Since my last post on editing out the fluff, I happened upon the book Stylized by Mark Garvey, which dives into the history behind Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. Garvey follows the publication journey of the book as E. B. White worked to update Strunk’s original rules, with side journeys into the style guide’s meaning and impact. This iconic style guide aligns with the idea of removing fluff, with one rule simply stating “omit needless words.” Yet, as Garvey explains, this isn’t an all-encompassing or straightforward right-and-wrong guide to writing. Strunk had simply noticed what good writers were doing and used his style guide to point out the rules beneath their words.
E. B. White was one of the students influenced by this approach to writing, and his appreciation for Strunk’s teaching led to his involvement in getting the style guide more widely published as we know it today. White spent many years writing at The New Yorker, and playwright Marc Connelly reportedly described his contribution as bringing “the steel and the music to the magazine.” Consistently applying rules of language gave him a strong base on top of which his writing could sing.
An analogy Garvey uses to explain this idea of steel and music, or rules and play, is to think of the way a bird relies on rules in nature. It needs gravity, friction, wind, and air pressure to get where it’s going. In the same way, a good writer learns the rules of language so that they can then navigate and play with them to get where they want to go.
As an editor, I work with an author to help them get where they want to go with their writing. Often that means applying grammar and style rules in a way that improves clarity and flow. When I took a class in grammar for editing, the somewhat dry material certainly didn’t feel like play—because it was the steel. I can now use this steel to reinforce and empower the creativity of the author, and it is then that we get the music.
Do you have a piece of writing you want to sing? Tell me about it using my Contact page.
Natalie Roth Editing Services 