In twenty minutes they give me back my car and I pass
through the doorway into the crisp world, away from the oasis of love and
dreams of fair women--a man with a smooth-running engine, beside the
Shalimar.
E. B. White had a voice of his own. The voice is unmistakably his, yet his sentences are such models of clarity, elegance, and beauty that it would not be a mistake for a neophyte to try to match them. This sentence from his One Man's Meat (1942), has White's flavor.
What are the elements that a beginning writer should observe?
First, there is the plain language. White (and his colleague Strunk) would say: Don't indulge in fancy language or even language that is too grammatically perfect. Instead of saying, "They return my vehicle," or "They give my car back to me," say "They give me back my car." That sounds appropriately informal.
Next, there is appropriate precision. Don't say "nineteen and a half minutes" or "about twenty minutes" or "a few minutes." Say "twenty minutes" because you don't have to be exact or sound as if you're trying to be exact, you just want to sound alert to your circumstances. Next, there is the word that has the right feel to it. One right word is plenty. Don't say "into the world of the bright, cold winter." All you're trying to do is contrast the atmosphere of the outside with the atmosphere inside the garage, which you have already called "cozy." The right word is "crisp."
Furthermore, when you want to describe the feel of your car that has just been tuned up, don't try to regard it as the mechanic might. Just use the word that expresses your own limited knowledge of the innards of the car and your satisfaction with the way it sounds. Say "a smooth-running engine."
Then link the sentence with the realistic images you have planted earlier in the piece; you want to round it off nicely with allusions to the romantic music on the mechanic's radio. Indulge in a little poetry here: Sound nostalgic for the days of your youth, but don't overdo the sentimentality. "Oasis of love and dreams of fair women" should do it. Your readers won't miss the touch of irony in the voice of a middle-aged man.
Finally, nail the piece down with the image of the man happy with his car and happy with his dreams of Shalimar, a beautiful word still echoing from the radio, a word he doesn't care to know the meaning of.
If our beginning writer has taken care of all these points, all he has to do is borrow E. B. White's eyes and ears and temperament, share his angle of vision, and live through his experiences. Then he'll have it made and even Strunk won't find anything wrong with his sentences.
E-mail and comments to: Arnold Nelson
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