Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style [Hardcover]

Arthur Plotnik (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0375721150 | ISBN-13: 978-0375721151 | Publication Date: November 15, 2005

When too tightly leashed, writing chokes and loses its vitality. Although the rules of composition popularized in William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White’s Elements of Style have been de rigueur for decades, they won’t exactly set your writing free.

To the rescue comes Spunk & Bite, a guide to bold and radiant language and style. The secret, according to bestselling author and former publishing executive Arthur Plotnik, is to embrace those qualities that composition rulebooks sidestep–among them, surprise, personality, engagement, edge, and fearlessness. Drawing on selections from today’s most exciting writers–Jonathan Franzen, Sandra Cisneros, Bill Bryson, Maureen Dowd, and many dozens more–Plotnik reveals the tricks and techniques that make prose fresh, forceful, and publishable.

For all types of writing–novels, articles, poems, ad copy, blogs, and even e-mail–this uncommon handbook reveals how to make your words so fetching that readers beg for more.


Arthur Plotnik is an author, and former publishing executive. Two of his works have been featured as Book of the Month Club selections: The Elements of Editing and The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts into Words . Reviewers have consistently praised Plotnik’s writing for its accuracy, style, and wit, often ranking it with Strunk & White in practicality.

Plotnik studied under Philip Roth and Vance Bourjaily at the Iowa Writers Workshop . As a publisher, he brought five national awards to the American Library Association’s book imprint. He also won numerous honors as editor of ALA’s flagship magazine, American Libraries.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Plotnik, author of the well-respected Elements of Editing (1982), takes on the venerable duo of Strunk and White in this peppery guide to vibrant writing. Implying that Strunk and White's revered Elements of Style might be a little stodgy in its prescriptive approach to language, Plotnik advocates that writers judiciously bend the rules, "drawing on all levels of language to animate expression." To that end, he devotes 31 chapters to detailed analyses of the factors that make language sing. He is especially adept at providing exactly the right felicitous quotation to make his point and draws from a wide variety of writers. In discussing onomatopoeia, for example, he cites the "THROCK" and "SPLOOSH" of graphic novelist Mike Allred and also excerpts comedic writer James Thurber, who long ago was writing about tires that "booped and whooshed." In addition, Plotnik addresses such practical topics as the question of audience, providing a pocket guide to the different generations and their wildly varying approaches to the written word. Moving seamlessly between instruction and quotation, Plotnik's work makes for addictive reading for both aspiring and veteran writers. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Poynter Online - (Chip Scanlan, “Chip on Your Shoulder”), March 6, 2006
Instead of rules, "Spunk & Bite" offers choices bolstered with real-world examples. . . . Plotnik . . . zooms in close, helping writers deconstruct their prose from the ground floor -- word to clause to sentence -- up to paragraphs and chapters to our Holy Grail, a finished piece of writing. . . . Unlike Strunk & White's catalogue of abstractions and rhetorical ruler slaps, Plotnik's "Spunk & Bite" is refreshingly concrete. Its author know his linguistic stuff and so can you.
College and Research Library News - March 2006 (George Eberhart)
[A] bookful of remedies for literary listlessness, sprinkled with examples of ringing prose penned by wordsmiths from Poe to Proulx. Plotnik rips past the rigid rules of Strunk and White’s 1959 Elements of Style and calls on writers to invigorate stodgy phrasings and pallid diction with freshness, texture, force, and form. Each chapter contains apt advice on what to avoid (actionless action, wandering modifiers, exhausted adverbs) and what to emulate (over-the-top tropes, killer megaphors, enallage, foreignisms, nuanced semicolons, edgy style). An energetic and entertaining read for cramped writers.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Random House Reference (November 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375721150
• ISBN-13: 978-0375721151
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #736,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Arthur Plotnik, in spite of his funny name, is a versatile author with a distinguished background in editing and publishing. Two of his works have been featured as Book-of-the-Month Club selections: "The Elements of Editing," a standard reference through some 20 printings, and "The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts into Words." Reviewers have consistently praised Plotnik's writing for its accuracy, style, and wit, often ranking it with "The Elements of Style" (Strunk & White)in practicality. However, his popular "Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style" (Random House)challenges some of Strunk & White's inhibiting dictates as it guides the writer to more risk-taking, more adventurous, more publishable prose.

