On Style
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
I am thinking today about style—about what makes a book brilliant, a story stand apart.
I am thinking about The Book Thief and The Road Home and Out Stealing Horses—three books that could not be more different from each other and yet all earn "brilliant" as the first accolade, all are manifestly genius. I am thinking about a conversation I had late last night with a young writer who is so talented, so emergent, so on the precipice. Who asks, Is writing worth it?
I decide this today:
Style is tenacity, authority, authenticity. An idea shaped and held to by words. Style is a writer writing toward the true, shafting the superfluous, wading in deep to places others won't go. Style is not blinking until the work is done.
Style is surviving the journey.
