How aware and intentional are you about your writing style?

[sister jenny]

Someone said my writing was impatient and restless. Guess that’s true.

If I have an idea I start writing.
No plan, no plotting.
I have no idea myself what will happen or who is in it.
I just start writing.
If I don’t finish the story in one writing session, I never finish it.

English is my second language so my vocabulary is limited and my grammar chaotic.

If I don’t get turned on myself, I stop writing the story and lose interest.

 

[Eosphorus]

There are ways to describe a setting in a story that do not require a paragraph of exposition.

The house a character lives in or where a story takes place, for example. You don't have to describe the house in full detail right away, just give readers what they need as they need it.

"I went upstairs..." = there's at least two floors.

"We continually bumped into each other while making breakfast" = the kitchen is small, cramped.

"Looking out my window, I saw my neighbor through hers" = the houses in this neighborhood are close together.

Etc.

Well said. I would use the house example if I were teaching a class on Creative Writing.

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Same.
I'm winging it and just trying to keep it interesting, hoping others like the story. I have no writing knowledge or style. I've never done drafts or outlines, no writing tools or apps. I'd call it "improv" if I had to name it.

I do actually outline things and have a writing program which I only use to keep track of things - I still do the actual writing in Notepad.

My first story was just: sit, write, see what happens. But it was only around 6K words, and was loosely based around a real memory. I'm currently almost at 30K on something 100% fictional, so this time around I needed more help to keep track of things than a single txt file.

 

[Writer61]

I don't think about it too much. My aim is informal, using show not tell, and avoiding explicit descriptions.

A pet style is not repeating the same noun/adverb/verb within a paragraph.

 

[Djmac1031]

I would describe your style as straightforward. And I’ve never read anything of yours that felt flabby or extraneous.

Thank you. I'll certainly take straightforward as a description because yeah, I tend to try to just get to the point.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I think I basically just tell shaggy dog stories because it's more fun to explain just how shaggy the dog is than to skip straight to the punchline.

 

[IWroteThis]

If there's one common comment I've gotten on my stories that I've got comments on is that they happen to be way too erotic.

The first time I got "pure teenage fantasy" as a critique, I thought it was strange. Now, it's a square on my story comment bingo card.

 

[DEFCOM5]

My writing style is: Need work, can be improved, is a work in progress, etc .....

 

[ronde]

Are you aware of your style? If so, how do you describe it? Below are some specifics to help you think about what it is, and whether or not you are intentional about it.

Here is my own response: My style has been called "formal.' Someone once said, "You like a tableau." I like both those descriptions, although there's no intentionality on my part to produce these qualities. I wouldn't even know how to go about it. I do go over and over my text trying to increase the showing vs the telling, particularly focusing on the somatic... how things feel to the MC. My characters have dignity. Again, I don't have to go over the text to give them that quality, it just flows. I write in close 3rd person, and I put some effort into keeping the story focused on what the MC is experiencing, but I didn't know that's what it was called until this year sometime.

Show, don't tell. Do you comb pages of a new work, looking for places to show, not tell?

Crisp, minimalist. Do you look at each sentence, to see if there are words you can remove? Sentences, maybe?

Lyrical. Do you try to make your narrative sing?

Fully developed characters, complete with info about background, and character revealed in dialogue. Do you re-read with that in mind?

Fast paced. Do you literally count pages between plot points that move the story forward?

Characters that are entertaining, bordering on cartoonish. Stories that give pleasure because of their accessibility.

Snappy dialogue, like Spencer.

Snappy narration, like Loren Estelman. Again, if you have it, do you work at it, or does it just flow?

Vivid, meticulous description of surroundings.I try to

I do concentrate on my "style". I try to tell my stories in what I call a "conversational style" meaning that if you and I were talking, what you'd hear is the same as what I write. I try to stay away from words not normally used in day to day conversation by anybody. I concentrate a little more if the speaker is of a different social or ethnic background.

I try to write my characters with all the good points and flaws real people demonstrate every day. That includes language in dialogue. People here in the South have at least two primary accents and different slang terms. People in other areas have also have different accents but since I'm not intimately familiar with them, I don't write the into my dialogue. One of the best ways to guarantee a low vote is to try to mimic the dialogue you don't use or at least hear every day. The reader who does speak it will probably think you're making fun of him or her.

I do not write extremely detailed descriptions about settings or characters. I also learned that on this forum. The consensus of the best authors, based on story ratings, was that readers want enough information to form their own picture of the scene and characters. They do not enjoy reading a story where the author describes everything in infinite detail. All that detail also tends to add to word count and a lot of readers don't want to wade through a bunch of detailed description before they get to the action.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I scarcely give it a thought. I just write.

 

[redgarters]

I had to think about this one. It's hard to define my own style, tell me if I'm way out of bounds here
I think my narrative style is simple, clean, straightforward. Maybe even understated at times.
It's usually grounded in the real world, places, events, external forces.
When I plan my stories I see the emotional arc rather than a series of events, and that dictates a lot of my style of writing.
I try to show not tell, but fail as much as I succeed I think - you'll find too many 'and then's' in my stories still, but I'm trying.
It's intimate, focused on internal dialogue, usually progressing the storyline through expressing the characters' feelings and emotions rather than external events.
My stories are slow paced, I'm a little like an Ent that way - it sometimes takes me a long time to say things, but then, anything worth saying is worth taking a long time to say.

 

[TheLobster]

The first time I got "pure teenage fantasy" as a critique, I thought it was strange. Now, it's a square on my story comment bingo card.

One of my less serious pieces got a comment that it reads like a 12-year-old wrote it. I considered printing and framing it on my wall.

 

[nice90sguy]

I have to consciously avoid, albeit reluctantly, polysyllabic logorrhea and convoluted subclauses, inasmuch as I'm naturally inclined towards overcomplexity.

 

[countdowntolov3]

I'd like to think my style is intimate and conversational.

But, like, if the conversation was with a tech writer making a late carrer shift to phone sex operator. And this is her first day on the job.

 

[TheLobster]

But, like, if the conversation was with a tech writer making a late carrer shift to phone sex operator. And this is her first day on the job.

"Have you tried deleting cookies and refreshing the page withdrawing and thrusting it right back again?"

 

[hugh_jarce69]

Not conscious of having a style. Have written in both past & present tense.

Feel it would up to others to decide whether I have a style. But then I’ve no idea whether anyone sees I’ve published a new story & thinks immediately they’ll read it cos it’s by me.

 

[OddLove]

I'm not sure if I have a writing style, but...

When I'm writing main characters, I assign them one or more mental problems, usually something within cluster A, B, or C personality disorders, or maybe mood disorders like Seasonal, Bipolar, or Disruptive, or I could place them somewhere on the Autism spectrum. It really doesn't matter what they have, and I don't make it part of the story. It's just a way that helps me make a character both flawed and interested so they feel more real to me.

I'm very interested in psychology, so maybe someone could read one of my stories and see a character with subtle traits of borderline personality disorder and find some kind of appreciate in the way it's represented into a nice and loving character, rather then used in an exaggerated way to created the classic Hollywood version of that 'Crazy Ex Girlfriend' stereotype we see in a million stories.

It might not be a writing style other people notice, but it's the only conscious writing choice I make sure to include with everything I do.