His latest book, published in spring 2011 by Viva Editions, is titled: "Better than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives." It offers 6,000 alternatives to "great," "awesome," "amazing" and other shopworn terms of praise and acclamation. (www.freshsuperlatives.com) Former Poet Leaureate Billy Collins calls it "AMEN-ASTONISHING!"

A native of White Plains, N.Y., Plotnik studied under Philip Roth and Vance Bourjaily in the Iowa Writers Workshop. After an Army stint, he served as a staff writer on the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union, where novelist-to-be William Kennedy worked across the city desk, puffing cigars.

Plotnik ground out 22 pseudonymnous potboilers for the Scott-Meredith Literary Agency, some of them while completing work on the second of two master's degrees (English, library service). In his return to respectability, he surfaced in Washington, D.C, as press and public relations assistant to the Librarian of Congress and newsletter editor. He was later a magazine editor in New York, where the second of his two daughters was born.

As a publisher, Plotnik brough five national awards to the American Library Association's book imprint. He won numerous honors also as editor of "American Libraries," ALA's flagship magazine.

Plotnik has written scores of magazine articles and columns, seven nonfiction books (including his first writer's guide, "The Elements of Authorship") and short stories and poems. He has appeared in publications ranging from "La Prensa" (Bolivia) and "Playboy" to "The New York Times" and "Los Angeles Times." A contributor to "The Writer Magazine" and member of its editorial board, he has also contributed to "Britannica Book of English Usage" and the "American English" column of "American Way" in-flight magazine.

A passionate observer of trees, he is author of "The Urban Tree Book: An Uncommon Field Guide for City and Town," illustrated by his wife, the artist Mary H. Phelan. "The New York Times Book Review" called this work "indispensable." On July 4 of the Constitution's 200th birthday year (1987), the National Archives published his "The Man Behind the Quill," a biography of the Constitution's calligrapher, Jacob Shallus. The award-winning book was highlighted in "Time" magazine and praised as "a small miracle of research."

A popular speaker, Plotnik taught briefly in the journalism department at Columbia College in Chicago. Special honors include service as a charter board member, American Book Awards, and first place in the prestigious "Verbatim" national competition for essays on the English language. He is listed in "Who's Who," "Contemporary Authors," "Journalists of the United States, and other directories of writers and journalists. He lives in Chicago and is represented by literary agent Roger Williams of New England Publishing Associates.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars CPR for dead writing., April 23, 2006

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style (Hardcover)

Arthur Plotnik's "Spunk & Bite" is not a primer for beginners. It is a fun-filled romp in which Plotnik, an author, editor, and former publishing executive, demonstrates why slavishly following the rules of Strunk & White's revered classic, "The Elements of Style," will lead to writing that is DOA. In an age of increasingly short attention spans, Plotnik contends that writing must have "punch and vibrancy" in order to grab and hold the reader.

"Spunk & Bite" is divided into eight chapters: Flexibility, Freshness, Texture, Word, Force, Form, Clarity, and Contemporaneity. Plotnik explores such topics the use of arcane words and neologisms, choice of diction, how sentence fragments can energize your prose, and even how to apply the principles of feng shui to writing. Some of Plotnik's advice is pretty standard: avoid cliches and dead metaphors, shun dangling participles and misplaced modifiers, be careful that your subjects and verbs agree, and, for the most part, stay away from the passive voice. We've read all this before in many other writing handbooks.

