How aware and intentional are you about your writing style?

[sister jenny]

Someone said my writing was impatient and restless. Guess that’s true.

If I have an idea I start writing.
No plan, no plotting.
I have no idea myself what will happen or who is in it.
I just start writing.
If I don’t finish the story in one writing session, I never finish it.

English is my second language so my vocabulary is limited and my grammar chaotic.

If I don’t get turned on myself, I stop writing the story and lose interest.

 

[Eosphorus]

There are ways to describe a setting in a story that do not require a paragraph of exposition.

The house a character lives in or where a story takes place, for example. You don't have to describe the house in full detail right away, just give readers what they need as they need it.

"I went upstairs..." = there's at least two floors.

"We continually bumped into each other while making breakfast" = the kitchen is small, cramped.

"Looking out my window, I saw my neighbor through hers" = the houses in this neighborhood are close together.

Etc.

Well said. I would use the house example if I were teaching a class on Creative Writing.

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Same.
I'm winging it and just trying to keep it interesting, hoping others like the story. I have no writing knowledge or style. I've never done drafts or outlines, no writing tools or apps. I'd call it "improv" if I had to name it.

I do actually outline things and have a writing program which I only use to keep track of things - I still do the actual writing in Notepad.

My first story was just: sit, write, see what happens. But it was only around 6K words, and was loosely based around a real memory. I'm currently almost at 30K on something 100% fictional, so this time around I needed more help to keep track of things than a single txt file.

 

[Writer61]

I don't think about it too much. My aim is informal, using show not tell, and avoiding explicit descriptions.

A pet style is not repeating the same noun/adverb/verb within a paragraph.

 

[Djmac1031]

I would describe your style as straightforward. And I’ve never read anything of yours that felt flabby or extraneous.

Thank you. I'll certainly take straightforward as a description because yeah, I tend to try to just get to the point.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I think I basically just tell shaggy dog stories because it's more fun to explain just how shaggy the dog is than to skip straight to the punchline.

 

[IWroteThis]

If there's one common comment I've gotten on my stories that I've got comments on is that they happen to be way too erotic.

The first time I got "pure teenage fantasy" as a critique, I thought it was strange. Now, it's a square on my story comment bingo card.

 

[DEFCOM5]

My writing style is: Need work, can be improved, is a work in progress, etc .....

 

[LillianDevereux]

Very aware.
My style here, (if I continue writing here) is different than any other style I use irl.
I've done journalism. academic research, technical narrative, novels, short story, and poetry for years and am both used to, and intentional about, alternating style and voice in each genre.

I had hoped to experiment with both here but can't seem to get the mods to play nice with my first attempt. I'd love to get past my first chapter, but it seems the powers that be don't like the follow-up effort.

I'm waiting for a couple more days for some kind of a response, then pulling the plug. I'm finding there's plenty of other places out there.

HANDICAPPED AND PLAYING NICE: I am as well aware that my writing style differs from the norm. I was born in Germany and educated in both the Schule Schloss Salem and Wellesley College. At LIT here I never published a single storey because like you not getting past my first chapter.

I WRITE TO EXORCISE MY DEMONS: Whenever I write my erotica, I carefully always weigh every word and every syllable, trying to emphasize every nuance. I roll the syllables of my words over my tongue; to feel of the word, its weight and taste in my mouth. This may not be an important point, but for me the detail is everything as it heightens and deepening my thoughts and making my words flow so much more easily. My emotions mix; visual imagery always swirls so I write in a state of a permanent sexual arousal and this naturally translating into my writing. Continuity of the storyline is not important. What is important for me is placing words on a page. I know that many segments of my stories will be written out of order, because this is the order dictated by my memory and imagination. I close my eyes and the bits and pieces spin around me like pieces of a sensual puzzle.

I am protean in my perversity, shifting, dissolving, conforming to the whims of the moment! And where my words possess the innate magic to create tangible moods. I remember....that is what I do best. It's important for society to have rememberers; a memory receptacle for all the stories of this wide crazy world and as I move from city to city, from country to country, collecting words and images; making poetry from lost tales and broken syllables.

