Elements of Style

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Sometimes, a little something I read somewhere inspires my newsletters. This one came from a Substack post.

It was about writing styles.

Here is the gist of it, I paraphrase: Writers shouldn’t waste time developing a style. Most bestsellers have none, zip, nada. These books could have been written by the same person, considering there isn’t a smidgen of difference in the way they’re written. (A word of caution: we’re not talking about literary masterpieces.)

The conclusion hits hard: Readers are not interested in style, in fact it annoys them because it distracts them from the plot.

Did I mention that the post was tongue-in-cheek?

I wrote a piece last year about my annoyance with stories getting flatter. This one is about writing getting blander. Which doesn’t mean that said writing is bad or incompetent. The grammar is correct, sentences are properly formed, and the word choice is adequate. The plots are also well put together. What rankles is the neutrality of it all, the lack of oomph. There won’t be a single paragraph in these bestselling books that’ll make the reader take their eyes from the page to consider what they just read. A pause to think oh, that’s well said. No pause either for a smile, a chuckle, or a pinch in the heart.

Why the blandness?

Is the writer lazy? Probably not. Does the writer lack imagination? These kinds of books come out in quick succession, part of a series. An active mind is behind them, a hard working author. Is the writer in a hurry? That’s likely. It’s what I would describe as The Call of the Plot. A narrative that hurls itself headlong and will force the reader to turn the pages like a hamster runs the wheel. Very little time spent on characters, and what makes them tick beyond the standard emotions of a soap opera. Very little time spent on location and setting, the elements that contribute to the atmosphere of a story and create lasting images in the mind of the reader.

Style is lacking, but what is style?

The obvious answer: James Ellroy’s machine-gun approach. Faulkner’s lyrical/biblical sentence construction. Cormac McCarthy’s baroque poetry (and lack of dialogue tags).

The stylistic fireworks make these writers instantly recognizable. Some readers love the vibe, some can’t stand it. It isn’t for everybody, and the kind of bestsellers that the blogger was talking about are designed to be for everybody. They will not wander in a territory that makes the reader work even a little.

I see style as a more subtle entity. More than a technique that can be copied. I’ve read a few McCarthy-lite or Ellroy-wannabees. Some are good and pay homage, many fall flat. It’s the problem with reducing style to a gimmick. There’s more to L.A. Confidential, As I Lay Dying, and Blood Meridian than my glib descriptions above.

How can style be defined then? Is it one of these things that are best described by their absence? We know when it is missing. We know when the writing is flat because it lacks the evocative parts and the emotional bond with the characters. In crime/mystery stories, it lacks the pleasure that goes beyond “knowing who did it or how”. It lacks the intangible tickle that makes readers want to come back for more.

Some call it voice.

None of it has to be high-brow or complicated. In fact, the simpler the better.

Here are a few examples from the genre I love:

“We were quiet, sipping the champagne. When Paul’s glass was empty he refilled it. The water skier called it quits and the lake was quiet. Some sparrows moved in the sawdust around the new cabin, heads bobbing and cocking, looking for food, now and then finding it. Grackles with bluish iridescent backs joined them, much bigger, swaggering more than the sparrows, with a funny waddling walk, but peaceable.”

— Early Autumn by Robert B. Parker

Parker is so good at inserting touches of humor: called it quits/quiet, now and then finding it, wadding walk, peaceable … It’s also super visual.

“‘What’s the story?’ she said.
‘A bank job,’ Kelp said.
‘Well, yes and no,’ Dortmunder said. ‘It’s a little more than a bank job.’
‘It’s a bank job,’ Kelp said.
Dortmunder looked at May as though hoping to find stability and reason there. ‘The idea is,’ he said, ‘if you can believe it, we’re supposed to steal the whole bank.’
‘It’s a trailer,’ Kelp said. ‘You know, one of those mobile homes? The bank’s in there till they put up the new building.’
‘And the idea,’ Dortmunder said, ‘is we hook the bank onto a truck and drive it away.’
‘Where to?’ May asked.
‘Just away,’ Dortmunder said.
‘That’s one of the things we’ve got to work out,’ Kelp said.
‘Sounds like you’ve got a lot to work out,’ May said.”

— Bank Shot (The Dortmunder Novels) by Donald E. Westlake

Westlake is a master of dialogue. He creates these loops that threaten to slide into absurdity, before the scene is brought back to reality with a deadpan line. It’s very funny.

“But for the glad of heart, life goes on full-throttle in the French Quarter. In a corner bar off Ursulines, one in which Christmas lights never come down, Clete Purcel has positioned himself at a window so he can watch a shuttered cottage across the street, in front of which a black male is smoking a cigarette in an illegally parked panel truck. The rain has stopped and the air is unnaturally green and contains the dense, heavy odor of the Gulf. There is even a rip of bone-white light in the clouds, as though the evening sunset is about to resume. The black male in the panel truck is talking on a cell phone and blowing his cigarette smoke out the window, where it seems to hang in the air like damp cotton. Then he twists his head and stares at the bar, and for a moment Clete thinks he has been made.”

— The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke

Reading Burke is a sensory experience, smells in particular. The details make the scene: the permanent Christmas lights, the illegally parked truck, bone-white light, damp cotton. His writing is addictive.

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

— Trouble Is My Business (Red Wind): by Raymond Chandler

Typical Chandler. Infinitely quotable. If you’re a writer, you read this and weep, or turn green with envy, which is pretty much the same thing.

“It was one of those Florida houses I find unsympathetic, all block tile, glass, terrazzo, aluminum. They have a surgical coldness. Each one seems to be merely some complex corridor arrangement, a going-through place, an entrance built to some place of a better warmth and privacy that was never constructed. When you pause in these rooms, you have the feeling you are waiting. You feel that a door will open and you will be summoned, and horrid things will happen to you before they let you go. You can not mark these houses with any homely flavor of living. When they are emptied after occupancy, they have the look of places where the blood has recently been washed away.”

— The Deep Blue Good-by: A Travis McGee Novel by John D. MacDonald

Boom. One paragraph. How to make a description get under your skin, create unease and dread. And, in the process, JDM manages to tell us why he hates the Florida building craze.

That’s style… or styles, rather. Infinite in variety, but definitely not bland. I would also recommend reading the two-page prologue of Tana French’s “The Likeness”. Free to read in the sample on Amazon. I would have had to quote it in its entirety … as Stefon (Bill Hader - SNL) would say: It has everything!

And after all that brilliant writing … my news!

The Harry McLean story “Drop Dead Gorgeous” is out in the Janie’s Got a Gun Anthology (inspired by the music of Aerosmith). Great table of contents, friends.

I wrote an essay for Art Taylor’s “The First 2 pages” on that story and how it came about, so you get a sneak peek in there. Click to read.

June Lorraine Roberts reviewed “Love You Till Tuesday” at Murder in Common. Have a look. If you haven’t read the book yet, it might convince you to do so.

(photo: M.E. Proctor)