Style

[damppanties]

I was thinking about some comments which were made by different people, at different times, on different subjects and all of them caused me to wonder about a writer's style.

Colleen Thomas in a thread in the Story Feedback Forum pointed out that some of the good authors do not have a set style. "They have the skill and ability to move across genres and styles and write good stories no matter what mood or idea has inspired them. They are able to switch POV's, interests, settings and a myriad of other things from story to story with apparent ease."

Raphy, on a recent thread about story length talked about his economical writing. "...my writing style is so terse and compact, my stories tend to veer towards the too short rather than the too long - I seem to write using the principle 'Why use 5 words when 3 will do'. I come from the William Gibson school of writing where one tends towards the 'efficient'."

Many people on the reading at Lit. thread said that they read a particular story, and if they like it, they go to the author's memberpage and read other stories by him/her.

Question: If someone read any one of your stories and went to your memberpage for more like it, would they be satisfied with what they got there? As a writer, do you have a particular style of writing which remains the same throughout the body of your works? Should it? Or should you try to change it from story to story?


Colleen's comment quoted above is was made in response to a thread about a guessing a writer's gender through their style of writing. It was meant strictly in that context and is not a general comment. I hope you don't mind me quoting you Colleen. Same goes for raphy's quote. They are quoted here because they just got me thinking.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Actually, I am rather flattered that you quoted me DP

Readers who go to my member page will get no surprises for the most part. My style is a narrative style, heavy on detail and description with dialogue kept to a minimum and the sex always girl on girl. While there are variations on theme and I am working on expanding my horizons the protagonist is generally a small, sub, femme and her lover is a large butch. The action usually features at least one scene with a strapon dildo and there is usually a good dose of the mental conflicts and joys of lesbianism.

Because of the narrative POV and the extra time I take in build up and plot/character development I think my style is pretty distinctive. My works are longer than the lit average and more involved with proportionately less actual sex than most.

Having a "signature" style has some advantages. You can develop a homogenous fanbase who will more often than not like what they get because they know what to expect. People who do not enjoy your particular style will not read your works (and thus be put off and give low scores) because they know what to expect. Over time, you will become very comfortable in your writing because you will have already faced most of the challenges and will know how to address them.

A signature style has disadvantages too. You write yourself into a corner where experimentation is likely to bring backlash from your established fanbase. You run the risk of having your stories become formulamatic because you don't change major things. You also run the very real risk of loosing your love of what you are doing and having your works become trite (Lets face it, you can describe the sex act only so many ways).

Writers who cross genres, use different POV's, experiment with all aspects of their craft and refuse to be locked into one concept of writing have my respect. They are far more likely to produce something that is fresh, bold and new. They also run the risk of producing something that is below their normal standard of work. Very much a risk reward kind of approach.

I think the best writers are those who have a signature style, but don't let it limit their horizons. Having read most if not all of his works Raphy is a great example of having a signature style, but not letting it control what he writes. His style is very cyberpunk. Short, gritty, to the point with a minimum of words and an absolute lack of flowery prose. He can however impose that style on other genre's and make it work. He writes excellent fantasy, without giving in to the norm in fantasy, i.e. long sentences, analogous descriptions and general verbosity.

-Colly

 

[English Lady]

Although I have written a variety of different stories I think there is something of me linking each one of them.


If someone went to my memberpage from one of my stories,they might find a few that don't really appeal to them as i don't keep to the same story sections but each story has a very definite element of me to it...I think *L*


I don't think I am a brilliant author,i cant write completely different styles,I write how i write and i am not confident or clever enough to write any different to that,anybody who can certainly has my admiration!

 

[Alex De Kok]

I think my 'style' is pretty consistent

I have used different points of view and I have written first person pieces from both sex viewpoints. I have even written in second person, although not for Lit - that piece was for an audience of one! I have written in different categories within the Lit domain. One thing however has, I think, remained constant and that is the way the words go together for me. I have received a few comments from readers that they like my easy-reading style and as I feel I am very much still learning my craft I am loth to change - certainly for the present. Anyone going to my member page to find another story to read because they liked my style would get few surprises.

The nearest I have come to change has been where stories have been set in particular times or places. My 'Talisman' piece, for instance, which was set in the English county of Northumberland in the years after the Battle of Waterloo, or my dialect piece, written in Geordie and set firmly on Tyneside. I am starting to think that I need to experiment a little, but I am still having fun with what I do. When it stops being fun, maybe I'll try a change. Then again, maybe I'll just give up. I am slightly surprised to find that I have only been writing seriously, or semi-seriously, for about five years - I discount some efforts I made about ten years ago - and I still class myself as a beginner. Perhaps my efforts for NaNoWriMo might change my thinking. Time will tell. I certainly feel no urge at present to explore different writing styles.

