Beyond Clarity | Why Writing Style Matters 

Writing Style is how you present a story/plot, whenever you take a serious or funny approach. The most voyant example is standard and minimalist prose. One is emotionally invest, the other isn't. "X blushed" vs "X cannot help to blush"

It strikes me in focusing on 'plain' and 'honest' there is a void of the humanity of emotion. I want to say more but, instead I will say thank you! This fills me glee that a educater sees the value in how I (and others!) write...and when you pointed out all those different words in the bird poem...i laughed because it looked like my poems and stories.

Great explanations, descriptions, and examples. Clarity is simply a skill you need to achieve proficiency with first. Hence the reason schools focus on it. Clarity establishes a stable platform to then showcase your unique voice. Style is one of the core attributes that separates pedestrian writers from great writers.

Great video! I love thinking about writing style analogous to fashion. Playing with word choice, sentence structure, punctuation-I find these techniques fascinating. Style reveals so much.

Great content, completely agree with the statement that when we talk about style, we frequently talk about usage and rules, rather than the extra-grammatical, extra-usage quality of style. Thanks!

A saying of mine (I don't remember where I got it): bad at is not knowing the rules, good art is following the rules, and great art breaks the rules.

This is valuable content Andrew, thank you for making these videos. That Kaput is quite the looker.

Thank you so much for sharing this video. It's been a timely blessing. I've been contemplating whether or not to follow my heart and inject a "stylish" poem much like Hopkins' writing into my novel. You succinctly pointed out my exact fear of breaking all those rules of clarity; now, I know the answer. Not deleting will bring added personality to the story, characters and, most importantly, the readers. Thank you! P.S. I'm very curious to read more of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Sounds like wonderful company and my cup of tea.

Woah, subscription earned. My friend and I teach AP Literature and we were both struggling with how we can explain style better this year and my friend went so far as to say, let’s skip it all together. This was a perfect guide to what I’ve always been able to feel but not how to say.

Another great video, Andrew. Many Thanks. I am now daydreaming about coming back in my next life as myself , with my memories intact but with Hilary Mantel’s sublime style of writing. What must it feel like to have the ability to hand someone your books (“The Wolf Hall” trilogy, for instance) and know that they have transported out their body (on page one) and are actually walking alongside , Cromwell and into the filth and dangers of the streets of Medieval Tudor Putney..or , even being in the presence of Henry? Gotta stop daydreaming now and get back to reality.😂.

Thank you! I am so relieved to see this! I was getting tired of all the writing “rules” which seemed more like “don’t wear white after labor day!”… sort of made up “usage” as you say. Although I haven’t used much of these sort of books or plugins etc. (Scrivener and such) except for the purpose of testing, they seemed to be more curtailing than inspiring which might tend to make all writing (even from the classics or renowned writers) into some boring 5th grade text book! Nothing wrong with simple which could be as delightful fancy but too plain could be boring! The fact that there are so many writers and poets who you can guess just by reading even an unread sample of their work goes to show the importance of style. Would love to see a part 2 with some analysis/examples of diverse and distinct styles in both prose and poetry. Or perhaps you already have one in the archives… looking… 👀

❤Good one

Yes, I got Strunk and White years ago. It didn't appeal to me at all; unlike your great videos, Andrew.

Your clothing style includes jaunty bow ties. Would you write a stylistic poem in the style of Gerard Manley Hopkins ( he seems to be a favorite of yours) about bowties and what pleasure it gives you to tie and wear them? (I notice an aspect of your bowtie bearing behavior in that it is tied slightly askew and off balance.)

Thanks!

This may seem like a non-sequitur, but I find that CSS (in web dev) also exhibits the problem of conflating usage with style. CSS contains all you need to layout your page (e.g. set position, size, etc.) and to set appearances (e.g. colors, textures, etc.). And therein lies the confusion. Page layout is like Usage with its flow of text and boxes. Setting colors, etc. is like Style, which can affect the "clarity" of layout, but doesn't change the underlying structure. Without Style, though, all designs and literature would be depicted only in shads of gray. Very depressing, indeed.

Andrew, I just noticed something about your videos... I can't get my head to skip even 1 second of you videos. Can you tell me what is the "Thing" that make me want to watch the whole video. I think its the flow and paragraphs of your speech. Is it?

You have a nice RU-vid style 😊

How does one develop style?

What is your skull's name? She always makes me laugh with her sarcasm.

"Rules" is not the right word for all of the reasons you described. "Guidelines" is a more precise word when describing grammar, punctuation, etc. There are no "rules" per se. Loose rules, maybe? Strict guidelines?

What you wear is none of my business, but you write for me and other people to consume, right? If you write in your secret diary, then again, I wouldn’t care what you write or how you write it.