Whiffling Around Style

 I'm a copious reader, and I'm not above shame at the amount of books I hauled out of the library when I told the kids it was only going to be a quick trip to drop stuff off, but even I have my limits. I sat down with one of the books I was most interested to read, a memoir about renovating an old house, right up my alley, something I pulled off the shelf because the cover was interesting. Alas, it was lushly overwritten, of the variety of prose that leaves no metaphor unturned. I ended up skimming through the wads of writing program prose, trying to track down the storyline -- did the couple manage to fix up this old pile without going bankrupt or getting divorced? (I'll spare you the suspense: yes, the book ended happily with the whole family under an intact roof.) And I was reminded of the time Darwin read something I'd been laboring over for too long, and remarked, "Well, I can tell you've been crafting your sentences." 

Style seems to flow effortlessly for some writers, and it's a joy when it is unlabored, but most of the time there is a virtue to just telling the story. That is why people keep reading: to find out what happens next. If style gets in the way of what happens next, it must give way. Sometimes style is what happens next, as in Dorothy Sayers's delightful digression -- if digression it is -- of a proposed advertising campaign for cigarettes envisioned to its encompassing end, which briefly pauses the plot in Murder Must Advertise:

It was in that moment, and while Chief-Inspector Parker was arguing over the line with the office telephonist, that Mr. Death Bredon conceived that magnificent idea that everybody remembers and talks about today—the scheme that achieved renown as “Whiffling Round Britain”—the scheme that sent up the sales of Whifflets by five hundred per cent in three months and brought so much prosperity to British Hotel-keepers and Road and Rail Transport. It is not necessary to go into details. You have probably Whiffled yourself. You recollect how it was done. You collected coupons for everything—railway fares, charabancs, hotel-bills, theatre-tickets—every imaginable item in a holiday programme. When you had collected enough to cover the period of time you wished to spend in travelling, you took your coupons with you (no sending up to Whifflets, nothing to post or fill in) and started on your tour. At the railway station you presented coupons entitling you to so many miles of first-class travel and received your ticket to the selected town. You sought your hotel (practically all the hotels in Britain fell eagerly in with the scheme) and there presented coupons entitling you to so many nights' board and lodging on special Whifflet terms. For your charabanc outings, your sea-bathing, your amusements, you paid in Whifflet coupons. It was all exceedingly simple and trouble-free. And it made for that happy gregariousness which is the joy of the travelling middle-class. When you asked for your packet of Whifflets in the bar, your next-door neighbour was almost sure to ask, “Are you Whiffling too?” Whiffling parties arranged to Whiffle together, and exchanged Whifflet coupons on the spot. The great Whifflers' Club practically founded itself, and Whifflers who had formed attachments while Whiffling in company, secured special Whifflet coupons entitling them to a Whifflet wedding with a Whifflet cake and their photographs in the papers. When this had happened several times, arrangements were made by which Whiffler couples could collect for a Whifflet house, whose Whifflet furniture included a handsome presentation smoking cabinet, free from advertising matter and crammed with unnecessary gadgets. After this, it was only a step to a Whifflet Baby. In fact, the Whifflet Campaign is and remains the outstanding example of Thinking Big in Advertising. The only thing that you cannot get by Whiffling is a coffin; it is not admitted that any Whiffler could ever require such an article.

Here Sayers's style is on display mainly through a concept drawn out to its ridiculous conclusion. Her prose is clean and understated, which allows the passive voice of the last sentence to have its full impact.

Many of us write to figure out what we're trying to say. Excessive style can be a crutch to the struggling writer. It's a stumbling block to the struggling reader, who just wants to know if what the author is saying is worth the effort of reading. Don't make readers go stumbling about to find your point, dear authors; if we want a smokescreen, we'll buy our own Whifflets.