 

[oggbashan]

My style and voice has evolved. Some readers who might like my later stories may be disappointed with the earlier ones.

However I think that disappointment is more likely to be caused by the subject, not the style.

Some of my stories are based around unusual fetishes e.g hair and unbirth. A comment I received on an "unbirth" story was "Ugh!". If it doesn't appeal as an idea, the story won't.

Og

 

[Icingsugar]

At present state, I would say that my Lit stories have a lot in common. They are all pretty lengthy, high strung romantic pieces with much more plot and background than actual sex. POVs and narration techniques may differ, but the themes, and type of characters tend to be similar.

The dissapointment, would anyone care to look for more stories like the one they just read, would probably be that there were too few of them. I write erotica irregulary, and slow.

But I surely don't strive for that kind of uniform writing. Two similar stories is probably (I hope) just coincidence.

 

[ffreak]

I would tend to agree with Ogg. My style is very definitely changing as I produce new stories and poetry. My interest in writing at Lit is to learn how to arouse, hopefully I will be able to get to the point where I do this without the x-rated language, skirting the ratings edge so that I can transfer what I learn here to popular fiction. Between my first Princess Daisy story, which is posted, and the second which is still being edited, there was an obvious change in my choice of words to describe some of the same kind of acts.

I do have stories in other genres which I have gone back to and would not change, yet they seem to be missing some of the emotional impact I would like to learn to deliver.

I love word play and to tell the truth, I've found far more here than I ever expected. There are a lot of good writers and some very serious writers who help me with my craft.

-FF (style, what style, I don't got no stinkin' style )

 

[raphy]

Like Colly, I too am honored that you quoted me, DP - Glad I got ya thinkin' ..

Yeah. I write cyberpunk. It's fast, quick, hard hitting and doesn't pull any literary punches. It's fragmented, stream-of-consciousness and switches between first person and third person almost without warning. Mid paragraph, even. What Colly's talking about is a fair bit of fantasy writing that I did a while back. All pure swords & sorcery straight up fantasy, right out of a Weiss & Hickman universe, but written in strict cyberpunk style. The style *can* be applied to other genres. (In fact, William Gibson's latest book isn't set in the future, it's set in present day, and no one does it better than Gibson)

However, back to the topic and DP's question is actually very close to something that WildSweetOne asked me a few days ago. I hope you don't mind me mentioning this, WSO.

I sent WSO something that I'm still working on. It isn't cyberpunk either in style or genre, although it's probably still very Raph-esque in style, and she asked me if my writing had changed since I wrote it. I guess that's a variant on DP's question.

And the answer?

I don't know. I think that if I did have a dozen or so stories posted up on lit, only a very small percentage of those would be written in true strict cyberpunk style (not genre - I doubt any would be cyberpunk genre)

I tend to write in a style that best fits the genre that I'm writing in - Unless, that is, I'm actually trying to write in a specific style for a specific reason.

 

[Quint]

I am proud of my Literotica work but I don't consider it written in MY voice. When I am at my best, my writing reads like a fable--lush and lyric. Oral tradition made flesh. This is not the case with my Lit offerings, although I don't really know why not. I think I might try to combine the two. *inspiration lightbulb*

As far as Lit goes...my stories draw themselves from who I am at the time. I've changed a lot. I am getting closer to what is true to my passions and what is true to my potential. All the same, from the 7 (7?) submissions, I find it hard to imagine I have much of a coherency developed yet. Still time.

 

[LadyJane]

Oh I think I do have a definite style. All of my stories thus far are historical, which I prefer because it lends a fantasy element to the story. I've also written three mainstream romance novels (two historical, one contemporary) for which I'm currently looking for an agent, and I believe that the style for these three books mirrors the style in my erotica, although they don't contain explicit sex! My erotica relies on fewer descriptive passages devoted to scenery and clothing (what clothing!?). I also prefer the first person POV, which is currently out of fashion among mainstream romance novels. My sentence structures and word choices are fairly consistent throughout my writing, which lends a similarity to the styles. If a reader likes one of my stories, chance are he/she will like the others (provided he/she enjoys BDSM). I'm almost done with a romance that I'm writing for Lit, and those who prefer the more explicit sex scenes may well be disappointed.

 

[wildsweetone]

Question: If someone read any one of your stories and went to your memberpage for more like it, would they be satisfied with what they got there? As a writer, do you have a particular style of writing which remains the same throughout the body of your works? Should it? Or should you try to change it from story to story?

Hi DP

Okay I'm stuck here... I haven't a clue, seriously. Do you mean 'style', or do you mean 'voice'? Are they two different things? - I'm still learning, remember.

With my writing still growing, I can say that it's evolving with each story I write. Therefore that would mean there's little that one would find in my latest couple of stories that they're likely to recognise from the earlier stories. Right?

