Got Style?

maestrowork said:

Scarlet's answer in another thread prompted me to ask this:

What is your style? Better yet, show us.

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victoriastrauss said:

I've often wondered, if I met myself walking down the street, whether I'd recognize myself. I think I have an extremely distorted idea of my own appearance.

I have a feeling I have a similar problem with my writing. Style dysmorphic disorder.

- Victoria

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I closed my eyes and visualized where I wanted to appear. It helps if you've been to your destination before you pop in. It's not necessary, just helpful. I focused on exactly where I wanted to go and then created the portal. We fell into the dimensional doorway, the stars winked out, and we landed with a thump onto something soft.

I opened my eyes; we had landed on the couch in Emiliana's living room. Perfect.

A growl came from the bedroom. "Who's out there?"

"Just me," I said.

"Oh, I see. Decided to spend the night after all?" Her voice seemed full of excitement.

"Um, not exactly."

She walked out of her bedroom pulling on a sheer negligee over her obvious nudity. When she saw Kali she jumped back out of sight.

"And you brought your daughter, too. How nice." A few moments later she came out in a long terry cloth robe that covered everything from chin to toe. "What brings you here this time of night with... What the hell is that?"

"She's hot," Benitog said.

"Emiliana, Benitog. Benitog, this is Emiliana."

"And a werewolf to boot. Are you guys...?" He made a clicking sound, nudged me with his elbow, and winked.

"No!" Emiliana and I answered in unison.

"Beni," I said, tipping my head toward Kali. "Ixnay on the exsay talk."

"Jeeze dad, like I don't know Pig Latin." Then Kali burst into laughter. "Pig Latin to a pig! That's funny."

"Hey, boss? Again with the pig jokes?"

Emiliana stood there tapping her foot with her arms folded. I was reminded of Dee in a way, but only slightly. Even in the robe it was a sexy look for Emmy.

"What are you doing here?" Emmy asked again.

"I had a run in with Cassandra," I replied.

"I can see that. Did she try to kiss you to death? You're lips are all swollen."

"Something like that."

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Jamesaritchie said:

Does a good writer really have one style, or several styles? .

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“You’re smoking now?” an incredulous Linda asked Greg the next afternoon. She had just come upstairs after getting the laundry from the drier.

Greg sat in his favorite living room chair reading the paper, having just finished a delicious Camel cigarette. “After what happened yesterday,” he said, “I thought I could use one.” He dropped the spent butt into Linda’s nearly empty Diet Coke can.

“Hey! I was still drinking that!” She plopped the laundry basket in front of the couch and picked up the package of Greg’s smokes. “And Camels? Are you crazy? They’re unfiltered!”

“You should try one. They taste a lot better than what you used to smoke.”

She sunk down into the couch and pulled some socks out the basket and rolled them together, while giving Greg a “help, or else” kind of look. Greg folded his newspaper and laid it aside and removed a blue towel.

“Why did you suddenly start smoking?” she asked.

Greg considered it for a minute. He wasn’t really sure; it just felt like the “right” thing to do after all the stress of the accident. “I don’t know. I guess I saw Christopher smoking them last night. That probably made me want one after, after—”

“After you nearly blew up the garage.” she said. “I can see how that would kind of stress you out. But I quit smoking because of you! And I really liked it. Kools were my brand. Very mild and relaxing.”

“Start again if you want to. It won’t bother me.” He helped himself to a second and lit it with his new Bic lighter. “I just found I liked cigarettes after all. They’re kind of nice.”

“You’re having another one?” Linda said, and smacked his arm. “Now you’re making me want one. I might have to hike over and buy myself a pack of Kools.”

He inhaled deeply from his cigarette. “Everything is Jake.”

She put down the pants she was holding and turned and looked at him. “What did you say?”

“You know, it’s all right. Do it if you want to.”

She picked the pants back up. “Sure,” she said. “I’ve just never heard you say that before.”

“Baby, you’re not hitting on all sixes, I say it.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like something out of The Great Gatsby. What is with you?”

