word. 6. Five Techniques A good writer makes skillful use of five techniques: he addresses someone, gives orders, asks questions, makes exclamations, and repeats certain words. Addressing someone is sometimes described as the vocative case, while ordering someone, telling someone what to do, is sometimes described as the imperative case. Shakespeare uses the vocative case, followed by the imperative case, when he makes Juliet say, “Romeo, doff thy name.” Melville gives us an example of exclamation when he writes, “Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it.” This passage also uses the imperative case. Thoreau gives us an example of the repetition of certain words when he writes, “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.” This passage also uses exclamation. In one line of poetry, Virgil uses three techniques: he repeats a word, he addresses someone, and he asks a question: “Ah, Corydon, Corydon, what madness seized you?”(3) In a passage in his novel, The Castle, Kafka uses four techniques: he addresses someone, asks a question, makes an exclamation, and repeats certain words: “Do you hear that, Frieda? It’s about you that he, he, wants to speak to Klamm, to Klamm!” 7. Best Style Though it’s possible to lay down rules for style, though it’s possible to describe the ideal style, it’s impossible to teach someone to write great prose. Style is an expression of personality. Great prose writers don’t follow rules, they follow their taste. Great prose writers are born, not made. Style and content are of equal importance; literature is a combination of style and content. Only a philistine would overlook style, and only a pedant would overlook content. If style is pursued for its own sake, it becomes artificial; style should be the vehicle of thought. In order to write well, one must h...