I worried when I found that my writing was changing drastically, that the couple of readers I had, would be disappointed in the stories I was submitting. In the end, and with help from other Lit authors, I decided to just submit and hope that I didn't scare anybody to death because I was writing what I thought were very oddball pieces of work.

For me, there was and is no effort on my part to try to change, it's simply that with the more writing I do, the more growth happens. Having said that, I'm not scared to try out any category and keep within the stereotypical confines of that categories boundaries. It's all open to be written about.

Actually, I need to think about this some more. The characters themselves choose the kind of style the story is going to be written in. But I need to look back to see if the narration has similarities.



raphy No I don't mind at all. You're an interesting person with many skills and well worth listening to.

DP I've just seen your Snippettsville signature! Thank you so much.

 

[damppanties]

Hi DP

Okay I'm stuck here... I haven't a clue, seriously. Do you mean 'style', or do you mean 'voice'? Are they two different things? - I'm still learning, remember.

I have no idea either. What is voice? I know vaguely what style is. I thought about including a 'what exactly is style' question in my first post but then I didn't.

Style: Alex puts it very nicely - 'the way the words go together' and LadyJane says 'sentence structures and word choices'. I would add that it's an author's tone, the unique way of telling a story.

DP I've just seen your Snippettsville signature! Thank you so much.

You folks deserve it. I did it because I loved reading them. As I wrote to one of the Snippettsville authors today, it's truly a learning experience to read and reflect on stories by different authors in each issue.

Og: What is unbirth?

Ice guy: Yes, you need to submit more stuff soon.

 

[destinie21]

For me style an voice are very different. Mgy style throughout my stories remains the same. By that I mean the characters use of language and the way the story is put together , or the flow is the same. Whereas my voice can be most clearly and agressively heard inmy poetry instead of in my erotic stories where my voice takes on a passive nature to allow for the character's to be heard. On the other habd some authors simply superimpose their voice on the character's making it seem as if the characters in each of their stories are written in the same style when really it's the voice over and over.

 

[Guest]

I would feel quite inadequate as a writer if I had not established a style by now. I’ve written a novel length piece, more non-erotic stories than erotic, a book’s worth of poetry, essays, travel pieces, and academic papers. I list these as I have come to recognize my style and voice in everything I write, including these posts. At college my professors always remarked on my style, even for the most academic of texts. They seemed to appreciate reading term papers that worked as research findings but read more personally and creatively than most.

I realize I am not a popular author on Lit. as my stories, and even poems, are erudite and literary. I’m glad to have a few readers who appreciate them though. To describe how I write, briefly, would be to say that I tend toward a poetic prose with literary and other allusions, and a visual focus, at times consciously cinematic.

Whatever I write I find myself, or an abstraction of myself, in the work, even the purely fictional stories on Lit. I do not mean autobiographical bits, but rather the thinking that I do and express through fiction or poetry nearly always creates a subtext. I enjoy that part of writing, even when I am not conscious of it (which turns out to be more often than I presume).

Perdita

p.s. For what it's worth, it occurs to me now that all of my favorite authors on Lit. have their own style and voice.

 

[Icingsugar]

Og: What is unbirth?

Ice guy: Yes, you need to submit more stuff soon.

1.- Read, and thou shall understand (perhaps, I'm not 100% sure I did)

2.- Nag, nag, nag...I will dammit!

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

That depends.
Certainly, I have some style constants. I also have some
fairly-wide variations. My shortest story is under 100
words, my longest is over 100,000 (neither on Lit).
When I first started writing erotica, I self-consciously
decided to switch both point-of-view persons and
point-of-view styles.
OTOH, when I started reposting my stories on Lit, I found
that the readership for "erotic encounters" stories was
much smaller than would warrant the number of such stories
present. And most of my stories fit into that category.
I've written stories with point-of-view characters too
young to be accepted on Lit, and one story where the
point-of-view character was a grandfather. But more of my
point-of-view characters know how to use the subjunctive
than watch much television.

 

[damppanties]

1.- Read, and thou shall understand (perhaps, I'm not 100% sure I did)

Thanks Ice. Read and understood. And Oh man!!!! I'm still not back to normal. *need a smiley who looks half drunk/ hypnotised*

I liked it.

 

[oggbashan]

Og: What is unbirth?


Thanks Ice. Read and understood. And Oh man!!!! I'm still not back to normal. *need a smiley who looks half drunk/ hypnotised*

I liked it.

damppanties

I did warn you that it was unusual. There are subsets of unbirth and a similar fetish called "Vore".

Unbirth is the reverse of birth where a female takes another entity wholly inside herself through the birth canal and holds the entity inside her belly. It can be shown as a climax to intercourse: He penetrates her; she engulfs him and wants more and more until she has taken all of him inside her. Generally unbirth is seen as benign to the entity unbirthed.