He set the cigarette on the top of the Diet Coke can. “Nothing. Just me being me.”

“Well, whatever. After you’re done here, I want you to clean up that damn mess in the garage. I want to pull my car in there today.”

He resisted the urge to pull another cigarette out. “Yeah, no problem,” he said.

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underthecity said:

Since I'm revising, I thought I'd share this passage from the beginning of chapter two. Maybe it shows my style, maybe not.

The setup: The night before, Greg had been momentarily possessed by a ghost. This scene is supposed to show him developing traits he didn't have before, including using verbiage the ghost had used when alive in the 1920s.

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Dear Diary,
Hello. Now I am six. My name is Rita Maraj. I live at Number Seven Victoria Street Georgetown with my Daddy and Mildrid. Mildrid is the Made.
Daddy gave you to me today. He said You will be my Freind and I can write things to you. I like the puppy on your cover. I also got a bysicle, its red, I can ride my bysicle almost alredy. I had a party with Polly and Dona and Brian Coolij. I had a cake with six candles and I blew them all out but I didnt let Brian Coolij kiss me. I made a wish. I wont tell you my wish but I’ll tell you everything else about me.
I have too dogs and three cats. I fownd them by myself. I like watching ants.
My Mummy dide dyd dyed when I was Born. I had too Grannys but one dyed two last year thats when I came to live with Daddy. I never met that Granny (Daddys mummy). she didnt like me but the other one likes me a lot but she lives far away in a Creek. She has a boat and pigs and lots more anamals and I used to live in the Creek with her two (and Anty). I love anamals and Daddy says I can have lots of them. Creek water is black. I like to read.
Daddy didnt come home to tell me my Story tonight thats why im writing to You. I learnd to read and write at the Mary Noble Primary School but I still make some speling mistakes but not meny. I like school but Im always getting into truble I cant help it.
Janet Focks said I look like a ragger Mufin so I throo her books out the window. Miss Lee made me stand in the corner. She gave me a letter for Daddy. I read red it and throo it away. She told him to kome my hair before I go to school but Daddy sleeps in the morning so he cant so Mildrid komes it for me. It has two many nots and it hurts when she komes it thats why I bit her hand today but I didnt mean to. I was going to kome it myself but I entirley forgot.
Goodbye Rita
PS I hope you like me I hope we get to be best Freinds.

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No one had bothered to cover the bodies, and Carson Hines felt his stomach do a couple of quick flips. He'd known Iron Belly well enough, but now there was no way he could even begin to find the old warrior. What the men who'd done this had started, coyotes, buzzards, and the hot Montana sun had finished.

"Jesus Christ, sheriff. Someone did a number on these bastards."

"They surely did, Mathias." Not a large man to begin with, Carson looked even smaller standing next to his towering deputy. "Between the scavengers and the bullets I can't even find Iron Belly."

"You figure this was his bunch?"

"He always camps here. Man's been selling horses through the county for years now. Way I heard it he was good friends with Amos Snyder, gent who founded Longhorn."

"My God! They even cut up the kids!" Mathias turned away and threw up, a wet sound on ground that hadn't seen rain for some time.

"Someone will hang for this." Carson spoke flatly, unwilling to show even his best deputy the rage that was rolling through his veins. Last time I saw folks chopped up that bad was at Antietam. But there were no cannons out here. Someone wanted these folks to suffer. "I'll find the son-of-a-bitch who did this if it takes me the rest of my life."

"I...I don't understand this. I know the savages cut up people, but..."

"These were savages. Mat, a savage ain't just someone with red skin. A savage is a no good bastard who cuts up women and kids just because he wants their hosses."

"Boss?"

"Iron Belly always had a good herd of hosses with him. It's his life, just like a gambler always has a deck of cards or a farmer has a plow close by. The hosses are gone, and some bastard did all this just to hide the fact that he's a hoss thief in addition to a murdering savage." Carson stopped, looking at his deputy's pale face. "Mat, you go look around down by the spring. See if you can find any sign. I'm gonna get these poor bastards covered."

