Attention Is the Only Scarce Resource Left

Voice and style are not the same thing, though the two are endlessly confused. Style is the surface — the diction, the sentence shapes, the mannerisms — and it can be imitated. Voice is the sensibility underneath, the particular way of seeing that no amount of imitation can fake. Style is learned; voice is uncovered.

The sentence is the true unit of craft — not the chapter, not the argument, but the individual line that either earns its place or does not. Writers who obsess over structure while neglecting the sentence produce work that is sound and lifeless. Get the sentences right, one at a time, and the larger shape tends to follow.