What kind of writing style do you have?

[TheHelpfulFawn]

As I said in the title. What kind of writing style do you think you have? What kind of writing style Are you trying to portray? Any influences or inspiration you take from? If so, why is that?

Personally. I haven’t read enough books, that aren’t light novels or web novels, to really grasp my own writing voice. I mean I read the obligatory LotR, Narnia, and Dune and some Kurt Vonnegut novels. So I try to emulate that kind of style. If anything, I would say my writing is more academic in its structure just because I wrote ton of academic essays back in college; or at least from what I can assume of myself. But who knows. I write what I write. Most of my inspiration does come from anime and myths, legends, and folklore of course. I kinda look at anime and comics as modern day epics and eddas.

 

[Discount_Blade]

I personally like to write in descriptive detail I know most people discourage it nowadays and complain calling it "fluff" but I call all of you who do so, fools.

If you can't take the time, a paragraph perhaps at the least, to describe scenery, a settings location, or a person's physical description, then you dont deserve the ability to write it in the first place.

And that is the hill I'll die on.

 

[Cedestroyer]

I tried experimenting with different "styles", from writing basic stuff where I just ramble what immediately comes to my mind to meticulously planning every words and describing sceneries and actions needed for the scenario. It seems that the basic stuff is more successful (maybe from faster releases)

 

[GDLiZy]

I try to make it flow from paragraph to paragraph continuously. I'll set the scene with a first few paragraphs, and then the action flows from there.

However, I tend to overuse the words: However, Although, Even Though, Despite, Nevertheless, Nonetheless

I just love to twist the event and flip power dynamic back and forth.

My narrative style is to describe the scene externally and keep the audience from all inner working of the characters. Their dialogue would be extremely limited; sometimes the entire chapter would go without anyone speaking.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

As I said in the title. What kind of writing style do you think you have? What kind of writing style Are you trying to portray? Any influences or inspiration you take from? If so, why is that?

Personally. I haven’t read enough books, that aren’t light novels or web novels, to really grasp my own writing voice. I mean I read the obligatory LotR, Narnia, and Dune and some Kurt Vonnegut novels. So I try to emulate that kind of style. If anything, I would say my writing is more academic in its structure just because I wrote ton of academic essays back in college; or at least from what I can assume of myself. But who knows. I write what I write. Most of my inspiration does come from anime and myths, legends, and folklore of course. I kinda look at anime and comics as modern day epics and eddas.

My writing style is memes.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I take most my stuff from Lee Child. Guy's known for going OVERBLOWN in descriptive stuff but since he's based on a contemporary setting he gets a free pass on it.

My setting is Zootopia.

I need a better influence.

 

[Moctemma]

I have no idea. I don't think I have one, maybe I do, but I have only been writing for two months; so if I have one, it will surely change.
But what I know I don't like, and won't do, is what I think of as "poetry style", where you describe things by comparison with "sensations". There are times when I enjoy them like "her smile as warm as the sun", but some people over do it and it ends up telling me nothing.

 

[lnv]

I try to keep the narrative descriptions of stuff as minimum as possible, while focusing on the character's emotional interpretations. This makes for a much more interesting read as it gives personality to the setting.

 

[GDLiZy]

I try to keep the narrative descriptions of stuff as minimum as possible, while focusing on the character's emotional interpretations. This makes for a much more interesting read as it gives personality to the setting.

My archnemesis?

 

[AliceShiki]

My archnemesis?

*pat pat pat*

I'm pretty similar to lnv, I don't make too many descriptions and instead focus more on what my character feels and stuff~

I also like to stay exclusively on 1st person to limit how much the reader can see by how much the MC can see~

 

[GDLiZy]

*pat pat pat*

I'm pretty similar to lnv, I don't make too many descriptions and instead focus more on what my character feels and stuff~

I also like to stay exclusively on 1st person to limit how much the reader can see by how much the MC can see~

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but, I found 3rd person narrative to be the best way to hide most information from the audience, namely, the thoughts and emotions of the characters.

Yeah, I'm an oddball who likes to give pieces of puzzles but not the solution. It made for great twists and unexpected development.

 

[hory-portier]

One thing I like to do while writing is to start new chapter that starts new action/scene with some strong philosophical but also humorous digression. I was inspired by Terry Pratchett.
When my mc woke up in fantasy world and saw the sky first I started my chapter with some talk about clouds, their meaning, misconceptions etc. To slowly bring the topic to pointing out what is wrong with them at this moment and the answer is - nothing, the clouds are completely fine, at least as fine as they should be for a person that would remember going to sleep under a clear sky. You see, most people tend to sleep in their beds that are traditionally placed under a ceiling. The problem is that my MC could swear that he also belonged to this traditional type of people but now he saw a beautiful sky and in contrast to the weather his thought weren't just 'a little' clouded. In fact his thought were in a disarray that is worth comparing to actual storm and what's worse, he already could feel incoming lightning.

Well... Speaking about digression... I kinda did it again here teehe~
This one was just spontaneous improvisation and not well thought thing bit should hive an idea of what I'm doing. I'm actually quite interested what will people say about this once I start releasing my novel.

 

[AliceShiki]

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but, I found 3rd person narrative to be the best way to hide most information from the audience, namely, the thoughts and emotions of the characters.

Yeah, I'm an oddball who likes to give pieces of puzzles but not the solution. It made for great twists and unexpected development.