In the end he buried them all in the same grave. It was long, hot work, digging with his small shovel under the blazing Montana sun, but Carson didn't really mind. It needed doing, and it gave him time to think without being disturbed. He'd never spent much time around Longhorn in the year since he'd been elected county sheriff, and now he regretted it. He didn't know the local landscape, or the people who'd be drawing cards in a game like this. Finding the shooters would be easy enough. He'd just go to the saloons and arrest every drunk being held up by the bar. Finding the men behind them would be the hard part. And making a case stick would be harder yet.

There were thirty bodies. In the end he gave up trying to sort them out and just counted torsos. All had been scalped, and he could see evidence of other atrocities that the coyotes and buzzards hadn't been able to obliterate. With each chunk of the shovel into the hard, dry earth he thought he could hear the screams of the women. He knew what would have happened to them before they were killed. And he felt the same anger he'd know when he looked out over the wreckage at Antietam. A buzzard clattered down next to one of the bodies, and without thinking Carson pulled out his Colt and shot it. Feathers and blood filled the air, and the shot echoed away over the rolling ground. "Goddamned things. These poor souls have suffered enough."

"Sheriff!" Mathias came at a run from the trees down close to the spring. "Sheriff! You ok?"

"Sorry, Mat. This mess got the better of me an' I shot one of those damned buzzards. You find anythin' down there?"

"Lots of sign, but it's hard to make sense of. Looks like someone tramped around down there after the fact."

"Most likely the same idiot who sent that rider to Baker. No help for it now. You get back down there and see what you can salvage. I'll be along as soon as I'm done here."

Relief was plain on Mathias' face. "You sure you don't want some help?"

"No. I'm fine." It was a lie, but there was no helping it. This was something Carson wanted to do, had to do, on his own. Even if it took the rest of the day.

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Nibbling on her shepherd’s pie, Christina asked offhand, "So, who's this Sheila?"

"A mistake."

He had a look on his face that didn’t invite any further inquiries. Oops. Bad subject. Another jilted female? It was too late to switch gears, so she pressed on. "None of my business," she said lightly, "it just seemed like you were pretty upset the other day." She could only guess what it must be like for someone in the public eye to maintain a private life. He probably had a whole string of girlfriends, anyway.

Jason simply offered, "She was seeing someone else."

Christina cast her doubts aside for the moment. Maybe I'm not being fair. "Well, thank God that only happened to me once, and it was a long time ago," she offered with a reassuring smile, taking another sip of her ale.

He seemed to hesitate, and then ventured, "Um, your husband . . .?"

"No, not my husband. Before that." No, not Reggie. He was perfect. No... another jerk, another time.

"What happened to your husband?"

"I lost Reggie four years ago. Car accident." Christina still found it difficult to say the words aloud. She switched her gaze to the large screen and stared blankly at a beer commercial.

He murmured something consoling.

A minute of silence followed as they both concentrated on their meals. She glanced at him and caught him peering at her face with apparent interest.

She blushed. "What?"

"You've got a little something…" He reached out toward her. She straightened in her chair and backed a little. "No, just a bit of mashed potato." He brushed her lower lip, gently.

She felt her stomach flip. Oh, God, I think I'm in trouble.

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That evening, Steve calls again.

“I’m sorry, Lis. I shouldn’t have yelled at you last night.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I know this is hard for you. It’s just--well. Anyway. I’m sorry.”

Lisa has to swallow before she can reply. “Thanks.”

“Look, I’ve been thinking. It’s been forever since I visited. How about I come out for a few days next week? Just me?”

The resistance is instant, instinctive. “Oh, Steve. That’s so sweet, but you shouldn’t waste your vacation time on me.”

“It’s my time, Lis.”

“I’ve got an awful lot of work. I don’t know how free I’ll be.”

“I’m sure we can work something out.”

His voice has acquired an edge. Lisa yields to the inevitable. “All right.” Then, ashamed of how grudging she sounds: “That’ll be great, Steve. You’re right, it’s been too long.”

