Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style Reprint Edition
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Updated with all-new writing exercises, Spunk & Bite will help writers take books, articles, business reports, memos, and even social- media posts to the next level.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"[A] book filled with wise advice, many belly laughs, and much inspiration. I re-read it from front to back at least once a year--and I dip into its pages from time to time as a way of recharging my writing batteries. -"The Five Best Writing Books No One Ever Told You About," Daphne Gray-Grant, July 2, 2013, Ragan's PR Daily: Europe
"[L]oving language doesn't mean we always understand how particular words or expressions work their magic. Personally, I really love it when someone like Plotnik can break it down for me, help me look under the hood to see how that writer I so admire has done it." ---Nancy Wick, The Editor's POV, Jan. 6, 2011
During my often misspent days at St. Edward High School, how I wished I had someone like Arthur Plotnik to spice my daily diet of Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, . . . I'm just glad I discovered Spunk & Bite after its debut lessthan a decade ago. -J. F. McKenna, Cleveland Business Review, July 2, 2015 clevelandbusinessreview.org/2015/07/02/the-art-of-messaging-today/#comment-10113
. . . the next step in a writer's evolution. In this age of increasingly short attention spans and overwhelming media input, writing must have "punch and vibrancy" to capture a reader's interest. This clear and entertaining instruction guide seeks to energize and liberate writers from outdated style conventions.
--eraserheadpress.com/2015/06/25/top-10-books-recommended-for-writers/
Review
From the Author
From the Back Cover
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.
About the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : Random House Reference; Reprint edition (May 8, 2007)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0375722270
- ISBN-13 : 978-0375722271
- Item Weight : 11.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.4 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #391,793 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #66 in Writing Skills Reference
- #141 in Editing Writing Reference (Books)
- #233 in Creative Writing & Composition
- Customer Reviews:
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.
Plotnik's newest book is "Aaron Schmink's Crazy First Love," a coming-of-age Young Adult novel inspired by memories from his adolescence in the 1950s and published as a Kindle ebook in Jan. 2019.
His next-to-latest book, published by Viva Editions, completely updates "The Elements of Expression" in a revised and expanded edition. Viva also published his "Better than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives," offering more than 5,000 alternatives to "great," "awesome," "amazing" and other shopworn terms of praise and acclamation. 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 brought 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, eight 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 part-time 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 with his wife, the artist Mary H. Phelan, and is represented by literary agent Roger Williams of New England Publishing Associates.
His web site is www.arthurplotnik.com
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BRAGGIN' ON "SPUNK & BITE" AT FOURTEEN. This year (2019) I'm reveling in the 14th anniversary of SPUNK & BITE my "Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style." Random House published the hardcover in 2005 and the paperback in 2007. About 37,000 sales later it's still chugging along, scoring gratifying reviews, in use at Harvard and in many writing programs, and—perhaps most pleasing— winning thanks from aspiring individuals. Pictured: The paperback cover, with designer Nora Rosansky's spunky pooch.
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You might think in the first few chapters of his book that Plotnik is showing off with a bunch of had-to-look-them-up-in-the-dictonary words (though admittedly, reading the Kindle version of this book with the device's built-in dictionary will be useful to the average reader), that is not the case. Plotnik just happens to be an intelligent teacher of writing. *Spunk & Bite* would make a cut above perfect textbook for any advance writing class. For any writer has control of standard grammar and coherent writing might find this book a worthy next course for taking writing to its most engaging level.
Nearly each page contains examples of how to use what is called *locutions, locutions, locutions* (my first introduction to the word)-- which means "to use a word, the turning of a phrase in some stylistic manner."
He explains how to use elements of surprise, diction, narratives tense, mouthwatering verbs, color, hot nouns from verbs, ephemeral imagery, stellar leads and stunning endings, and much more to add punch and juice to your writing.
If you've never used a thesaurus or specialized dictionary of words and lists, you'll see how and why as you read *Spunk*. Plotnik goes beyond the tired suggestion given to most writers: keep a thesaurus on your desk. No, he actually shows why and how word books can be useful.
I finished reading the book in about three days, and I suggest you might get more out of it if you give it a brisk first read and then come back to it again and again as a resource. Yes, I guess it could also sit right beside your copy of Strunk and White *Elements of Style*, if you you indeed even have read it in years.
I plan to work through the exercises at the end of the book just as way to review and practice the techniques he explains. For it is not just enough to read the book from cover-to-cover, but more importantly to practice what he preaches, argues, and demonstrates in each carefully crafted chapter.
Here's a break down of what he covers. The list comes from Plotnik's own website:
-- undoing an "E.B. Whitewash"
-- elements of surprise
-- describing the extraordinary
-- writing for Generations X, Y and beyond
-- stellar leads, stunning endings
-- choosing narrative tense
-- diction: be the word
-- freshening the vocabulary
-- words with beautiful music
-- coining great locutions
-- hot nouns from verbs
-- world-class words from abroad
-- mouthwatering verbs
-- better color for your colors
-- finding the names of things
-- intensifiers for feeble locutions
-- semicolons with confidence
-- niceties worth preserving
-- the feng shui of writing
-- "disinfecting" your prose
-- hunting down danglers
-- modifiers with minus effects
-- using ephemeral imagery
-- achieving "edge"
-- language and terrorism
-- whom we write for







