How often does your writing style change when it comes to short stories?

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gettingby

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I recently wrote my best story ever. I love everything about it. I think this is the one that is going to get me published. This story represents the kind of writer I want to be and the way I want to write.

All that being said, this story is quite different the my other stories. I don't know exactly what it is. I think the writing style is more mature maybe. It comes across more genuine. I would like to believe that this is what my writing has evolved to, this level of writing. I was trying to figure out how many short stories I've written before this one. My guess is around 100.

But this got me thinking about how often our writing styles changes. When I started writing short stories, I thought I was a minimalist writer. I used short, clipped sentences and had very little description. That can work, but I wasn't able to publish anywhere with those pieces. I went through other phases, thinking each time I had found my voice. I tried being plot driven. I tried being character driven. I tried being funny. I tried being serious. And, of course, the whole time, I tried being good. After four years of writing short stories like crazy, I think I finally wrote something that is really good. But I think I had to go through several different writing styles before I found this one. I guess it's sort of a blend of some of the other styles.

How often does your writing style change? I would say I've given each style a good few months and several attempts. It's not like I ever decide I'm going to try a new style, it just sort of happens. How does it happen for you guys?
 

Jamesaritchie

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It changes as often as I have the need to change it. Some writers essentially stick to the same style, and the same voice, their entire career. Others change style and voice to match the story they want to write. I fall into the change is good camp.

My style always reflects character, setting, and genre. Even two people from the same little town are not going to be clones in look, in beliefs, in speech patterns, in intelligence, in education, in beliefs, etc. People fro different states even more so. People from country life, from small Midwestern town life, and from big city life have huge differences. Every aspect of a story should reflect these differences, even when two PoV characters in different stories are from the same tiny Midwestern town, let alone when they're from completely different cultures. Characterization, speech, style, voice, and everything else should reflect these differences.

This is one reason I love not outlining or plotting. I can just let the PoV character tell his story, his way, in his style, and with his voice. Allowing characters to do this has always been natural for me, which does not mean I didn't work at it. Being able to set mood and tone, things almost completely ignored by many writers, is crucial in changing style, voice, and genre.

Anyway, my changes have always, I think, been intentional, not simply from experience. It's tough to explain, but I don't, for instance, try to write funny. I know exactly what I find funny. I've read a blue million humor writers, and I know the top couple that make me laugh out loud. I know why these stories/essays/articles make me laugh, and I know how they write their stories/essays/articles. I write mine the same way.

This doesn't mean an automatic sale, but it does mean the story/essay/article is funny, and well-told. When one gets rejected it's almost always because it doesn't fit the magazine, or because the editor already bought something like it. Without fail, even with a rejection, the editors always say how funny the piece is, and how they wish it fit the magazine.

Nor do I try to write minimalist, or serious, or dark, or light, or etc. I know what I like here, too, and I know how the writers I love write such things. This is all easy.

What I try to do is write character. There is no such thing as a good story without good characters, plot driven or not. As many have said, readers forget plot overnight, but they remember character forever. So I strive for character. This also means I try to make the setting as good, as detailed, and as realistic as I can because setting is character. It also means I try as hard as I can to bring mood and tone to the fore. Mood and tone need to be there right from the first paragraph, or it simply is not going to work.

The thing is, I don't believe in changing my style, my voice, or anything else because I can't sell stories with the one I'm currently using. I think doing so is a bad idea. If you've done a lot of reading, the style and the voice you're using are not why you can't sell stories. Neither is the fact that you're writing funny, or minimalist, or serious, or westerns, or horror, or literary stories. You aren't selling these stories because you simply are writing them well enough. The style works just fine. It's your execution of the style that's a problem. I don't think jumping to a different style, or a different type of story, changes this. I think it makes things worse.

If you want to sell a funny story, you first have to read a trillion or so funny stories. Then you write ones similar in style to the ones that made you laugh out loud. If they fail, you don't move on to minimalist, or serious, or horror, or westerns, etc., you keep writing funny stories until you start selling them. Then you move on to minimalist, or serious, or horror, or westerns, etc. You pick something you love to read, just ONE thing, just ONE thing, and you keep writing it until you can write that ONE thing well. Then you can move on to another ONE thing.

