Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style

"This book, as you might have figured out, is a rebuttal to Strunk & White . We just call it Strunk & White here, us editor types, and everybody knows what you’re talking about. I don’t even remember what the real title is [ The Elements of Style ]. Strunk & White is widely respected as a very handy little resource for basic rules about writing clearly: be concise, don’t overload your sentences with adjectives and these kinds of prescriptions. Dictionaries are descriptive, but things like Garner’s Modern American Usage and Strunk & White are prescriptive: they say, ‘This is what you should do.’ I recognise the value of Strunk & White , but as I alluded to earlier, I’m all about being open to breaking rules. I really admire the author of Spunk & Bite for basically turning Strunk & White upside down and saying: yes, but no. If you want to load your sentences with adjectives, lots of great writers do that. OK, Hemingway doesn’t, but somebody else does. So if you want to sound like Hemingway , then no adjectives are allowed. If you want to sound like somebody else, then dump the wheelbarrow full of adjectives into every sentence, and go for it. I just appreciate that sense of ‘Know the rules, but then break them, if it works for you.’ There is a writer named Bill Bryson . You might be familiar with him. He is an American but he has spent a lot of time in the UK. He was actually chancellor of Durham University. He just writes about whatever he wants to write about. He uses these very long and involved, convoluted sentences, full of adjectives, full of whimsy, and it’s brilliant. Not everybody loves him, but I do. Anybody who likes him will probably like Spunk & Bite . It’s hasn’t been updated in quite a long time. I don’t know when the last edition came out. It was originally written in the early 1900s. A fellow named William Strunk Jr. started it, and then E. B. White, a student of Strunk and a writer best known as the author of the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web , took on the task of revising. I think he did that more than once, but it was a long time ago."