If at first you don't succeed . . .

This semester we have read many different authors who have all attempted to define what it means for a writer to have Style. Aristotle bored me with his ambiguous recommendation that style should be neither too flat nor too elevated. Blair offended me with his overtly sexists and racist language, and I forgot almost everyone else except E.B. White. The late great author of Charlotte’s Web really gets it when he says in Elements of Style, that “style not only reveals the spirit of a man [I know] but reveals his [seriously] identity, as surely would his [why not her E.B.?] fingerprints” (White 68). So if you ignore the blatant sexism, which still existed in my 1979 edition where Stunk supposedly corrected it, White says that style is inherently linked to identity. If a writer is good you will be able to know who she is simply by reading a few lines. I think this could be true of poor writers as well, but who am I to judge?

At this point I know you are all wondering how to guess what my style might be. How does my writing reveal my spirit and identity? I am sure my professor will be disappointed to know that, even after a semester of examination, I am still not sure how to answer this question.

Here are three tips for you;

     1) I make everything possessive, and I mean every word that should never, ever be possessive, I’ll find a way to do it. I don’t like words to feel lonely. Don’t even get me started on the use of it’s (which, of course, means it is to everyone in the whole of the English speaking world; except me) instead of its as a possessive pronoun.

     2) I also love commas and semi-colons, I adore them; I use them in many unusual and fun ways, some of them are even the correct way to use them! 

     3) I will always choose an emotional appeal over intellectual reasoning, even in academic writing, often to my own detriment. I am a ‘feeler’ first and a ‘thinker’ only as an afterthought. I argued in an earlier project that an emotive style can work in an academic setting, but only if the writer has the credentials and experience to be able to write from this vantage point AND maintain their credibility.

And so I write, and re-write, and revise, and delete, and re-state, and edit, and agonize, and continually try to grow as a writer. After all isn’t there some trite story about a train that didn’t give up? I may not be as smart as that train, but I don’t let that prevent me from charging full steam ahead!