How did you find your writing style?

Consciously try to edit your work in half.

Usually does the trick.

My voice just is, if it isn't good enough then I guess I'm screwed because it is what it is.

*stares at badducky's advice and gets a headache -- "edit your work in half?"*

*stares back at the ferret*

Yup. You'd be surprised.

When you can't do that anymore, no matter how hard you try to shrink things down, then you're done. For now.

*Shakes his glass of whiskey at the ferret* Headaches have a cure. Works better than Tylenol when the headache is work-related.

Actually, I didn't understand what you meant by editing it in half.

I found mine by the dumpsters behind the Shakey's on Brea Blvd and Lambert. Explains it all, really.

(I've yet to fully find my voice, although it's been described as "sardonic." This is probably the nice way of saying "Hey dempsey, you're an asshole.")

Chris M said:

-How did you find your own writing style? (I feel like I have a style and a voice, just not sure if they are as good as they need to be)

Click to expand...

I wrote. And then I wrote some more. And then some more. And eventually, a style developed.

-How did you know when it was good enough?

Click to expand...

It will never be "good enough", and it will always be changing as I change.

-Was there an ah-ha moment?

Click to expand...

Not really. It has mostly been very subtle and stretched out over time. With each short story I have written, my voice and style have grown a bit (or at least so I like to think!).

I've had two out of eight agents request partials of my work and now I'm terrified that my writing is not sharp enough to make them want more.

Click to expand...

While this piece is with agents, keep working on something new so your style can continue to develop. Everything you write will be that much stronger than the thing you wrote before. At least, that is my current theory. Heh.




-Michelle

Unlike badducky's, my drafts are usually sparse, so there is nothing to edit in half by just cutting. But yeah, I constantly go back and replace the initial so-so words with better words. There's one story I am proud of that went through countless iterations. The wordcount grew by 20% in revisions, because I tend to write sparsely.

-How did you find your own writing style? (I feel like I have a style and a voice, just not sure if they are as good as they need to be)
I don't have a single style. Style suits the project. This is what's so fun about writing fiction, IMHO.

-How did you know when it was good enough?
When it's published? I.e. not yet.

-Was there an ah-ha moment?
For some of my projects, and it usually has to do with feedback I get from my readers.

That was my problem with his statement. I finish short, too. I have to edit my work double.

I'm stating the obvious, of course, but voice is developed by reading and writing. You read a ton and write a ton, and your style changes and matures the more you read and the more you write.

How did I develop my writing voice? By posting hundreds of times on Live Journal. When I first arrived on LJ, my writing just lay there like a limp piece of something that is limp, probably from the pasta family. More than anything, blogging (or journaling or whatever) taught me how to tell a good story, not once or twice but time and again, day after day. And it was WAY more fun than writing exercises involving smells and your childhood, believe me.

Journalling is a good way to start. That's how I developed where I am now (which will probably be drastically different from where I'll be this time next year.)

Authors are like composers: over time, we'll change, experiment with new things, push the envelope, fall back on the past, and incorporate elements of everything we know. It doesn't stay the same.

Chris M said:

How did you find your own writing style?

Click to expand...

I stupped my toe on it.

My style came from reading other published works but if you asked me I couldn't really explain what my style is. Basically I figured out a lot by making people read my work then hitting them with a lot of questions.

What did you think of character X?
Why do you think he feels that way?
What was your favorite part?
etc...

To your second question I don't know, I'm not published yet. I've been polishing one book for 8 years and I still don't think its tight enough.

Was there an ah-ha moment? Yes all the time. Some of those ah-ha's get beat out by other ah-ha's.

I have no style of my own, but I get to use Joe Haldeman's when he's out of town.

This is going to sound like I'm crazy (I am a little), nevertheless, as I watch the story play out in my mind a little voice reads the narration parts. He is nothing like me, he sounds sort of British and educated. Perhaps it is the voice of authors I've read in the past combined together in a sub-consious paint, which I then spread through a pen on the canvas. It is a decent color I suppose, it hasn't dazzled any agent, but only a few have seen it.
I was reading the style section The Elements of Style (Strunk and White), even in a book which allows a writer little room for error the definition of good or bad style was unclear. However, I did come away with an interesting tidbit about style being an attempt the writer makes to trap a piece of his soul and set it on the page. None of us understand ourselve completely, thus none can trap the piece in complete accuracy.
What I'm saying is this, don't change your style just to please an audience, be the writer you are. Allow your style to develop and control its own course, would life be the same if you robbed your childhood of one day? Imagine never touching something hot, it would be less painful, but would you really understand the need not to stick your hand in boiling water. Reading and writing are all sound ways to develop style. However, it is something that needs to happen naturally and not be forced.

