I first became familiar with The Elements of Style in junior college, in an English class.
It was one of the few books I did NOT return to the used book store at the end of the semester.
In fact, I still have that edition.
But it was years before I realized that the person whose name stood out on the front of that book also wrote Charlotte’s Web.
E.B. White may not have been as prolific with writing books as some authors are, but what he did write often turned into classics. That’s not something most authors can say about their writing.
Whether you’re writing a white paper for a new product, a new content page for your website, a letter to the editor, or a children’s book, White has something to teach you.
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His full name was Elwyn Brooks White, but we know him as E.B. White. It wasn’t until college that friends started calling him by the nickname “Andy.” It stuck, and Andy was the name he went by for the rest of his life.
Born on July 11, 1899, in Mt. Vernon, New York, White was the youngest of six children. He graduated from Cornell University in 1921. His love for writing took him into the field of journalism, where he worked as a reporter, copywriter, and feature writer.
His job as a writer for the literary magazine, The New Yorker, lasted 11 years, although he continued writing for them for over five decades.
Between 1925 and 1976, White wrote more than 1,800 pieces for the magazine and established, in the words of editor William Shawn, “a new literary form.” That “form” was the personal essay … “light in style yet often weighty in substance.”
What IS Style Anyway?
“Style” is an elusive quality. Although I’ve been writing and editing professionally for over 30 years now, I still can’t really describe it. I thought White did a pretty good job of describing it, though:
“With some writers, style not only reveals the spirit of the man but reveals his identity, as surely as would his fingerprints.” – E.B. White (from The Elements of Style)
The more you write, the more your personal writing style emerges.
One reviewer on Amazon says she uses E.B. White essays to teach her 9th grade students how to write well. “White is humorous while wise and gentle while cutting. …. The old story is that, if you spend a month reading nothing but E.B. White’s essays, you WILL start writing well.”
I like the way White directed aspiring writers away from focusing too much on the mechanics of their craft:
“Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.”
‘Write up, not down …’
White’s first children’s book didn’t appear until 20 years after he began writing for The New Yorker.
Stuart Little (about a mouse, born into a human family, that has a series of adventures), was published in 1945.
Seven years later, in 1952, Charlotte’s Web (a moving story about how a pig’s life is saved by a young girl and, later, by a spider) appeared.
In recognition of the quality of those books, White was awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in 1970. (At the time, the award was given every five years, to authors and illustrators of books published in the United States that have made a substantial and lasting contribution to children’s literature. It’s now awarded every other year.)
That same year was when White’s third children’s book was published: The Trumpet of the Swan. (A mute swan’s father steals a trumpet to help his son, after which the young swan makes his way across the country, earning money to pay for the stolen trumpet, and eventually meets up with his “true love” once again.)
Because White was often asked by children if these stories were true, he eventually wrote, “No, they are imaginary tales. … But real life is only one kind of life – there is also the life of the imagination.”
Commenting on writing for children, White once said, “Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down.”
It’s no wonder his books have become classics.
KEYS TO SUCCESS: Imagination, a sense of wonder, “keeping it simple”
RESOURCES
The Elements of Style (4th Edition) (1999) by William Strunk, Jr., and E.B. White
This 105-page book, first published in 1959, contains many pearls of writing wisdom, including:
“Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise.”
“Avoid fancy words. Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute.”
“Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.”
It covers basic rules of usage and composition principles, “matters of form,” and a list of words and expressions that are commonly misused. An illustrated edition was published in 2007.
Charlotte’s Web (1952) by E.B. White
Wilbur, Charlotte, Fern, Templeton, and Homer Zuckerman are names familiar to anyone who’s read this children’s classic.
The star of the story is Charlotte, a wise spider who also happens to be very literate. Through the mysterious messages she weaves in webs strung across the barn, Charlotte ends up rescuing Wilbur from being slaughtered.
In the year 2000, Publishers Weekly listed the book as the best-selling children’s paperback of all time.
One Man’s Meat (1942) by E.B. White
The upbeat essays compiled here first appeared in book form in 1942 and focus on White’s life on a small saltwater farm in Maine, where he retired with his family in 1938.
Most of the essays were printed monthly in Harper’s Magazine, from July 1938 to January 1942. They include a complaint about the effects of automobiles on community life and a reflection on the youth of soldiers.
The Simple Living Guide: A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living (1997) by Janet Luhrs
Janet Luhrs gave up a law career to simplify her life, and fell so much in love with simplicity that in 1992, she started a newsletter on the subject, called Simple Living.
In the book, Luhrs demonstrates through many real-life examples how you can redesign your life and learn to savor every moment.
Here are two items on her list of “28 Secrets to Happiness”:Be kind to kind people. and Be even kinder to unkind people. She coaches too.
Her motto: “Guiding you from chaos to simplicity.”
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“You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.” – Katherine Anne Porter
