stories.

But, I'm always looking for ways to get better. I ran across talk about The Beat Sheet and it made sense to me. Like I said earlier, this kind of plot structure is how I seem to naturally write. However, what I really hoped to get out of this sheet was organization.

Side Note: I guess the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet was originally set up for movie scripts, but it works well for any kind of story. There is a book called Save The Cat! that outlines the method in detail. I only took the basics.

I'm a mess when it comes to organizing. Trying to juggle multiple projects, submissions, rejections, and more complex stories, really slows the brain power down. I need to unload some of my thinking onto paper. In comes the Beat Sheet.

Now instead of trying to keep track of characters, Plot A, Plot B, where they are, where they are going, etc. I tried writing it out within this Beat Sheet system.

It seemed to work well for the general story line. And the best part is that it is written down. I can delete all that info from my brain and hopefully use that brain space to finish up some other projects. I'll come back to this when I'm ready. The best part is that I'll have a great head start.

That's my problem - too many ideas. If I don't write them down I'll forget them. In order to NOT forget them, I have to constantly think about them. So when I write them down, I might as well do it in a format that is going to help organize it. Make sense? 

I will let you know if this Beat Sheet works for me. I'm hoping to get to this project in the next few weeks...but being such an optimist I might be over estimating. It could be in six months from now!