When replying to the "What's your style?"-thread I seem to remember Cogito mentioning that he thought it was a 'what's your writing style?'- thread. And since I haven't seen one yet I thought I'd start one. So, for Cog and everyone else... What is your writing style?
Now that's a hard question... Obviously first and foremost my writing style is my own. Obviously it's influenced by other things, but primarily it's at least a tiny bit unique to me, and that will be true of most people's writing styles, I think. I suppose mines long and wordy, lots of imagery. Its dark, hopefully tense, and in some sentences sprodaic (I like to tell the story from many characters veiwpoints). It's also most of the time humourous, and practically everyone who has read an example of my novel has said it was very much the humour style of Terry Pratchett, and one person said Douglas Adams as well. You didn;t say what yours was! What is it?
My writing style. Hmm... I guess I have two. One for when I write in Swedish (my native language), and one for when I write in English. Even though I am good at English I obviously don't know all the words and expressions, so my Swedish pieces are more diverse than my English ones. I am working on my English skills though *g*
My writing style is usually varied. Sometimes it's descriptive, whenever I want it to be. Other times it's funny, whenever I try to make it. I like to use a lot of semicolons and dashes--they're fun; they're like prepositions to me. And many times I attempt to make my sentence structuring alternating. I don't think it's attractive if you read this over and over again: I liked to eat. I went to the kitchen. I got a knife. I cut the apple. I ate it.
I think that first and foremost, my style is character-based, with a small number of central characters. I tend to "paint" scenes, and my action sequences are likely to abbreviated relative to the aftermath. I also tend to go light on dialogue, although I'm working on expanding in that area. I think my style tends to be more reality-centric than many others, even though my genre preferences tend toward science fiction. By that, I mean I focus more on the "normal" aspects of my characters rather than on special qualities; even my one superhero character (so far) focuses more on her human characteristics than on her superpower. Also, I like to write central characters of both genders. I don't write with as much ethnic diversity, but I'd like to do more in that area, if I can manage it without making a complete fool of myself. On the other hand, if I can learn from an exercise, I'll gladly go right ahead and put on the bell-toed shoes and the dunce cap.
It often varies, depending on the mood I am in. This kinda angers me since I can right something stylistic one day, and something rather blunt the other day. If I'm in a great mood, it usually ends up being a great style. I've also had like writing-lusts, where I have to write otherwise I might have gone insane. I usually cure it by typing in my head, because I’ve memorized the keyboard.
Lengthy. (Not necessarily in a bad way, I just tend to write things much longer than other people's. I've found that many writers will often scoff at very long works as being badly written before they've even read a word of them to find out for sure; they just assume that because something is longer than the norm, it must be all about "quantity and not quality." Sadly enough. ) Continuous. (I. e., there will probably be sequels. Many sequels.) Many charactered. (To me, character is more important than plot, though it's often the characters who MAKE the plot.) Psychological. (I hope. I spend most of my time in my head and emotions, as I have no social life or anything, so of course psychological themes are heavy in my work, no matter what it's about.) Other than that I'm afraid I wouldn't know my "style," others would have to point it out for me. I just write the way I write.
Really, it depends entirely on my mood or my environment though I've been told by others it tends to be dark. (I'm trying to veer away from that :/ ) But for me, writing is taking in what's around me and if its a sunny and wonderful day and I'm in a good mood I'll probably write something funny. If its gloomy but I'm in a good, I'll write something sarcastic, etc. However, now that I'm thinking about it, most of my writing lately seems to be focused on a person vs. person conflict whereas in high school it always seemed to be person vs. society or something like that. I'm more descriptive than I used to be, but I use fewer adjectives per sentence, things like that. I guess I just like writing about the interactions of people - explains why I people watch so much.
Even when I try to write seriously, it always ends up borderline satirical. My sci-fi is all dark comedy apparently. According to my english teacher, my GCSE essays are...interesting...
I'm the opposite. I like it when authors break up each line of dialogue with a paragraph of discription/ speculation. But when necessary, not just to break up the flow, so I'm trying to learn this. I usually end up having at least one joke in my writing, and often a political agenda. I like using the theme of the trouble of growing up. Most of my characters are male. This is because I am terrible at writing female characters, and I feel that I would be doing women a terrible injustice. My biggest challenge is in my next novel to create a really solid, strong and independant woman, without doing so just to avoid cliched female characters.
I have no idea! All I will say is that I document possibilities, in the only (best?) way that I know how to interpret them - style is... something I've never considered before, though I have had some people tell me their own view of my style, which is always interesting.
Haha, I'm the same way with female characters. Any guy I write ends up incredibly two dimensional because I've never really thought about the world from a guy's perspective.
if i have a 'most used' one, i suppose it's 'conversational casual'... but i actually change my 'style' to fit whatever it is i'm writing, so you'd find a wide range among my works... especially those from my old life, when i was writing commercial fiction, along with all other mediums and in all genres...
I tend to write in first person, with a heavy emphasis on dialogue and character interaction. I tend to break up long, heavy conversations with short, choppy scenes of intense gore. Generally, my goal isn't to confuse or insult/shock, but to make people think.
i guess i try to write poetically. that is, with imagery and double meanings. I also think i lean towards formal writing in informal situations, just because I find more authority in it.
I realized I need to qualify what I already said about my writing style. What I described is my writing style now, one snapshot of an evolving, or devolving, form.
My writing style is constantly evolving as I gain experience. My writing tends to be character driven; unstylistic, in everyday parlance; covering realistic, kitchen-sink personal quandaries. I love dialogue-driven scenarios, which may be construed as a consequence of inexperience. Still a student - always learning.
This is gonna sound a little weird, but to be honest, I write everything the way I think it in my head. Like, my brain just doesn't turn off so when I'm mowing, it seems like I'm writing down every action, every word, and every thought into story form. So when someone says something to me, my brain just likes to add the action or the "she said", "he replied" aspects of the dialouge. And thats how I write; the way I write is the way I think. P.S. I do also like to take a page from my idol, Christopher Moore who seems to have found the perfect way to blend humor and horror with out having and out of preportion amount of either dialogue, action, or description.
