Spunk & Bite A Writer's Guide to Punchier, more engagings language & Style by Arthur Plotnik

Spunk and Bite A writer's guide to punchier, more engagings language and Style. by Arthur Plotnik


This book is about how to put fire into your words. Change them from common things like blue and building to cerulean and tower. Make the castle a monstrous edifice and the suit concrete specked gray.


It invites you to change your language, sound less ordinary, and add some bite. Speak with the diction of a street hustler or Generation Y.


Pay attention to your language; maybe use a thesaurus to find new words apart from the ordinary; or use a visual dictionary to learn all the parts of that boat you are writing about.


Maybe you need a little onomatopoeia to give your character some squishiness, bang, or explosiveness. Make your novel sound the like the world around you. No dull sentences filled with the ordinary every day grey.


Arthur Plotnik gives you permission to use sentence fragments when it adds spice: to use foreign terms like udon or caramba: and even shows you how to create your own words. Isn't that just swish.


He wants you to use less common adverbs, burble and bubble with neologisms, and write with force and character.


Use of language allows you to rise out of the common slush pile and onto the editors desk. Break the rules of grammar if you need to sound interesting. Use non-standard formatting for dialogue. Make your language flow with feng shui; all the pieces opening and closing properly.


The only parts that didn't flow too well for me were the sections on grammar; what is the point of the colon and semicolon. I don't know, the sections on words were much better. Also, I found his writing on sentence structure to be a bit tedious. Read this book to learn about words and how to use them.


This is a book about language and making writing come alive. The book is quite lively and readable. You might even call it entertaining. I think it might help the writer who needs to add some color and vividness to their writing. Read it if you want to add a little Spunk & Bite to your writing.


Arthur Plotnik is the author of The Elements of Editing