Think about all you've read in Baron, Lanham, and Williams--as well as the presentations and discussions you've seen. Define style (again). And, list out as many elements of style as you can. Feel free to borrow from peers' ideas in their blogs, too. You might indicate which are hardest for your to see in your own writing.
Style is the character acting the action, being the subject of the sentence and the topic of the tale. Style is being correct -- or decidedly incorrect. It is word choice and structure choice. It is intentional (I hope). Style is the way the words fit together like a puzzle, without gaps -- to display the whole picture, the idea, the meaning. Style is being ethical to your readers. It is how the writer presents the message, what words to use and where to use them and the tone. It is following the Golden Rule of Writing: Write to others as you would have them write to you. It's all about presenting the style that your readers (audience awareness) need at the time they need it. Style is rhetoric.
Good thoughts, Rhonda. I have to admit, I stole your ending ("Style is rhetoric"). Don't worry, though. I gave you the credit. :-)
ReplyDeleteI especially like your point that style can be decidedly incorrect. So true. If we always wrote in complete sentences, naming every subject and verb, crossing every "t" and dotting every "i," well, I'd probably not be a writer. Sometimes you need a fragment or a run-on to say what you need to say, given the context.
Saying that style is (hopefully) intentional also intrigues me. I think we use style unconsciously a lot of times (e.g., when we change how we talk to friends vs. our boss), but then is that really style? In his book, Williams demonstrates how writing style can require very conscious effort. Perhaps the degree of intentionality varies according to the situation?
Rhonda, after reading my own post on this topic, a friend of mine said essentially the same thing. "Would it be too much of a reduction to just say: Style is rhetorical." She (and you) are right--it's not too much of a reduction to say such. Style is rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteI agree that style is often "intentional," but think that it can just as often be unintentional. (I mention this in my own post.) We have a kind of "default style" that we've acquired over the years, I think, that is made up of standard rhetorical and syntactic moves (and probably some others, too). This might be closer to what I've heard some people call an "indexical" style; a style that is idiosyncratic to and reflective of an individual's writing in general. (The idea of a natural, indexical style is problematic, and one I often pooh-pooh, but there's certainly some truth to it.)
Thanks for the reminder of the Golden Rule--it's good stuff.