The Sentence Stylist
In the hands of a stylist, a reader feels secure. Because nothing bad will occur when the sentences are just right. All those witty, clever, and pleasing lines hint toward a larger plan, toward a larger plot underneath the prose–the writer can be trusted, the time spent reading has a purpose, a payoff, there’s no threat that the writing will sputter to a stop. For the writer is always, after all, omniscient, but most readers have long since experienced a loss of faith—after wasting time with improbable storylines, improbable characters, improbable coincidences—and thus learned to be a bit doubtful. Yet artful prose suggests care. It reassures. Even relieves. As it implies solicitude, that the reader isn’t wasting time, that they’ll be looked after, cared for, protected.
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