It’s essential for writers to immerse themselves both in their craft and the works of other authors. To that end, I’ll review a book to read for pleasure and a book to sharpen your writing skills every month. I hope that Read/Write will introduce you to new favorites and overlooked classics.
Just about every writer of American prose feels Strunk and White’s tug. How astonishing that this diminutive book has maintained such a hold on our writing. How did this happen? How it is justified? Which of Strunk and White’s teachings should writers respect? And which should they rebel against?
Spunk & Bite
Spunk & Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style confronts the sacred cow of Elements of Style, and in the process of grilling that steak, he serves up a buffet of tips and lessons on language that will revitalize your writing.
Spunk & Bite revolves around the premise that Strunk and White’s classic leads to proper, cautious, and intolerably stale writing. Only by taking calculated risks can we stir our readers. The best authors use language as a playground, and Arthur Plotnik swings from those monkey bars with abandon.
The book is divided into eight sections: Flexibility, Freshness, Texture, Word, Force, Form, Clarity, and Contemporaneity. Each offers a look at writing from a different perspective, viewed through the lens of Strunk and White and through the eyes of those who abandoned that gospel — notably, E.B. White himself.
Like Plotnik’s other works, Spunk & Bite is lively, funny, and offers a multitude of ways to shake up your own writing. I give it four resounding superlatives out of five.