The subsets are usually furry (rabbits, foxes, or similar fantasy creatures) or scaly (dragons or snakes) or equine (horses, unicorns or centaurs)

Vore is taking another entity into the body by various means including swallowing or eating. Vore includes Unbirth. There is also breast vore (taking the entity into the breasts through the nipples or by a cleft between the breasts).

Vore is not necessarily benign and can be a victory ritual. The victor "eats" the defeated entity.

I am not sure of this bit but I think a "vore" was an apparently attractive female wood sprite who would offer herself to a man who had imprudently entered her forest and she would "unbirth" him at the climax of intercourse.

There is even a full length unbirth novel by Maurice Pons called "Rosa" about an attractive Inn Landlady who causes consternation by depleting a local army unit until the army send a man with cables attached to his ankles. After he has seen his former comrades enjoying themselves inside Rosa's Elysian Fields the army haul him out of Rosa with a winch! The book is not easy to find and I've just given the plot away.

Thank you very much Ice for posting the link.

Og

 

[damppanties]

damppanties

I did warn you that it was unusual.

Og

Yep. You did. I'm more amazed than shocked after the story. Like reading Abduction for the first time. Thanks for the detailed information about unbirth. And you have feedback.

 

[Angeline]

I think style is a choice, whereas voice is distinctive and tends to come across no matter what style one chooses.

Style is limited by genre. There are constructions, emphases, for example, that I'd use when writing drama that I would not in a short story because the genres have different needs--in one, everything comes from dialogue and stage direction; in the other, narration can carry the weight. And even in nonfiction, there are different approaches depending on whether one wants to inform or persuade.

In poetry some traditional forms have exacting requirements for meter, rhyme scheme, even tone or content that dictate style.

Voice on the other hand is imo distinctive expressiveness that develops as a writer matures. A careful reader may recognize an author who writes in different styles because the voice is unique. Some of the best writers though are chameleons who can vary voice across styles.

I've noticed on the poet board that varying voice from one poem to the next can generate low vote scores and negative feedback because readers get used to a specific voice. They don't always recognize that it's just a different approach. Does that happen with stories, too?

 

[Guest]

I think style is a choice, whereas voice is distinctive and tends to come across no matter what style one chooses. ...

Angelita, this is an excellent and succinct post on the subject. You've made something clear to me that I struggled with even as I wrote my own post above. Thank you.

I also mean to bump this for others to see and perhaps to respond to your question (I haven't the time at the moment).

Perdita

 

[Alex De Kok]

Angeline, I'll add my two-pennorth to Perdita's approval. In my reply above I suspect that I meant voice rather than style.

I have been wondering if anyone would offer a simple definition distinguishing the two. I think you just did.

My thanks.

Alex

 

[Angeline]

Perdita & Alex,

Thank you both for the good words; I've read your stories (and Perdita's poems, of course) and know you are both fine writers, so it means alot. And Alex I knew you meant voice, but I threw my two cents in to help find common ground.

I've thought about this lately. Most of my poems are free verse (though I write in traditional forms, too), and I think my poetic voice is distinctive. I'd say it's characterized by detailed visual imagery. I try to evoke sense memories with images so the reader understands by feeling because I believe that good poetry is about transporting a reader this way, not convincing with logic.

My voice makes my poems feel intimate, warm, but sometimes I don't want that effect: I want edgy or ironic or whatever. Yet when I write out of voice, my poems here never do as well. Maybe they just weren't as good, but I think it's more my genre's equivalent of typecasting. I know it happens to other poets here, too.

Does this happen with prose, too? Can you be typecast by category?

 

[damppanties]

I've noticed on the poet board that varying voice from one poem to the next can generate low vote scores and negative feedback because readers get used to a specific voice. They don't always recognize that it's just a different approach. Does that happen with stories, too?

Yes, I do think it happens. I'm not very sure though because the examples I can think of now have changed from soft, almost romantic porn to the dark and depressing cruelty. Let's say erotic couplings to non-consent. From one end to the other. Result: Very low scores but critical acclaim.

This would be a good question for someone like Chicklet or KM to answer because they've got a wide variety of work and a considerable fan following.

 

[Sabledrake]

Question: If someone read any one of your stories and went to your memberpage for more like it, would they be satisfied with what they got there? As a writer, do you have a particular style of writing which remains the same throughout the body of your works? Should it? Or should you try to change it from story to story?

It depends on which one story that was. I've got some older stuff on there, stories written many years ago, and I know I've improved and changed quite a bit as a writer since then. And there's also the occasional oddball story -- Mister Fluffykins springs to mind. But in general, I like to think that readers would be happy with what they find.

Sabledrake