I'm not saying there's never a time when abandoning a style, or a type of story, before you start selling in it isn't a good idea, but I am saying this should be an absolute last resort, and should never happen until it's painfully obvious that at least fifty editors have seen fifty different stories in this style, and you haven't even received a real compliment.
 

blacbird

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Every story, in my opinion, sets up its own personal principles and consistencies from the very first sentence. It follows that every story therefore differs from every other story, to some extent. So again I agree with JAR, who said it very well in his first sentence:

"It changes as often as I have the need to change it."

You're overworrying about nothing. Write the story the way it individually requires being written.

caw
 

historygeek402

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I started mine in 2008 and found some old copies of it from back then. Holy Toledo! So bad!!!
It's still a WIP but I notice it is very different now than it was back then, and it will only get better.
First drafts are almost always the worst. Sometimes every other draft after that is not the best it can be either. I look at editing like cleaning a room in a hoarder's house, at least for me, anyway. I had a ton of junk that didn't need to be there, and I still have some junk that doesn't need to be there, but the more I work at it, the cleaner it gets, until finally it becomes something I can enjoy.
 

WriterBN

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To some extent, mine changes with each story. I (usually) write collections of linked stories, so there's always a common thread, but the style itself will change to suit each story.
 

gettingby

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Are you guys saying you really don't have a writing style? I mean obviously each story is going to be different, but I think all short story writer have a style based on the many different collections I've read. Style does come through when I'm reading. I would like to think I have some sort of style, but I guess I'm still trying to figure out what that is. And even though, as I mentioned, I think my style has changed along the way some of it's carries over. I think most of the stories I write sound like I wrote them. I guess what got me thinking about this is that the last story I wrote sounds like someone else could have written it. Maybe that's just weird. I don't know.
 

kuwisdelu

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My writing style changes when I change.

My writing reflects who I am, so my current style reflects who I am right now.
 
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blacbird

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I would like to think I have some sort of style, but I guess I'm still trying to figure out what that is.

It is whatever shows up in your stories. You overworry about this kind of stuff. I've read your stuff, as you know, and you don't lack for story-writing ability. Write what the story requires you to write, and let readers worry about "style".

caw
 

Jamesaritchie

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My writing style changes when I change.

My writing reflects who I am, so my current style reflects who I am right now.

Don't you match style to story? Or do you write the same kind of story and characters each time?
 

Jamesaritchie

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Are you guys saying you really don't have a writing style? I mean obviously each story is going to be different, but I think all short story writer have a style based on the many different collections I've read. Style does come through when I'm reading. I would like to think I have some sort of style, but I guess I'm still trying to figure out what that is. And even though, as I mentioned, I think my style has changed along the way some of it's carries over. I think most of the stories I write sound like I wrote them. I guess what got me thinking about this is that the last story I wrote sounds like someone else could have written it. Maybe that's just weird. I don't know.

I'm sure we all have a personal style. I suspect we all have a favorite kind of story to tell, and favorite types of characters to put in these stories. Such stories will have a style that is probably recognizable as ours, though a unique style is really rare.

I don't think about personal style, and I don't work on it. Somewhere I read a quote that went something like, "Good style is what you have when you don't think about style." I think this is true. Pace, rhythm, flow, syntax, character language, and mood and tone all change when I need them to change for a particular kind of story, and what else is style? But when I sit down to write such a story, I go into the infamous "zone", and there I channel character, mood and tone. Mood and tone are drastically underestimated by most new writers. Anyway, I channel these things, and all else takes care of itself.

Some writers do stick to one style, and often to one type of story, throughout their careers. I rarely see Stephen King's style change, but I find it a pretty generic style, anyway, so why should it change? But I doubt he thinks much about style, either. I don't even know how to think about style. For me, character, and mood and tone, are the be all and end all of story.

