My Real Writing Style

[miyako73]

I checked what I've written to find out my real writing style, so I can ask you guys if it's problematic. It seems my writing style is dramatic. Should I stick to it? I'm currently lost, looking for my authentic literary voice.


"I had never hated my mother, but I could not tell if what I had felt towards her was love. I would rather whisper to my pillow what had been bothering me than go to her and only be told I was not a good son. She had treated me like a toddler who still wet and shi t on his pants, although I was old enough to father a child—that I did not do. For years, I had been trying to dissect the anatomy of her antipathy. Did she find me outside the gate with a note stuck on my chest that I was an extra mouth to feed? Did an overcrowded orphanage give me up because I cried a lot? Did she have me pulled from a garbage dump? Did I come out from the juvenile womb of someone scared of Heaven’s wrath? Was I really hers?"

[islandclimber]

I think each writer is on an endless search for their authentic literary voice. It's a process that lasts forever. Witness the evolution of style in any good writer, classic to contemporary. Hugo, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Hardy, Tolstoy, Stendhal, Kafka, Borges, Beckett, Pynchon, Delillo, Rushdie... The list could go on. They are constantly evolving. Frequently their collective works bear identifiable similarities, but there are also glaring differences. I suppose I might suggest that only writers of cheap and stereotypical genre trash avoid this evolution, desperately try to work themselves into corners where they found a recipe for sales success.

What I'm saying is... maybe don't worry so much about being lost. Be lost. Be ****ing lost, always... yet also keep exploring, keep discovering new lands, and as soon as you find yourself on familiar shores again, throw yourself into the literary wilderness again, to discover something new while retaining all previous lessons learnt. It may end up being that your best works were your first, or the middle ones, or the last, but this is not something one can discover in their own lifetime, it is for the whims of history.

I like that your writing style is dramatic. Yet I wouldn't say stick exclusively to it. I would suggest you keep it as just one weapon in your arsenal. Allow yourself to write in many styles, even in the same work. Be overly dramatic and then nightmarishly stoic from one scene to the next, but only if this works for you. Mostly though, don't force yourself to change, allow it happen naturally. I feel like I'm contradicting myself here, from one piece of advice to the next at times. I suppose, I'm just trying to say evolve naturally and don't be afraid of any style, and don't be afraid of being lost.

Some of this is brilliant. For example:


For years, I had been trying to dissect the anatomy of her antipathy. Did she find me outside the gate with a note stuck on my chest that I was an extra mouth to feed? Did an overcrowded orphanage give me up because I cried a lot? Did she have me pulled from a garbage dump? Did I come out from the juvenile womb of someone scared of Heaven’s wrath? Was I really hers?"

This. The first sentence and the fourth especially. It is quite evocative of an overwhelming feeling of alienation from the one who you often hope would love you most. A feeling that maybe I don't belong in this world, maybe I wasn't even made for it, however absurd that sounds. Yet at the same time, for example, instead of saying "Did I come out" why not follow the spirit of this dramatic despair and use language a little more figurative, maybe "Did I spit forth from the juvenile womb of one terrorized by that pernicious idea of Heaven's wrath?" or: "Did she cynically sever my umbilical cord from the juvenile womb of someone scared of Heaven's wrath?" These may be poor substitutions, but I just want to express the idea that the feeling is powerfully there, but I want the language to dance a little more, and in this melancholy dance, that feeling will grow as strong as a Mountain, the reader will not be able to brush it casually aside. Develop it, make it speak not just to my reason, but to my imagination. Leave some questions simple and brilliantly succinct, such as "Did she have me pulled from a garbage dump?" This is beautifully bleak. But then juxtapose this simplicity with a dance of figurative language in the next question as I suggested above.

My one other suggestion would be to provide some reason why the character could possibly like his mother at all. By using the word antipathy, and providing only examples of how spiteful she is to him, it makes it too obvious that love is not what the feeling would be towards her. Maybe between the first sentence and the second. Add something to show that she had raised him, that she had looked after his tangible needs. To put it briefly, something like "Though she had raised me and certainly cared enough (or felt duty-bound) to provide the necessities of an outwardly comfortable childhood... I would rather whisper to my pillow..." Let us know that she looked after him tangibly, it was the intangibles, the emotional that she had withheld with her antipathy.

I like this though. It's an intriguing little excerpt that challenges one to engage with it.

[hillwalker]

I think overanalyzing one's style can be counter-productive. Your 'voice' will come out however much you try to fit what you write into a particular literary pigeon-hole. I'd advise you to spend more time writing stuff like this and less time sifting through your back pages in search of your 'style'.

H

[AuntShecky]

I think overanalyzing one's style can be counter-productive. Your 'voice' will come out however much you try to fit what you write into a particular literary pigeon-hole. I'd advise you to spend more time writing stuff like this and less time sifting through your back pages in search of your 'style'.

H

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Keep writing, and especially keep reading, and eventually your style will emerge. Continue to make choices; some will be good, some will be not-so-good, but that's the only way to develop a unique voice.

[WolfLarsen]

[QUOTE=miyako73;1194494]I checked what I've written to find out my real writing style, so I can ask you guys if it's problematic. It seems my writing style is dramatic. Should I stick to it? I'm currently lost, looking for my authentic literary voice.QUOTE]

The piece that followed was excellent writing.

I believe it is better not to have one literary style. Picasso, for example, continuously changed his style of painting. If you have only one style of writing then it gets very boring for both you and the reader.

One of the hardest problems that both writers and painters have is trying to change their writing style. The more variety in your writing the better.

Who's going to read 10 different books from you if all 10 books are too much alike? Why bother?

[Delta40]

Your literary voice is already authentic because your writing style is your unique hallmark. Nobody has it but you Miyako. Is it greater confidence that you're trying to land with a butterfly net?

And ask yourself this - what is your false writing style?????

[hillwalker]

I believe it is better not to have one literary style. Picasso, for example, continuously changed his style of painting. If you have only one style of writing then it gets very boring for both you and the reader.

I agree - but . . . . now you're confusing me. Are you really admitting that your monotone style of writing gets as boring for you as it does for us?

H

[The Truth]

If you speak to yourself too much to try and find what your voice is, you'll eventually lose your voice.