They discuss times and schedules, make a brief pretense at conversation--Irene is having a showing at a prestigious gallery, Susannah just auditioned for the part of Belle in her middle school’s production of Beauty and the Beast--and hang up. Lisa sets her cell phone on the sill of the living room window, where she has wandered while talking, then stands for a moment, looking down at night-flooded Manhattan. She knows why her brother is coming, and dreads this change of tactics. It’s not just the prospect of the arguments, the persuasions, the weight of his conviction marshalled against her. She wouldn’t put it past him to take the choice into his own hands--to get rid of the videos himself. Should she hide them, in her storage cubby in the basement, maybe, and pretend to have thrown them away? Something in her flinches from the thought. She and Steve haven’t always had an easy relationship, but they have at least always been honest with each other. It’s why she didn’t lie when he called last night.

She sighs and turns away. In the kitchen, dinner dishes wait to be cleared up. The aspirin she took an hour ago has only blunted the aching in her legs, and with every reflection, every glint or spark at the corner of her eye, her stomach muscles clench for fear that it will become the white light that overwhelmed her in the park. Over the past few hours, that fear has become uppermost in her mind, all but displacing her dread of the crazy man who knows her home address. The blue popping flashes, the prismatic flickering--she’s used to those, she can deal with them. But full-on hallucination is something new. She is terrified of what it may portend.

In the hall, her purse still sits on the table by the front door. She hasn’t allowed herself to think about the box; each time it has tried to edge into her mind, she has pushed it away. But now, suddenly, an odd emotion grips her, a strange angry impulse, and instead of making her way to the kitchen she rummages the box out of her purse and returns to the living room, switching on the halogen lamp by the sofa so she can examine it more closely. It’s a lovely object, she can’t deny it. Iridescence sheens its surface. The metal of its legs and latch gleam for all the world like gold, though of course that can’t be. Carefully she turns it over, examining the sides and bottom. No label, no stamp, no markings at all to indicate origin or provenance. Why did she bring it home? Why didn’t she discard it on the way? Why is it so heavy? She shakes it, gently. Nothing moves or rattles. Maybe there’s no space under the lid. Maybe it’s solid all the way through.

All the time, she keeps it clamped beween her thumb and forefinger, as one does with something one doesn’t want to fall open by accident. Silly, given the nature of the latch--a hasp and loop, filigreed and scrolled, secured with a little dagger-shaped pin that is itself secured to the hasp by a tiny chain, so when the box is opened the pin won’t be lost. Yet she is possessed by the powerful and completely irrational feeling that it might unlock itself--simply fly open of its own accord. It feels safer to hold it closed.

Anger stirs again. It’s just a box. Why is she being such an idiot? She turns off the light, sets the box firmly down on the coffee table, and goes to the kitchen to clear up her dinner dishes. When that’s done she scrubs the sink, the counters, the stovetop; still not satisfied, she changes the dishtowels and the sponge, and washes the floor as well. She pushes the mop hard, really getting her back into it, ignoring the protest of her knees and hips. If I can do this, she thinks, I’m fine. She repeats it like a mantra, keeping rhythm with her breathing. I’m fine. I’m fine.

At last there’s no more she can clean. She doesn’t feel like working or emailing, so she shuts off her computer. She’ll take some more aspirin and watch a DVD in bed.

As she passes by the darkened living room, something catches at the edge of her vision, a smear of light. Involuntarily she turns her head. It’s not an eye-phantom this time. It’s the box. From the coffee table, in a room where no lamps burn, the box shines with a hot white light. As if, inside it, there is something unbearably bright.

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maestrowork said:

Yes, but they are still unique styles. Certainly my literary stuff doesn't read like my genre stuff. But they're still uniquely mine, I believe.

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from The Green Mist.

Every year, just about now, the green mist rolls over the fields of the Yorkshire dales. No-one knows where it comes from, or why it comes at all. The locals will tell you they aren’t scared of the mist, but they lock themselves behind doors just the same.

See, the mist is a blessing from the fairies, they’ll say. It nurtures the earth, bringing life to the land. In years when the mist doesn’t come, the harvest is doomed to fail.

