Debra Spark: Speaking of Style (July 2003)

We often point to a writer’s style as what makes the work distinct.  But, like tone, style can be hard to locate or define.  In this lecture, fiction writer Debra Spark, with reference to Stephen Minot’s Three Genres, considers the various elements that contribute to style, such as diction, syntax, verb tense and the balance of narrative modes; she looks at how these elements work in a range of writers, and how they convey a writer’s vision of the world, giving particular attention to the work of Raymond Carver and John Cheever.