King, Strunk, and White

Following the advice of Stephen King, I read Strunk and White’s Elements of Style this week.  I expected an exhaustive work on the technical aspects of writing, but at 26 pages the writing guide only scratches the surface of the subject.  The book consists of a mere 18 rules of usage and composition followed by three sections which cover common grammar mistakes.

Reading Elements of Style brings into focus the influence the book has on Stephen King. The following quotes from Elements closely correspond to what King advocates in his own book on writing:

“The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative principally concerned with action, but in writing of any kind.”

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”

While I found the information in Elements of Style useful, I think following its guidelines to the letter would tend to result in a somewhat dry writing style. Then again, Stephen King, great advocate of the book, has a writing style that is anything but dry. Does he bend the rules a bit perhaps? ;)