ARE YOU STYLISH?
by
Sally Zigmond

How does that old song go? `You’ve either got or you haven’t got style. ` But what exactly is style? And what has it got to do with writing?
        To me it’s that indefinable quality which distinguishes the okay from the brilliant. How often do you read an article, short story or novel and say, `I could do better than that’? Don’t you often feel like that great American humorist, Dorothy Parker, when she reviewed a book as follows? `This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be hurled across the room with great force. `
        You know what I mean. The spelling is correct, all grammatical rules apply, but there’s something you can’t quite put your finger on. The dictionary definition of style is, `elegance, refinement, or excellence of manner, expression, form or performance. ` So how do we achieve this in our writing?
        Too many new writers make the mistake of cluttering up their prose with unnecessary words hoping that this will demonstrate their fluent command of English. Too many thats and whiches, convoluted sentences of words straight from the Thesaurus and not from everyday life.
        Dialogue qualifiers spring to mind. `I hate you, ` she articulated, shouted, cried attested, averred, affirmed or, even worse, ejaculated. These make me cringe. What’s wrong with good old ‘said’? The speaker’s state of mind should be clear from the words you give her to say. Another example of bad style is an over-reliance on adverbs. Adverbs are the lazy writer’s friend. She stamped her foot angrily. She murmured quietly. She shouted loudly. Don’t ever do this. If your writing is so weak that you haven’t made things clear, an adverb isn’t going to save you. If you insist on using adverbs, and there’s nothing wrong with the occasional one, how about trying the unexpected? She stamped her foot carefully. Brings you up with a jolt, doesn’t it? Is she acting for effect or has she got a broken ankle? It’s intriguing. Being adventurous with vocabulary can only enrich your writing. Don’t overdo it, that’s all. Always remember. Less is more.
        The same goes for descriptive writing. Keep it simple. But there’s always an exception, particularly when the effect is comic. Take this classic passage from The Wind in the Willows:
        `What’s inside it?’  asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.
        `There’s cold chicken inside it, ` replied the Rat briefly; `coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater---`
        Did you spot the avoidance of the adverb in `wriggling with curiosity`? But what about briefly? I hear you mutter. That’s an adverb, isn’t it, clever-clogs? Yes, but just look at what Kenneth Grahame does with it. He follows it with the exact opposite. And how clever and original he is to condense it all into one long word, thus creating excitement, speed and excess in one go. That`s style!
        Another way to make language sparkle is to use the active rather than the passive voice. Crowds clogged the streets is active. The streets were clogged with people` is passive. The active voice is just what it says. Passive descriptions lack immediacy. This is not to say that there aren’t times when this voice is perfect for the effect you wish to create. When writing, make sure you use all the tools available. You ought to be able to justify the use of every noun, verb or adjective. If any word has no function, get rid of it.
        Try also to avoid the obvious. Too many clichés kill writing stone-dead. (Yes, I know that’s a cliché. It was a joke.) Clichés are the frozen pizzas, the convenience food of the writer`s kitchen. Try to rustle up something different; that creates a shock. Take a character who finds herself barefoot in the snow. (Now isn’t the time to go into why.) You could say, ‘the snow froze her toes.’ Or how about, `The snow scalded her toes`?
        Here`s a description of Sandra on the beach at Benidorm. `The sun blazed from a clear blue sky. The sand was hot. Sandra applied her sun-tan lotion and lay back to sun-bathe.’ Boring or what? It tells us something, but it could do so much more.
        Let’s see how we can improve it. A good trick I’ve learned is to find a theme and by using as many of the five senses I can, wrap the description up in this theme.
        Sandra is on a diet and thinks about food all the time... ‘After five minutes simmering in the salted sea, ten minutes light grilling on the sand, her lips sprinkled with salt, her skin oiled in sun lotion, Sandra felt as overcooked as one of the dried anchovies she’d seen piled in the local market.’
        Sandra is hoping for a holiday romance. ‘Sandra lay dreaming on the warm bed of sand, wrapped in a sensuous lick of sun-lotion. The sun was Carlos, its heat his bronzed body lowering itself on her, the sea-breeze his fingers ruffling her hair. The salt on her lips was his kiss after the plateful of grilled anchovies they’d shared in the tapas bar. ` And so on. Keep your vocabulary sparkling but keep it in context.
        Have fun with language. Play with it. Enjoy it. Forget the rules. What? You cry in alarm, with visions of Miss Bracegirdle, your English teacher bearing down on you with her subordinate clauses, split infinitives and finite sentences. Be honest. Did her insistence on such dry as dust matters ever make you fall in love with the beauty and power of English? Thought not. That came from reading under the bed-covers with a torch, didn’t it? Me too.
        We can learn from the all those books we devoured and continue to devour. Be critical even as you enjoy a good novel on the beach. If you admire a passage, ask yourself how the writer did it. If you didn’t like something, find out exactly why. It will help your writing. Sometimes even the best writers teeter into pretentiousness. It’s a tightrope we all tread as we fumble our way along trying to be informative and entertaining at the same time. Writing is first and foremost a way of communication. When stone-age man wasn’t hunting and gathering, he was sitting around the camp-fire telling tales. If you wanted old Ugg to listen then you had to make darned sure he didn’t fall asleep, by creating vivid descriptions, surprises, tension and suspense. It also saved Scheherazade`s life.
        To be a writer you have to be a craftsman as well as an artist. Words are your canvases, your brushes, scalpels and hammers. They are tools and they are toys. The best writing takes risks, makes a splash and causes passions to rise. That’s style. If you haven’t got it, acquire it.

© 2008, Jo Derrick