But if I tell a humor story, it will be written in a way I think is funny, and will have characters I know well, and think are funny. I don't have to think about style, I have to think about what's funny, and about making those characters realistic.

If I write a dark mystery, I don't think about style, I think about what I find dark, about using mood and tone to make the atmosphere dark, and about making these characters dark. I don't think about style. This is true for every type of story I write. Style just happens, and I think this is what good style always does.

Voice, on the other page, seldom changes. Voice is who I am, and it's what I believe. It's what my stories say about some aspect of the human condition, or about what I think is funny, about what I think people are like, or about how I think the world should be run. It's rare for a writer to go against these things, partly because many writers have no idea they're even doing this. But when was the last time you read a far right wing writer whose story praised far left wing principles? What a writer thinks and believes usually comes through in a story, even if the story has nothing at all to do with politics, or religions, etc. What a story says is what the writer thinks and believes. The characters speaks in the foreground, but the writer still speaks in the background in every piece he writes. This is voice.

Anyway, were I to think of myself as a minimalist writer, or a florid writer, or anything else like this, it would be in hindsight, not foresight. I would never sit down and intentionally write short, choppy sentences with minimal description. Nor would I sit down and intentionally write long, complicated sentences with pages and pages of description. Nor would I ever think of myself as a minimalist writer, or as the opposite.

I just don't believe thinking about your style is a good idea. I certainly don't think sitting down and saying, "Well, I'm a minimalist writer, so I need to write short, choppy sentences with very little description" is anything but a horrible idea. If this is what comes out when you aren't looking, fine. Such a style sells as well as any other, if it's done well, and if story and character are there. But I don't believe style is something we can affect, and still be any good.

I think an even worse idea, though most new writers do it, is when you write I tried being plot driven. I tried being character driven. I tried being funny. I tried being serious.

How can you possibly try to be plot driven or character driven? You is or you ain't. And if you're really any good, you're going to be both, and without thinking about being either. Nor, I think, can you try to be serious, or try to be funny.

What you can do is try to write stories you would love to read if someone else wrote them. This, I think, is all any of us can really try to do, and it's all that works. Whether it's a humor story, or a dark mystery, or a light MG, all you can do is try to it the way you would love to read it if someone else wrote it. Fiction is all about what you like, what you want to read, and the way you want to read it.

If you can do this, and if what you like to read matches what a lot of readers out there also like to read, then you'll succeed. If you can't do this, or if you can do it, but what you like to read is not what a lot of other readers enjoy, then you won't succeed.

I concentrate of character, and on mood and tone. But this is just a way tow rite a story I would love to read if someone else wrote it. If you have to worry about such things as being plot or character driven, you're just stirring mud. You're lost in the forest. As the cliché goes, you literally can't see the forest for the trees. Don't try to be funny. Write something you would find funny. Don't try to be plot or character driven, just tell a story you would want to read.

Others, after you start selling, can write length critiques about how funny is yo or ain't. and how plot or character driven you are, and how your style is better than beans and rice, or worse than cottage cheese and ice cream. None of this is any of your business.
 

HoosierJoe

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I have had five stories published or commitments to publish, with three more completed but not published. All are different. The best story I have written by far has not been published and I would put it in the category of "grit lit". Short and descriptive sentences. Short often confrontational dialogue. I have only a few stories in first person.
 

Earthling

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My short stories are all very different in tone and style. Does my author 'voice' come through in each of them? I'm not sure. I think if someone picked up my novels, they'd know the same person had written them. But if they read my short stories, I doubt it.
 

Silva

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I don't worry about my voice, or my style, or any of that. I worry about what's being written reflecting what it's being written about. I've written florid things, I've written dry, humorous things, I've written minimalistic things, I've written emotional things, I've written more clinical things. I wasn't writing them as a reflection of who I am or was at the time; that was just the way I felt the writing needed to be for that particular piece.

I think I write better that way-- when it's about what the story needs, and not about what kind of writer I want to be perceived as-- though of course, I'm not the best judge of my own writing quality.
 