MY SADO MASOCHISTIC DESIRES DEMAND A WIDE CAST AND A BIG SHADOW: My writings are mostly written in a NARRATIVE STYLE and culled from my diaries and themes that I have incorporated into my own life. Narratives of what to write have always appeared in my dreams and fantasies. Some days I wake up and there is no choice but to write. Once working on a narrative I continually try to let many of my images dictate the direction in which my writing will go. With the help of memory I piece together the tattered remnants of past experience and vividly begin to see form and shape take place. I love to skillfully using bondage an fetish symbolism including anti-fashion accessories such as equestrian riding gear pushing the envelope of erotic style and dramatization. Fashion taking on a edge with exotic beauty.

MY DEMONS HIDING IN THE DEEPS: It’s late and I feel them gibbering and wanting to keep me entrapped within the walls in the prison of my mind and until I cry a Tiber of tears and with my salt washing away the here and the now…Best…lilly

https://i.ibb.co/6JZZbCGH/Getting-Ready.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/99p1CgN8/Lounging.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/GfXdVF6P/Du-Village.jpg

 

[ronde]

Are you aware of your style? If so, how do you describe it? Below are some specifics to help you think about what it is, and whether or not you are intentional about it.

Here is my own response: My style has been called "formal.' Someone once said, "You like a tableau." I like both those descriptions, although there's no intentionality on my part to produce these qualities. I wouldn't even know how to go about it. I do go over and over my text trying to increase the showing vs the telling, particularly focusing on the somatic... how things feel to the MC. My characters have dignity. Again, I don't have to go over the text to give them that quality, it just flows. I write in close 3rd person, and I put some effort into keeping the story focused on what the MC is experiencing, but I didn't know that's what it was called until this year sometime.

Show, don't tell. Do you comb pages of a new work, looking for places to show, not tell?

Crisp, minimalist. Do you look at each sentence, to see if there are words you can remove? Sentences, maybe?

Lyrical. Do you try to make your narrative sing?

Fully developed characters, complete with info about background, and character revealed in dialogue. Do you re-read with that in mind?

Fast paced. Do you literally count pages between plot points that move the story forward?

Characters that are entertaining, bordering on cartoonish. Stories that give pleasure because of their accessibility.

Snappy dialogue, like Spencer.

Snappy narration, like Loren Estelman. Again, if you have it, do you work at it, or does it just flow?

Vivid, meticulous description of surroundings.I try to

I do concentrate on my "style". I try to tell my stories in what I call a "conversational style" meaning that if you and I were talking, what you'd hear is the same as what I write. I try to stay away from words not normally used in day to day conversation by anybody. I concentrate a little more if the speaker is of a different social or ethnic background.

I try to write my characters with all the good points and flaws real people demonstrate every day. That includes language in dialogue. People here in the South have at least two primary accents and different slang terms. People in other areas have also have different accents but since I'm not intimately familiar with them, I don't write the into my dialogue. One of the best ways to guarantee a low vote is to try to mimic the dialogue you don't use or at least hear every day. The reader who does speak it will probably think you're making fun of him or her.

I do not write extremely detailed descriptions about settings or characters. I also learned that on this forum. The consensus of the best authors, based on story ratings, was that readers want enough information to form their own picture of the scene and characters. They do not enjoy reading a story where the author describes everything in infinite detail. All that detail also tends to add to word count and a lot of readers don't want to wade through a bunch of detailed description before they get to the action.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I scarcely give it a thought. I just write.

 

[redgarters]

I had to think about this one. It's hard to define my own style, tell me if I'm way out of bounds here
I think my narrative style is simple, clean, straightforward. Maybe even understated at times.
It's usually grounded in the real world, places, events, external forces.
When I plan my stories I see the emotional arc rather than a series of events, and that dictates a lot of my style of writing.
I try to show not tell, but fail as much as I succeed I think - you'll find too many 'and then's' in my stories still, but I'm trying.
It's intimate, focused on internal dialogue, usually progressing the storyline through expressing the characters' feelings and emotions rather than external events.
My stories are slow paced, I'm a little like an Ent that way - it sometimes takes me a long time to say things, but then, anything worth saying is worth taking a long time to say.

 

[TheLobster]

The first time I got "pure teenage fantasy" as a critique, I thought it was strange. Now, it's a square on my story comment bingo card.

One of my less serious pieces got a comment that it reads like a 12-year-old wrote it. I considered printing and framing it on my wall.

 

[nice90sguy]

I have to consciously avoid, albeit reluctantly, polysyllabic logorrhea and convoluted subclauses, inasmuch as I'm naturally included towards overcomplexity.