Um...I never found it. It's just always been there. I've never even thought about it, really. It was very distinct from its infancy. Perhaps it's because I didn't worry about 'finding my voice' as much as I did telling a good story. In the end, it doesn't matter as long as you tell a good story.

I found my style by writing--a lot. With practice I was able to figure out what worked for me and what didn't. I have no idea why certain styles work for me and others don't, but I go with what does work. I recently started a contemporary stand-alone book (when everything I'd done before was fantasy, mostly in one series), and it was difficult at first because the basic style was so different. But working in such different genres made me more sure of my actual 'voice', because 'voice' would be the elements which stayed the same despite the vastly different story and techniques. As different as the stories are, I don't think it would be difficult to tell they were written by the same person. I have distinct patterns of word choice and sentence structure which stay the same, along with certain descriptive and introspective techniques. Not that a casual reader would probably notice any of this, but it is there.

I don't know how you can ever say for certain that your style is 'good enough'. I don't think being published means much; I've read enough published novels that were total garbage, along with some unpublished (even universally rejected) work which was quite good. It's all so subjective. I think I'm pretty good. Some people would read my work and agree, others would think I suck. When I submitted my first novel to agents I had a number of requests for partials and invitations to submit other projects/edit the project I originally submitted so it fit into one genre, so obviously they didn't all think I sucked. *shrug*

I did have an ah-ha moment, but I didn't realize it at the time. There is a date, though, which divides the 'crap' writing from the 'good' writing. Virtually everything written before that date is garbage (easier to rewrite than try to edit) while most everything written after is usable. Obviously (since I didn't realize I changed anything) I have no idea what happened to make me suddenly get better.

Shadow_Ferret said:

That was my problem with his statement. I finish short, too. I have to edit my work double.

Click to expand...

I also finish short...way short. But I still often do end up cutting a good 10% by the final final draft, because in adding all that necessary dialogue and action and description, I also add some extra words. I have to add to the first draft, but to get to the final, my last step is to take them away.


I found my style by writing a LOT. After a while, you stop imitating every recent thing you've liked that you've read, and it becomes relatively constant. It's not really a thing you can improve, the way I see it. You can just realize or translate it more fully.

Hi Chris. Voice is developed over time, and for the most part it isn't on a conscious level. I'll use an analogy using Classic Rock Music: The Rolling Stones, Beatles, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, all trace their roots to American Blues, and in many cases the same performers.

Along the way they tried to re-create the voices of their heroes, but when they blended them all together, they each developed their own unique voice.

I don't try to have a voice. I simply try to write what I think a story should look like, not trying to be somebody else.

"Is it done yet?" The most basic question is whether or not people enjoy reading it. There are countless threads here on "Beta Readers".

It took a long time for my story to get to the point where I actually loved it. The story was good, but my writing ability had to catch up.

Chris M said:

So, I can tell when a book is beautifully written, but I cannot tell if my own book is written well enough. Can anyone speak to this?

-How did you find your own writing style? (I feel like I have a style and a voice, just not sure if they are as good as they need to be)
-How did you know when it was good enough?
-Was there an ah-ha moment?

I've had two out of eight agents request partials of my work and now I'm terrified that my writing is not sharp enough to make them want more.

Thanks,
Chris

Click to expand...

I think I can find all parts of my answer dispersed over the previous posts.

My voice, whatever that is, is still forming. I have no idea how to define it, perhaps it's just my writing style, the way I describe, what what's been said, sentence structure, whatever, I'm still meddling it around but it's getting there. The more I expand into other genres of writing (as of late, humor and fantasy) the more I'm liking what I'm writing and the more confident I feel in my work. Not that I wasn't confident before but it just didn't "feel" right.

