Short and sweet OR Long and flowery.
Style, we all have one. But can it be changed?
What would it take to change your writing style?
Do you know what style you have? What things you do that are YOU and no one else?
I see many writers mention style. And it got me thinking, which in general is a dangerous thing for those exposed to me on a daily basis.
I never figured I had a style, but seems I am wrong to a certain extent.
For starters, I like science, I like experients and I have some weird talent at guessing out comes.
So wishing to know IF I actually did have a style, I gave 5 of my close, know me rather well friends to read ten short stories.
Now their challenge was to tell me which of those short stories were mine, knowing that several contained my strange humor, that made certain of being the controls for this experiment.
I gave them 4 fantasy short stories, 2 horror, 1 romance, 1 sci fic and 2 chick lit. ALL were written by me at various times in the last 5 years.
All of them said the fantasy short stories were mine, which to my logic made sense, their reasons being humor was the same, strange creatures were used and all were set in very different worlds. They also knew I love to write fantasy, and that I think tainted them into seeing things a certain way. 1 of the fantasy stories had no humor that I could see but one found it very amusing.
Both the horror stories were said to not be mine, which I found strange as one did have some of my humor in it but was not spotted at all.
Romance, well they liked it and talked about it alot, this one short story they could not say either way but lenjoyed that is was written Jane Austen like.
The science fiction was declared to not be mine as I had used concepts that I find horrible in real life, controlling men who feel they should be first and women second.
Chick Lit, they said were mine, because the names I used were ones they figured I liked.
But they did say they noticed one thing in all the short stories, their was always one strong willed woman and one dry humored man in each story.
So could that be my style, I am guessing that must be true for at least character casting.
I did learn one major thing while looking into style, friends are not the best people to use because the look for you in every story rather then what is written, and well every writer puts part of themselves in the making, plotting, writing.
What do you consider style to be? Can you spot your favorite author just by style alone? Do you agree that everyone has some style?
Can style be changed, yes. How you ask, by changing how you think about a subject, what is motivating your writing and your environment.
My Jane Austen like romance story was influenced mainly by my utter fangirl crush on Alan Rickman, if any man is going to make me swoon upon meeting, it will be him.
And being able to use that feeling, puts me in the right mindset to write and change my style.
Writing teachers can also influence style, encouraging certain ways of phrasing things or expressing emotions and informing us that various methods are bad.
Genre can also dictate how your style comes across, and also how you process your thoughts. How I write a mystery or horror, is not how I write fantasy, one I spend loads of rsearch on and the other I spend much time creating things from scratch.
Does knowing your style help your write better? Personally, no.
Let me know if you disagree.
I keep trying to change my style to make it more beautiful, but I have discovered it just doesn't work. I am a minimalist writer, I just like to get the story down in as few words as possible, despite how breathtaking the scenery is. Unfortunately.
It's an interesting question, do you know your own style?
Perhaps it is something other people can express better than we can ourselves, we try to generate a certain style but never really know if we have attained it until it is confirmed by a reader. We can just keep practicing and trying I guess.
I would like to imagine my style is influenced by what I choose to read but I also know it will never be like what I read. It's a little like trying to have a healthy diet and hoping it will be good for the body.
Some random thoughts, in not much of an order.
Style is one of the more difficult concepts to pin down. But changing your style is not difficult.
Changing between a flowery style and a minimalist style can be just a matter of adding words. Change the tense, viewpoint etc and you will naturally fall into a different style. It’s relatively easy to change the distance, and get another style. The style of humour makes a difference too, does your writing acknowledge that it is funny.
I personally find it very difficult to edit for style. Once something is on paper changing the style generally requires throwing it away and rewriting. Otherwise I get a piece that is 'fighting itself'.
Often it’s a good exercise to write the same piece in different styles.
I think style should be deliberate rather then accidental. It’s important to know what style you are aiming for in a piece of work. Sometimes it’s easiest to imitate the style of other authors you are familiar with.
Yes that can be an issue, but it can be one which if worked on, fixed when doing the edits. I tend to put the basic plot line, all the interactions and basic descriptions, then go back in the edit and add more flowery stuff to make it flow more.