How Do You Expose Style?

[NOIRTRASH]

A writer's style should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous. The greatest writers have the gift of brilliant brevity, are hard workers, diligent scholars and competent stylists. Ernest Hemingway

I suspect style is revealed by the kinds of words that go into the batter. Those oughta know say Hemingway relied on nouns and conjunctions to do the heavy lifting. Add word and sentence and paragraph length.

If I were a writing teacher I'd simply learn what you wanna write then drown you in Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour if your thing is Westerns, Lawrence Block if your thing is porn, Le Carre if spy thrillers does it for you, and Kenneth Roberts it its historical fiction. You'd acquire the style like you acquire language style from them that speak it. Ed McBain haunted the NYPD till he knew police work like the street cops did. Block got his sex education from people who do sex a lot. He wrote for 60s sex magazines and got an education from his readers.

 

[TxRad]

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. You can read a hundred books, you can read a thousand books but the only way you can find your own voice or style is to write a book. I'm not talking about a short story or some strung together chapters, I'm talking a full novel.

You keep bringing up interesting topics but you keep going about it the wrong way. It's not what you think or suspect from reading about it. The real answers come from doing it. No one has all the answers for everyone or anyone for that matter. The answers are in the writing of the words, pure and simple.

I love writing. I've always loved writing but i got a very late start at it. The first thing I ever wrote was a 287 page novel. I never looked at a how to write book, I never thought about who i wrote like or how this sentence worked over that one. I wrote and then I rewrote if i didn't like the first try.

How someone else writes is worthless. Worrying about how they write just confuses you as a writer. The only way forward is to write and then write some more. You'll either find what you are looking for or you won't.

Early on, I had a woman read one of my stories and volunteered to edit for me. She had been a professional editor all her adult life. She always wanted to write but never did. I kept pestering her to write something, anything. Two things happened shortly after that. She wrote a story which beat me out in one of our contests and I lost an editor because she was too busy writing.

So if you want to be a writer, find a story and tell it. Readers read and writers write.

 

[MellowGem]

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[NOIRTRASH]

I crossed this bridge 50 years ago when am old woman set me straight about the function of wise counsel from my betters. THEYRE SCOUTS WHO KNOW WHATS OUT THERE.

Your way is re-inventing the wheel and fire all the fuggin time.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

There you go.

Congrats! You made my dum fuck list.

 

[MellowGem]

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[MellowGem]

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[TxRad]

I crossed this bridge 50 years ago when am old woman set me straight about the function of wise counsel from my betters. THEYRE SCOUTS WHO KNOW WHATS OUT THERE.

Your way is re-inventing the wheel and fire all the fuggin time.

Your way is confusion and procrastination, along with a bunch of bullshit to make yourself look important. Give it a rest or get with a program that really works.

If you want to write with your own style, quit worrying about who does what. Just write your way. Good, bad, or indifferent, that is the only way you will find your own style.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Some writers right the same, all the time, go nowhere, some go somewhere for a time, style is your style. Style is not exposed, like trying to find Jada Pinkett's ass on the internet ... writing is writing. You write, you write and write and one day you are either writing what people love, or you're writing for yourself.

If you are emulating, write movie scripts. Write gift cards. Write a cover song for some third rate band.

What he means is, he cant hear the difference between Pink Floyd and Steve Miller with his tin ears.

 

[TxRad]

Here is something for you to contemplate while you stare at your navel.

There is a line in someone's sig that says: writers are liars with typing skills.

I'll go that one better: Great writers are good liars with typing skills and a great editor.

 

[TxRad]

What he means is, he cant hear the difference between Pink Floyd and Steve Miller with his tin ears.

You are nowhere near close on that remark.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

When you point that out and congratulate ... who the fuck cares?

All that matters is I'm right, youre dum, and sooner or later folks'll laugh at you till you do it my way.