I say, old bean, attempting to write like P.G. Wodehouse is rather like trying to catch lightning in a bottle while wearing rubber gloves and balancing a cup of tea on one’s head—theoretically possible, but fraught with the potential for embarrassment and singed eyebrows.
Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? The first thing one must understand about Wodehouse’s prose is that it exists in a world of perpetual sunshine, where the greatest crisis a chap might face is a missing dress shirt before dinner or an unexpected engagement to a girl who makes you read improving books. It’s a universe operating on its own delightful logic, rather like a clockwork orange made of spun sugar and good intentions.
The secret sauce, if one might be permitted to use such a vulgar Americanism, lies in the construction of sentences. Wodehouse wielded words like a master fencer—sometimes with quick, stabbing thrusts of wit, and other times with long, elegant flourishes that leave one quite breathless. Consider, if you will, the difference between “He was upset” and “He looked like a man who had just discovered that someone had replaced his morning tea with a substance bearing a disturbing resemblance to the stuff one finds at the bottom of garden ponds, and was now contemplating the collapse of all that made life worth living.”
Speaking of sentences, one simply must master the art of the simile. Wodehouse’s comparisons are like perfectly mixed cocktails—unexpected, potent, and liable to make one giggle at inappropriate moments. A character doesn’t merely look confused; rather, they wear “the expression of a man who, expecting to sneeze, has discovered that the sneeze has somehow taken a wrong turning and emerged as a hiccup.” The key is to combine the mundane with the magnificent, the ordinary with the outrageous.
Now, about dialogue—ah, dialogue! This is where the rubber meets the road, as those colonial cousins might say. Your characters shouldn’t simply speak; they should emit their personality with every syllable, like a sort of verbal fingerprint. Young Bertie Wooster, for instance, never uses one word where seventeen will do, and most of those should be ever-so-slightly wrong. “I mean to say, what?” becomes his verbal signature, a sort of linguistic calling card that tells readers exactly who’s holding forth.
The construction of plot requires the delicate touch of a safe-cracker combined with the merry abandon of a child building a sandcastle. Begin with something trivial—say, the theft of a cow creamer or the need to spirit away an unwanted manuscript. Then, with the precision of a master watchmaker, add complications that spiral wildly out of control. Each solution must create at least two new problems, rather like trying to clean up spilled marmalade with a silk handkerchief.
Essential to any Wodehousian plot is the presence of at least one formidable aunt. These terrifying creatures must possess the ability to reduce grown men to quivering jellies with a single raised eyebrow. They should preferably have names like Agatha or Dahlia, and must never, under any circumstances, be reasonable about anything.
The language itself must fizz like champagne. Deploy antiquated expressions with gleeful abandon. Sprinkle in references to classical literature, preferably slightly mangled. “As Shakespeare said, if you’re going to have a go at something, you might as well have a proper go at it.” Create compound adjectives that have no right to exist but somehow feel perfectly natural: “soup-stained,” “aunt-riddled,” “fish-faced.”
One must also master the art of the narrative intrusion. Break the fourth wall as if it were made of particularly flimsy plywood. Address your readers as old friends sharing a quiet moment at the Drones Club. “And at this point in our narrative—and I think you’ll agree it’s high time something started happening—young Tuppy Glossop found himself in what one might call a pickle of not inconsiderable dimensions.”
Remember that even the silliest character must have their own internal logic. They might be as dotty as a spotted pudding, but their actions should make perfect sense to them, even if they leave everyone else scratching their heads and reaching for the nearest restorative.
The true art lies in making it all appear effortless, like a swan gliding across a pond while paddling like blazes underneath. Wodehouse himself spent hours getting even simple sentences exactly right. One doesn’t simply dash off this sort of prose—one cultivates it, like a particularly temperamental orchid that requires just the right amount of sunshine, water, and encouraging words whispered at midnight.
When constructing your narrative, think of it as a sort of literary soufflé. All the ingredients must be precisely measured, the timing must be impeccable, and even then, success is not guaranteed. But when it works—oh, when it works!—the result is pure magic.
And here’s a final tip from one who knows: if you find yourself stuck, throw in an unexpected pig. It works every time. There’s something about a pig in a garden, or better yet, in a drawing room, that adds just the right note of chaos to any situation. Though do be careful about the breed—a Berkshire has a very different effect from a Gloucester Old Spot.
The most important thing to remember is that beneath all the froth and bubble, Wodehouse was a master craftsman. His seemingly effortless style was the result of endless revision and refinement. So if at first you don’t succeed, keep at it until your prose flows like vintage champagne rather than cooking sherry.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I hear my man Jeeves suggesting that it might be time for a restorative brandy and soda. Writing about writing, don’t you know, can be rather taxing on the old grey matter.
Written while attempting to prevent a small dog from making off with my last cucumber sandwich and wondering if it’s too early for a gin and tonic…
