What's YOUR style?

I usually write things I would want to read. That's usually any type of YA with a little dash of romance. Whether it's fantasy, drama, historical, or contemporary it usually has romance in it. That's what I write (though as of now I've never written a historical).

Trust is a huge theme of whatever I write, even if I don't intend for it to be. A backstab there. A helping hand here. Also a lot of my stories tend to have a political undertone to it (not with any issues exactly, but overall).

When it comes to drugs and alcohol, if it fits the character it's free rein. Though I haven't had a character spring into my mind that was a heavy drug user. Oh, and I love books with sexual tension even the kinds that you can't exactly put your finger on it, so I write that too. Right now, with this WIP, my MC is definitely fighting for survival.

What I think helped me write the way I do was reading. My favorite authors are probably where I learned how to write. I guess I would read and subconsciously I'd be able to pinpoint exactly what I liked about their writing. I also think when I was younger telling stories aloud and seeing what worked with them helped. Reading old stories and getting critiques from honest people have helped me too.

I like simpler minimalistic sentences. I'm not a big flowery writing person. I tend to write first person present tense.

Usually I'll write female protags, but sometimes boys too. I write contemporary YA and i'm a fan of graphic, realistic sex, if sex comes into it. Mostly it does, because it's what I was interested in when I was a teen (and still am, let's be honest)

Somehow, I think my sense of humor always comes through, but I have no idea how. People just think it's funny. I like to make myself laugh with a good turn of phrase, so I guess others think it's funny too.

Themes that tend to pop up in my writing are: Family relationships, sexual coming-of-age, general coming-of-age... I don't know, I guess they're the stereotypical YA themes.

I do find that, if a teen is having family problems, I'll often write about them not having any food in the house/being hungry. That's completely from my own experiences and I was surprised to find that theme in both my WsIP.

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As for my influences? hmmm. I read a lot, both as a teen and now... and I remember what I wanted to read when I was a teen... but mostly I create characters I can relate to, and get them to tell their stories, most of which involve issues I'm still dealing with today.

First off, I applaud you. Definitely stay true to your voice. It's important to do that, imo

I write geeky adventures that are simultaneously dark and edgy. My absolute absolute absolute favourite thing to write (right now, this may change) is ridiculous mission-in-suburbia type books. So, yeah, geeky adventurous. But the missions tend to be pretty dark, like: "I'm going to try and recreate the way my best friend felt right before she jumped off my roof" is my current WIP.

As for themes, I think a lot of my books deal with death (scratch that, all of my books deal with death, but in different ways). Coming-of-age themes. Please-don't-break-my-ideals themes, friendship and family stuff obviously.

In terms of style and voice...I used to be a minimalist. No description -- or hardly any. And then I sort of realised I was only doing that because I thought you were supposed to write that way. And naturally, I didn't write that way, and I liked stuff that was descriptive and used fresh imagery. So now my writing tends to lean more towards that.

Ok, I write in my own voice, sarcasm and snarky included, I don't do description, I don't do purple. I like to think I'm entertaining and amusing but still serious.

When I decided I wanted to write, I wasn't making much progress at first, so I went to one of my favorite authors and tried to figure out what it was I liked so much. That helped quite a bit. I don't write anything too dark, and I'm not an angsty person, so I don't do angst well. Geeky and adventurous is a pretty accurate description.

I should add that I'm anti angst too.

And I don't do sweet romances, I do sex and I do fighting.

I love writing surrealism It's so much fun when you can bend the world and it leads to getting so much more out of your imagination (to me, at least).
I like writing first person and past tense, because I love getting inside a character's head (and that way, it's much easier for me to do so).
I hate writing romance, but I'm forcing myself to get over it and just do 'alternative' romance (it's something like a key ingredient for YA). I'm also not fond of angst, 'cause it's too easy. It's much harder to write something funny or uplifting (imo).
I'm currently enjoying finding a voice for my narrator, because I have the terrible habit of making them observers (which I hear it boring, but Murakami does it well).
I started writing (when I was about 7, making up short stories about animals) because I loved lots of books I read and thought that maybe I could do it to and create that feeling in others (kind of soppy D: ). Plus, it's like the introverted form of acting

Awesome thread.