I love Stephen King and I love horror and for years I tried and tried and tried to write in a similar fashion. I wanted to be as good as him. I should point out I never compared by work to his but I just wanted to be a horror writer in general. I wanted to scare people with what I wrote. While what I wrote wasn't bad (it's well-written, tells a good story), it just wasn't "right" for me. It didn't sit like my more recent work is. I always wanted to write dark, macabre stuff but, and I'm still coming to terms with this, this is not what I was meant to write. if I've struggled for this long, grasping for something, anything to make me go 'that's it!' and I don't have it yet (we're talking about a decade here), it's about time I move on and try something else. And I am and I'm thanking the high heavens for it. Maybe in ten years I'll venture back to horror and try my hand at it again. Maybe I'm just not ready for it. Who knows but right now I'm sticking with what works for me now.

I think voice is something that is constantly changing and maturing at the writer matures. I also think it's something you always have but it's your job to find out just what it's in.

Chris M said:

So, I can tell when a book is beautifully written, but I cannot tell if my own book is written well enough. Can anyone speak to this?

Click to expand...

oh yes, know the feeling. I can be so critical of everyone else's writing, but when it comes to my own, I've got not a clue.


-How did you find your own writing style? (I feel like I have a style and a voice, just not sure if they are as good as they need to be)

Well, I write off the top of my head a lot, meaning ideas pop into my head, say at the store, and I'll just drop the groceries, pull out a pen and paper (which I'm never without), sit on the floor (yes, right in the middle of a busy super market) and start writing.

Basicly I write in the same "voice" I use in my day to day talking. How did I find my own writing style? Well, I wrote my first book at age 3, and in the years since than I've done more writing than reading, so I never really got influanced by anyone else's work. I was an only child in a strict religous family that did not allow contact with the outside world... meaning I was 17 years old before I had any non-family peer influance. My early writings as a result were heavy in the "rebel voice" and preached the importance of freedom. It became the style I was known for: protesting opression, protesting religous dogmas, protesting compound-living doomsday families, protesting and doing it all in the form of science fiction. In my stories the victims were aliens trapped on earth after a crash landing and held hostage here against their will.

What resulted was The Twighlight Manor series (first volume was released in 1978), a graphicly bloodly horror set in a sci-fi world and written in the voice of complete and total protest against the entire planet earth and every evil human in it. It became my trademark writing style and what people expect to see me write more of in the future.

The problem with a writing style is that people change, ideals change, desires change, goals change, and over the course of time your writing will change with your personality. Your fans expect you to write the same stylew forever and ever, and when you evolve to a new style they may or may not like it.



-How did you know when it was good enough?


For me, I know my writing is good enough, when I know the moral of the story has hit on some major heartstrings and makes the reader think: "OMG! I must do something about this!" Since I tend to write in a tone that speaks out against opression my goal is to spurn readers to action, wither they realize it or not. In other words, I strive to make people actualy think and want to make a differance in the world. If I've gotten that message woven into my story without it affecting the story, than I know it's good enough.

However, overall, I well never think my writing is "good enough", because there is always room for improvment. It could always be better. That's what editing is for, and that's also what "revised editions" are for


-Was there an ah-ha moment?

I don't recall ever having any, no.

It's just years of writing and writing and writing, that eventualy developed my "voice" and "style".

I don't think a writing style happens overnight. It's a mix of things, only one of which is the actual writing. Every event in your life effects how you write. A death in the family will change your tone... it did mine. Getting a new pet will change you tone. Losing your house to a flood will change your tone. Rebuilding your house will change your tone. Losing your new house to a fire less than one year after the flood will change your tone. All of these things happened to me, and reading my writings you can almost see when each event occured during my writing. It's freaky really, but it's true. Your "voice" is truely your unique voice and every event in your life changes you and helps you grow, both as a person and as a writer.

Like all things, writing gets better with age, so just keep writing and writing and as the years go by, one day you'll look back and see that you really do have your own unique voice and you just never knew it. It's an evolving thing and it'll grow and change over time, and that's a good thing.

I've had two out of eight agents request partials of my work and now I'm terrified that my writing is not sharp enough to make them want more.

Thanks,
Chris

Click to expand...

Well, the best you can do is send them the partials and see what they say. If they like it they will let you know. And if they do not like it, than any agent worth their grain of salt will tell you how to improve your work.

I hope some of this may be of help. Good luck with your work and let us know what the agents tell you.

I think it was when I could go back and reread something I'd written 6 months previously and not reflexively recoil in horror at the crapacity of my writing. Which only happens half the time now.