Jamesaritchie

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No. I write stories that match me.

Thinking that means the same kind of story or characters every time shows a lack of imagination.

Then I have a lack of imagination. I write stories that match me, too, but unless I'm the central character, which I sometimes am, I either match character, and I use different characters in different stories, truly different character, not just ones that changed clothing, then that story is the same as every other story I've written.

I've sold quite a few stories that used the same characters, but I hope I told a different story each time. I can't do this simply by writing stories that match me. Sometimes I do make myself the protagonist, and when this happens, yes, the story must match me. But very few of the stories I've sold are about me, they're about the main character, and if that character is to be fully human, he can't be me in disguise, and even his story can't have a point that's me trying to say something I believe.

Maybe I do have a lack of imagination, but I'll stick with what I said.
 

InspectorFarquar

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... this story is quite different the my other stories. I don't know exactly what it is. I think the writing style is more mature maybe. It comes across more genuine. I would like to believe that this is what my writing has evolved to, this level of writing ...

I was having very similar thoughts yesterday, having come across a story of mine from a couple months ago that had been sitting about. What struck me about it was that it seemed it might actually be finished. Or, at least, there were no obvious areas for me to pick apart. I always pick apart my stories, especially the ones I love. Thus, they never make it to market (but they shine brightly in my scrap heap).

So maybe you recognize that you've written a finished story? A story that "touches all the bases," whatever those bases may be for you?

For myself, I don't think it has anything to do with "style." I can not finish a story in multiple styles. And this new one that I can't find any problems with — I'm taking it over to SYW so someone else might catch what I've surely missed.
 

Fruitbat

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After writing over a hundred flash stories with the minimalism required on such a tiny canvas, I estimate that my novel-in-progress will pass the finish line at just over twenty-five pages. :(

One thing I did (and it's easier when you're writing a bunch of very short stories) is follow "Story a Day" and other prompty things to prevent me from writing the same basic stories over and over again, which is easy to fall into without realizing it.
 

Laura15

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My writing style tends to change with genre, but on the whole I think my writing always tends to be quite descriptive and has my dry sense of humour. I do think style largely depends on what you're writing, but the tone of your writing is more inclined to stay the same, and be more 'you', and it does develop in time. I have read some of my old fiction recently, and whilst it does sound like me, it does make me cringe how bad it is! I definitely like to think my writing style and tone has developed since then!
 

Jamesaritchie

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I have read some of my old fiction recently, and whilst it does sound like me, it does make me cringe how bad it is! I definitely like to think my writing style and tone has developed since then!

What sometimes frightens me is the opposite. I read my older fiction, some of it from the first year I started write some thirty-seven years ago, and much of it is not just good, but as well-done in every way as anything I've done sense. I had both eagerness and ignorance then, and both made the writing better. Often a lot better.

The more I've learned about how to write over the years, and bout how you're supposed to tell a story, how you're supposed to draw good characters, what you're supposed to say, how much description is too much, on and on, the worse my writing has become in the ways that matter most.

It took me a long time to relearn an old lesson. There is no such thing as too much description, there is only description that does or does not hold the reader's interest. There is no such thing as a sentence that's too long, there are only sentences that do not say what they should say, and that are too clumsy to read, not too long. There is no such thing as a word that should not be used, even if that word ends in "ly" or "ing", of if it has nineteen syllables. There are only words that are used in the wrong place, or at the wrong time. The writing world is filled with petty rules, and while most of them are good advice for new writers, they are all completely wrong for the good writer who knows how to use language.

I had to relearn that it's all about the joy of writing, the joy of telling a story you want to tell, and of just letting go and writing. If you think about these rules when writing, or when editing, you'll fail, even if what you write sells, which it probably won't.

I also believe that good style just happens. It's not something you can fake, even when it changes story by story, or genre by genre. I just happens because you know people, you know places, and you know genre. You sit down, you start writing, and the right style for that story just comes out.

It's the people, it's the setting, and it's the story. To me, these things generate the writing, make the style, not the other way around.
 
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