APPEL'S STYLE

 Some Similarities

I'm starting to make my way through Jacob Appel's writing. In addition to publishing tons of books, he also writes a column for a unique medicine website, MegPage. Appel's sentences are filled with adjectives, which helps him tell stories in a specific and personal manner. In "Hue and Cry," he describes the two 13-year-old girls and other characters through enough backstory "I've taught you too much grammar" and physical traits, "Legs deep in the grass." Appel has a particular talent for distilling whole pages of adjectives into beautiful, sparse sentences. In this respect, he's similar to Hemingway and James Salter. Both writers wrote beautiful sentences that encapsulate an entire world of adjectives into simple phrases. 

When I started writing, my prose tended to use a litany of 10-dollar words that were both unnecessary and condescending. After five or so years of experimentation, my writing style became leaner and sparser. However, that did not mitigate any longstanding weaknesses. Reading Einstein's Beach House reminded me of my writing coach's most important lesson, settling on your most robust and authentic voice. For me, that meant writing essays that were personal and specific. Unfortunately, that also meant experimenting with artistic license. You once said that accuracy was essential to me. That may be true, but you can't stay the same forever in writing. You're only as good as your last sentence.