I write YA, urban fantasy. I'm trying something new, in that I'm writing in episodic contents, whereby each episode focuses on a different Young Adult (characters are 16). This is quite complex and a little, well, risk-ish, but I hope I pull it off in the end

I've read over 500 M&B, silhouette books since I was 16, and I'm a guy. Lol no, im not gay. Those were the only books i could get my hands on at the time (cos my mum and sister read them) and I had to read something if I wanted to learn how to write. That means I have a really good idea what romance should be like. However, since I don't agree with the romance as potrayed in some many YA books these days, my book is void of it. Just breakups and characters trying to move on from bad break ups.

I don't do angst. Not sure why anyone should.

I do descriptions well, but dialogue is my greatest strength, I think

Oh, and I outline a lot. It's helped me so far, cos I have a whole lot of secondary and primary characters, and interlinking plotlines where one's chioce affects another's choice

This is really a great question, and I want to share my struggles because they're mine and I love them. And I think it maybe grazes the surface of the question asked.

I wrote off the wall, Charlie-Kaufman-before Kaufman, Indie, time-slicing, mythology-you've-never-seen-before scripts, and I was failing miserably. My manager once told me, Christine, everyone who reads you knows you can make a great Italian lard bread, or a fancy cinnamon raisin bread, but what they want you to do is bake them a nice loaf of white sandwich bread. Can you do that please?

I tried to do that. And then life happened. And we have some et ceteras and yadda yaddas. And years later, I start writing novels, and I'm baking this wicked kalamata olive with capers when, two days ago as I'm waking up, I think out of the blue...."take everything from your Fashion/zombie/boo-hag/body snatcher urban fantasy, EXCEPT take out the zombie/boo-hag/body snatcher urban fantasy parts of it and write a GENRE piece with the same characters and world and voice, and you'll have a nice loaf of white sandwich bread."

So, I am trying that and I have two weeks to figure out if it will work.

I am keeping the snarky wiseass literate voice, the characters, the intimate knowledge of the fashion world and I'm outlining a murder mystery.

A writing teacher once said to me that when shooting a film, building a house or any physical construction, out of FAST, CHEAP AND GOOD, you can get two of three.

He said that writing has a similar formula...you can get COMPLEXITY out of two of the below three.

CHARACTERS
STORYTELLING
PLOT

Now I'm trying to make a genre Murder Mystery and I hope this simplifies the "storytelling" part of it until this bad boy is commercial.

If it works and I don't get bored to tears, I'll be thrilled. Who can say? I hope to know in two weeks.

In any case, thank you for sitting through the long post and I hope I was at least marginally interesting.

What most people don't know is that all of my books are autobiographical. Why, just the other day, I was fist fighting Major Heinst on the back of a train between Vienna and Berlin and I was thinking that it'd make a good book to write about how I saved the world, stopped Hitler's occult plot and made love to a sexy German scientist.

And don't get me started on my work with the M.I.R.S, which inspired another book I'm writing.

I do angst, memory, sarcasm. First and third person, always past tense. Sporadically literary, sporadically blunt. Not into graphic sex, just lingerings and feelings and... stuff. I love building romances with friendships. I'll be the third person to say my characters are geekily adventurous. Dialogue is my writer chocolate cake, just love it. I describe art and music a lot. I try to make parents people. And I adore writing about siblings.

Great thread. :]

And slash.

I'm only writing my second novel so I'm not too sure of my style yet - this second MS is quite different from the first in that it's not fantasy and I'm trying a slightly sparser style of writing.