What is unique about this book is Plotnik's witty and irreverent remarks about the wisdom of taking calculated risks. Try using an original "one-off" phrase if it suits your purpose and don't be afraid to experiment with lively tropes or figures of speech. Will you occasionally make dreadful mistakes? Absolutely. However, you have a great deal more to lose (especially your audience) by playing it too safe. Plotnik gives many examples both from his own writing and from such luminaries as Betty Friedan, Albert Camus, and Toni Morrison, to illustrate his points.

I particularly enjoyed the section on the omission of quotation marks to set off dialogue, a trend that has been in vogue for a while. In his delightful chapter, "Daringly Quoteless Dialogue," Plotkin surveys three literary review editors who offer their opinions on unmarked dialogue. Are writers who eschew quotation marks artistic and avante garde or are they merely pretentious and irritating? Plotnik says that "convention is there to be upended; but it is never to be taken lightly." When you throw out the rules, you had better do so skillfully and with good reason. "Spunk & Bite" will not transform you into a better writer instantly, but it may give you the courage to try new ways of bringing your moribund writing back to life.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Language or style that is less than engaging... is, frankly, dead on arrival.", December 14, 2005

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style (Hardcover)

Unlike the writer's rule book, Elements of Style, aka Strunk & White, this concise volume offers some thought-provoking suggestions for writing with an extra edge, the advantage of a creative boost in an increasingly competitive market. Strictly following the rules sometimes yields a loss of flavor, or, as Plotnik phrases the issue, "dead writing". Although decidedly unorthodox, these chapters are "meant to energize writing and liberate it from certain outdated style conventions". Flexibility in construction and a freshness of application highlight his approach, avoiding rules that weigh down the prose and thinking a bit outside the box; for example, indulging in oxymoron, indirection and understatement as mechanisms to increase interest. By all means write that banal first draft, urges Plotnik, then "sniff out and destroy everything that smells predictable, clichéd, formulaic, labored or lazy".

Plotnik, author of The Elements of Editing, leaves no stone unturned, no question unchallenged in chapters that address texture, language, force and stimulation, punctuation, clarity and writing for the contemporary marketplace. Using illustrative examples from established writers, unabashedly tossing in his own cleverly-phrased headings and a medley of metaphors, the author wields language like a sharp sword, enthusiastically slashing the hackneyed and overused, probing and questioning, the style as energetic as his intentions. With all its vitality and eagerness, this is a book to be taken seriously, filled with innovative interpretations, a challenge to transcend the ordinary, to consider a fresh, open-minded approach.

The text is sprinkled with suggestions, such as "Internet Word-a-Day Sources: A Sampling", a list of sites that will send word features via email by subscription (wordspy.com; vocabula.com; wordsmith.org/awad). These sites can be readily culled for "writer's words" to add extra context to the work. Other topics are "Style and Frequency of Foreignisms (keeping in mind that such substitutes wear thin with overuse); "Literary Editors on Quotation Style"; and "Deeper Secrets of Semicolons: Some Q & A's". Breeching the ramparts of the traditional, Plotnik kick-starts the writing process into a media savvy century, where distraction is anathema. Writers must forcefully grab a reader's attention, taking advantage of a new freedom born of modern communication, anchored in the conventional, but on the alert for those defining phrases or style that is both engaging and original. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The right write stuff, December 6, 2005

By 

James E. Swan (Waynesville, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style (Hardcover)

Where was this delightful little writing book when I was a working editor and looking for holiday treats for my staff or take-aways for meetings or special occasions? Unfortunately, at that time, back in the 20th century, it was probably still churning around in the author's brain. But not to complain. Now that I'm retired, I`ve at least had time to buy it and read it for myself. I've enjoyed this author's previous offerings on language (Elements of Expression) and the art of editing (Elements of Editing), but this one is clearly his best--intelligently organized, easily absorbed, and always entertaining. It's not a style manual or a "how to write" book as such (we have enough of those), but it's a volume anyone interested in words or already engaged in writing is bound to enjoy and profit from. It's open season on dull prose. The examples are contemporary and well chosen and the advice proferred with wit and, well, spunk. Spunk and Bite would certainly be a worthy addition to any writer's shelf or bedtable.