Oh, I agree with you that 3rd person is good for that, it's just that what I like depicting are exactly the thoughts and emotions... But only the thoughts and emotions of a single character.

Having my reader limited to my MC's thoughts, emotions, knowledge and bias makes for a pretty nice limitation to me~ <3

 

[lnv]

My archnemesis?

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but, I found 3rd person narrative to be the best way to hide most information from the audience, namely, the thoughts and emotions of the characters.

Yeah, I'm an oddball who likes to give pieces of puzzles but not the solution. It made for great twists and unexpected development.

A great magician once made an elephant disappear by diverting the crowd's attention and simply walking the elephant off the stage.

There is also a saying, the best place to hide things is in plain sight.

So you know, writing in 1st person doesn't always means giving out everything the protagonist feels and sees. Think of it like you telling me a story about your day, there is no way you would include everything that happened. Things would be left out that you don't want to talk about or you might exaggerate some events to make them more appealing.

There is plenty of room for twists and turns and unexpected development precisely because the view of the character is subjective. And best of all, if someone reads back, they would realize all the hints were all there, simply the protagonist guided the thought process in 1 direction while making you miss the subtle hints of other possibilities.

Overall, I am not saying that 1st person or 3rd person is better, each has their advantages and disadvantages, generally first person gives more immersion but at same time if it doesn't align with readers expectations can cause more repulsion as well. On the other-hand 3rd person is a more safe approach which sets distance from the character but is also less immersive.

End of the day though, for things like hiding things from the reader, that is a matter of style. 1st person doesn't mean you can't hide certain stuff from the reader. It just requires more work, but it can be done if done correctly.

 

[Veneko]

Despite publishing my serial on first person, I have an easier time with the 3rd POV. A jump in writing speed too

My prose goals are describing vividly while letting the reader's imagination do the heavy lifting. The way I see it, our brains take stimulus in and renders them. Give the reader freedom to make the story theirs. That would be the philosophy of what I aspire to. The goal I'm working for.

I don't know if the following will help anyone. But I'll give it a shot. Most of my writing time went into producing the chapter's flow. For example, I'm writing a battle scene. If the characters were to just fight constantly, it would be dull. Have breaks, commentary from supporting characters, brief information reveals, moments of tension. I came up with a process that speeds up crafting the chapter flow.

> Dumb bullet points summarizing the chapter.
> Be as messy as possible. Aim for 'bad greentext' quality.
> It all happened when I noticed how much I try-harded my prose.
> Only to end up rewriting the chapter two or three times.
> It's better to rewrite and expand as fast as possible.

I could drag on how it's inspired with Lean Startup methodology, but...no. Basically, relax, have fun and iterate until satisfied. Warning: I created this stuff a few weeks ago.

s/ Read my future E-book, Lean Authorship. And get more details. /s

 

[AliceShiki]

A great magician once made an elephant disappear by diverting the crowd's attention and simply walking the elephant off the stage.

There is also a saying, the best place to hide things is in plain sight.

So you know, writing in 1st person doesn't always means giving out everything the protagonist feels and sees. Think of it like you telling me a story about your day, there is no way you would include everything that happened. Things would be left out that you don't want to talk about or you might exaggerate some events to make them more appealing.

There is plenty of room for twists and turns and unexpected development precisely because the view of the character is subjective. And best of all, if someone reads back, they would realize all the hints were all there, simply the protagonist guided the thought process in 1 direction while making you miss the subtle hints of other possibilities.

Overall, I am not saying that 1st person or 3rd person is better, each has their advantages and disadvantages, generally first person gives more immersion but at same time if it doesn't align with readers expectations can cause more repulsion as well. On the other-hand 3rd person is a more safe approach which sets distance from the character but is also less immersive.

End of the day though, for things like hiding things from the reader, that is a matter of style. 1st person doesn't mean you can't hide certain stuff from the reader. It just requires more work, but it can be done if done correctly.

Oh yeah, that can certainly work!

I usually prefer my 1st person narration to be viewed as something that the character is experiencing right now though, so I wouldn't like to hide things they are feeling from the reader! XD

 

[FriendlyDragon]

To be honest, I've been writing my series for over a year and I don't have the faintest idea as to what style I have. I just write. I probably have hints of a style, but I can't see it for myself.

 

[ShrimpShady]

The kind of style that produces unreadable garbage.

In all seriousness, my writing's mostly inspired by the Monogatari Series. By that I mean there's a shit ton of dialogue, a bunch of weirdo fourth wall breaks, and a load of pop culture references. I also don't write long-ass descriptions of scenery and character emotions, but I wish I knew how. I always write in the first person because I want everything I write to be presented as the subjected experience of the POV character.

I also enjoy writing like I'm Holden Caulfield. I get a real bang outta doing it.

 

[gaylolis]

i guess my writing tend to look like a japanese ln, since i just like short paragraph and minimal use of words.

if it's not important, i won't go into detail to describe it.

the less i write, the less things to remember as well. at some point, it helps since i don't really want to give a damn about those little details anymore.

 

[ddevans]

I write by reading books, noticing things I find annoying, and them trying to remove them from what I do whenever I notice that I'm doing exactly what I don't like. Sometimes, if I'm feeling punchy, I try to notice things that I like about books and add them, but that is far, far more difficult. I'll probably get around to it more often after I work out the kinks in my core programming.

The last big subtraction was 'using internal monologues as straightforward exposition.' That was effectively my writing style, until one day I realized I hated it when it was done to me. That which is hateful to you, do not do to others.