I know that I like to write interesting female protagonists with female friendships and rounded male characters to match them in romance (because so far I've only written het romance...although who knows what will happen in future projects). I like something with adventure, whether it be fantasy related or not. Kidnappings, plots, chases and fights - these are things I like to write!

I'm not too edgy, although my current MS has some dark currents. I wouldn't like to write too much graphic sex in my YA work - probably as a consequence of having devoured YA as an 8-12 year old. I do try to include some humour but I don't find that snark comes easily to me - I prefer to stay on a more serious note. This is probably really anti-trend right now, but as you say, vive la difference!

It's great to accept your writing style. Very freeing.

Er...I don't have anything I typically write about. I'm all over the board. For me, writing is a chance to explore something I wouldn't be able to or would be afraid to, so I run with that. The themes and conflicts that are important to me would have to be accepting what you have and haven't been given, sacrificing your love/life/mind/etc. in order to save the world/your family/someone else, and...that's it, I believe. My stories tend to revolve around sacrifice and being selfless.

I don't do edgy just for edgy's sake, and I don't do it often. I don't really tackle everyday issues, things in the realm of possibility, I guess you could say. I've written about alcoholics, child molesters, murderers, um...rape seems to be a recurring theme in my novels. Definitely things like that, but they've rarely been in the forefront. I usually don't go into graphic details about those things, but I don't plan on refraining from giving details forever. I just have to find the right story.

I've written whimsical and humorous and contemporary and hip. Honestly, at this point, there's very little I haven't done. I've worked on a lot of stories, and they've been about a lot of things. As far as sexuality as in sexual orientation, my characters are mainly straight. I have characters who are gay, but they're not main characters. Romance for me is almost always a sub-plot. One of my pet peeves when it comes to stories is when there's a plotline being touted as the main storyline, but then you read the book and find out it's actually all about the romance. I don't do that. Romance rarely takes the front seat. It's just not my thing.

My novels are usually gritty and dark and yet, still adventurous at times. I like going into the minds of people I wouldn't actually want to know. I love exploring the world I wouldn't want to actually be a part of. I like transforming dark characters into relatable, sane beings and vice versa. I like the change involved in those kinds of stories. It's my favorite part to see how a character has changed from the beginning of a story to the end.

Influences...I don't have very many. I'm a minimalist when it comes to details and descriptions. Part of it is because I suck at it, the other part is because I don't like descript-y writing. I tend to come across books like that a lot, so when I am reading those books, I'm inspiried to not write in that way. My writing style isn't something that's been directly influenced by someone else. It's just how I think and how the characters think, morphed together.

I always write contemporary YA, general or paranormal. I use female protags, although I've considered using a male. Of my three protags so far two have suffered abuse from their parents and a third has a friend being abused by her boyfriend. My next two novels will not carry that theme.
I'm not against graphic sex, but the protags I've written haven't been ready for that. As for drugs and alcohol - it just hasn't come up in the work I've done, but I'm not against it.

I wouldn't say that my protags are a reflection of me, although I do add in small details that have happened in my life, most of them are inconsequencial things only very close family would pick up on - like a dog's name, or a song

I feel that the more I write the strong my voice gets and the more unique my characters and storylines become.

I'm a quirky writer. Most of my WIPs are very lighthearted and comedic, but in a sometimes very subtle/sometimes very in-your-face way. But even more than this, my WIPs are very character-driven. The plot falls out of the natural progression of the choices and reactions of the characters. Basically, I write about life happening. Sometimes with bizarre circumstances (i.e. superheroes are real!).

I write both first and third limited, and always past tense. Never present.

The only WIP where I take myself seriously is my fantasy, and that's because, well, it is serious. It doesn't really work to be lighthearted when there's political upheavals and worlds falling out of balance and such. At least, in this story, it is.

Oh, and there's always at least a little bit of romance.

Great thread. As for my style, I'd describe it as: dark. edgy. twisted. humorous. fast-paced. strong female characters. short and to the point. not to mention, a hell of a lot of fun to write.