But like any of nature’s magic, it takes, sometimes, as much as it gives.

One year, long ago, when I was just a lad there was a girl: a beautiful girl. She was young and pretty and all the boys adored her. She was bright, like a daffodil. Her golden hair danced in the winds. She brought joy to everyone she saw.

But she was a delicate flower too. And one winter, that dreadful flush came to her cheeks. We knew it then, that she wasn’t long for the world.

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from The Detour

“Whaddyameanoops?”

Marly pulled the stick left with both hands, then hard right.

“Dash? What the hell is going on down there?”

“S’no good. It’s kerfed.”

“Shit.”

Dash’s bald head emerged from the hatch in the floor of the flight deck. He hauled himself up and climbed into the chair next to Marly.

Without looking at him, she pushed the switch on the arm of her chair.

The Titan stopped.

Dash flew out of his chair and over the communication console.

“You should really wear your seatbelt, Dash.”

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from Anna

That’s me, third on the left. The one with the cheap jeans and trainers with holes in them. Didn’t look half-bad for all that. Wish I’d known it at the time.

It was taken on a class field trip. The girls on either side are my best friends, Jo and Anna. Haven’t seen either for years.

Jo’s an executive of something or other. Don’t know what. But Anna … Anna.

Must be near ten years ago. She phoned me, right out of the blue. Never did find out how she got my number.

Anyway, she phoned me saying she needed to see me. All hush-hush. Said I was the only person she could trust. I should have laughed and hung up right there. I hadn’t seen her for years and she phoned out of the blue. I knew things weren’t right. I should’ve hung up right there and then. But I didn’t.

You have to understand; I was bored. Really bored. Worked at a boring job, lived in a boring box-shaped house, saw the same boring people day after boring day, night after boring night. I was so bored I thought my head would explode. Either that, or I’d make it. God, I needed some excitement.

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It was late. Most of the townspeople were in bed or getting ready for it. Light from fireplaces, lit to keep out the evening’s chill, flickered behind drawn shutters, while fragile wisps of smoke rose gently out of the chimneys and into the cool night air.

The streets were empty, save for a stray dog rooting through trash. All was quiet and peaceful in the seaside town of Cedar Quay, except down by the docks where amidst a few run down warehouses hid the town’s only tavern, the Dusky Falcon. Rare were the nights this haven for the sleepless was silent. This was sixth day; tomorrow was Wotahsday, the day of rest in honor of Wotah, the All-Seeing. Therefore, tonight the Dusky Falcon was anything but still.

The tavern was filled with revelers: some came to drink, some came to dance, and some came with the hopes of not going home alone. Some travelers, passing through town, came for food and a night’s lodging. Others, from tall ships docked in the bay, came to stretch their legs and feel solid ground beneath their feet. A few came to fight, although Pugh, the proprietor, was usually quick to squelch such behavior before it damaged either his property or his patrons. Tonight was no exception. He carried two men bodily toward the exit holding one in each massive hand, one by the foot, the other by the neck. They struggled futilely against his grip; one’s face turned purple as Pugh unintentionally squeezed his windpipe. At the exit he tossed both men out into the street like rag dolls.

"And don’t come back until you’ve gotten some manners," Pugh shouted. His voice was deep and booming, like the rumblings of the earth coming from deep within a cavern. He stood six foot eleven and weighed near three-hundred pounds, all of it sinew, bone, and muscle. He dusted his hands together, then turned back to the common area. "Anyone else feeling their oats?"

No one answered and he said, "Fine. Music! Dance!"

As if fearing to enrage Pugh any further, the band began playing a sprightly folk song and the dance floor quickly filled up with patrons. Smiling, Pugh went back to his customary place behind the bar. On his way, he noticed a young woman sitting at the end of the bar. She hadn’t been there a moment ago, Pugh was sure of that. She must have entered when he was occupied with the two drunks.

Unescorted women who came into the Dusky Falcon were usually prostitutes looking for a sailor who just got paid or some lonely traveler in need of the special comforting only they could provide.

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