Deciphering the Writer’s Craft

Many readers think of writing ‘style’ as an author’s particular manner of expression; a signature, an easy way to know the author’s identity. This assumption is similar to French cinema’s ‘politique des auteurs’, a French film criticism concept that postulates the director as the ‘author’ of a film, with his unique personal vision, character and even ethical and political choices substantially shaping his work. A writer’s style is often seen similarly: as a self-contained language which has its origins in the profundities of the author’s subjective mythologies. Clearly, what we normally call an author’s ‘style’ is useful if we wish to identify and categorize a text, era or culture but how much extrapolation can there be towards a particular personality behind the text? Although political or other kinds of meaning are implicated in writing, this apparently common way of reading - deducing an author’s personality through his style - fails to capture the aesthetic aspect of his craft. Ideally, however, style as an aesthetic property of the text should not be overlooked; style that is not defined or controlled by the writer’s temperament or worldview is what contains the ‘artistry’ of writing. Focusing on style as an aesthetic property of the text draws attention to the writing process itself. Thinking aesthetically is useful for  the writer too in assisting him to remain ‘outside’ his writing. It helps him to know when he is being dogmatic or speculative, uncompromising or inquiring, informative or expressive; he uses language as a malleable material. The writer’s style, then, is not just an appealing way of putting forward his message: it is the message. This conception of writing provides the basis for aesthetic innovation and emphasises the materiality of language as inherently plastic, generating the image of language itself rather than producing a straighforward figurative representation of the world or the personality of the author. There is here an important shift from content to form that promotes the appreciation of writing as art.

Contribution by KES member Patricia Hodges