On Developing a Personal Style

To the man in the street, “style” in writing — if it means anything to him at all — is often synonymous with catchy words. He likes the reds and purples of the sports page, the wise­cracks of the headlines. If he is a little more sophisticated, he likes the syn­thetic smartness of Time’s tycoons and moppets. A few people who give the matter more thought are aware that sentence length has something to do with style. Extreme thought may produce the sus­picion that sentence structure, as well as length, is involved.