Developing Your Own Writing Style

[CrystalD]

This post may be all over the place so sorry in advance. Ive been trying to hone down my writing style, and I know what sort of style I'm going for. So I start writing, and my story feels like it's going to be a good one, I just really feel that when I think of the idea of it. But the more I write, I cringe at a good chunk of it and feel like I'm either writing too sparcely, am copying authors I like, or it just sounds cheesy. It's been discouraging, but I'm trying to power through and just write my first draft, but at the same time it's hard because I feel like I'm hitting a brick wall at the same time.

Has anyone else gone through this? I really like my idea, and have come up with a few other ideas for stories. But when I actually write, I just feel so unpolished and I don't know what to do. I've been looking up writing exersises and doing them, but then when I go back to writing my first draft I'm just like ugh why can't this be better haha. Any tips? Advice? I just needed to gt it out there, because internally it was driving me nuts.But anytime I reread my work so far, I just feel like it's not the voice I'm going for.

 

[pmmg]

Everyday. I write about 700 words a day, and when I look at them, I know I can do better. But that feeling will keep you paralyzed.

So....the rules (see siggy), write everyday, dont edit, write till its finished, go back and fix. And dont seek feedback till its finished.

As for style, that will take care of itself, cause you will find your style as you go, and once you know it, you learn what to like about it and what not to. But you really cant hide from yourself. So, whatever you got, its gonna bleed through somewhere.

 

[CrystalD]

So power through pretty much, that's what I've been doing so far and it works well enough. I've been getting 1000 words a day, so at least there's that

 

[pmmg]

Then you have the most effective trick Think about the rough draft like an artist sketching out what he's going to paint. You go back later and add all the color to make it pop. But without the rough, you are always in startup.

 

[Insolent Lad]

Don't worry about copying the style of other authors. It's how we learn; there must be something we like about them so it's a method of finding out just what that is. Keep writing and analyzing, and your own style (for better or worse!) will grow.

 

[Mad Swede]

I don't think any of us would claim that the first things we wrote were very polished. But that is true of almost anything we learn to do, and the only way to get better at whatever you're doing is to practice. It takes a while to find your own voice, your own style, and I did it by writing short stories so that I could see what worked and what didn't. I found it was easier to write short stories because when I'd written one I had something complete that I could look at, and I hadn't invested as much time as I might have done with a long story so discarding things that hadn't worked was easier.

 

[CrystalD]

That's interesting, because the more I write my mainline full length novel the more I'm also drawn to writing short stories. It's like justt the process of writing has opened the floodgates. I used to write years ago and just got back into it this year, but I wouldn't say the stuff I used to write was great haha. I have reread some of my old stuff and d definitely see...some semblence of a style, but I never actually practiced the art of writing and just wrote back in the day. This time, getting back into the craft, I'm working more on learning how to write while writing which I've never done befor, so that may also be why I'm overly pressuring myself to be better and shake my fist at myself lol.
But like you all said, have to start somewhere right? I've never be been somewhere could talk to other writers and felt open to share this stuff, so I'm glad I found this forum

 

[pmmg]

I started out with novel length stuff. I moved to short stories because I wanted faster access to feedback, but...I dont think I was ever a short story writer. I like doing the much longer pieces.

As for style, I became aware of my 'voice' in writing fairly early on, and have just been writing to make it stronger as I go. In truth, its also limiting. Its so much a part of how I write, that I find it difficult to tutor others. Like, I know the suggestion I make might work for me, but maybe not for you.

And yes, get started.

 

[Prince of Spires]

But the more I write, I cringe at a good chunk of it and feel like I'm either writing too sparcely, am copying authors I like, or it just sounds cheesy.

I have good news and bad news for you.

First the bad news. You are. You're copying others, writing too sparcely (or too flowery) and sounding cheesy. But bear with me.

The good news is: that's okay.

A few reasons for this. The first, and most important one in my opinion, is that learning to write is very comparable to learning to play a musical instrument. When you first pick up an instrument you will not be a professional musician. Even if you've been playing piano a few years people will still be able to tell the difference between you and a professional concert pianist. That doesn't mean that's a bad thing. Just that it takes practise.

And in a same way, when you're learning to play an instrument, you learn by copying others. With an instrument you do this consiously, by playing stuff others have created. When writing, it's usually a bit more subtle. But many beginning writers find that they tend to write like the most recent author they've read, or a favorite author. Nothing wrong with that. It's part of the learning process. As long as you're not plagiarizing someone but only writing in the style of someone it's all fine.

The only way to improve is to write, and look critically at what you have written (I would also add "read a lot", but that's less universal). As you write more, you will find that your own style develops (and keeps developing over the years), and that you are influenced less by stuff you read.

There are two other things to keep in mind here.

The first is that you shouldn't compare your first draft to the final draft of a published author. That's even apart from the years of training they might have had. But simply, the first draft for very many author's is nowhere near as good as the final version. It's why people edit. I think it's Neil Gaiman who said "the second draft is where you pretend you knew what you were doing all along", and Terry Pratchett said "the first draft is simply you telling yourself a story."

One enlightning thing for me was reading the "History of Middle Earth" serries by Christofer Tolkien. It goes through the early drafts of Tolkien, and gives a scolarly analysis of them. Now, I love Tolkien. But loving Tolkien is pretty much the only way you can read some of his early works. It's as bad as you'd expect from a beginning writer. Nothing wrong with that. It just shows that with practise and persistence, you can become one of the greatest authors of the 20th century.

The second is that in my experience a lot of authors think their writing is terrible while they are writing. Getting a novel down is a long and lonely process, where you're stuck inside your own head. Many people at some point (usually somewhere in the middle) feel like their idea is derivative, terrible, that they can't write etc. It's part of the process. Just keep writing and finish the story. You can worry about making it shine in the next draft. I've found this to be the case for me. Usually around the end of act 2, before everything starts to come together. But I've also found that once I finish my draft and I read it back, it actually seems pretty decent to me. And then when it's gone through a few editing rounds it's actually good (or good enough).

 

[CrystalD]

That music analogy is great and I didn't think of it before. It's so true though, I've done music making for the past few years and I listen to my older stuff vs my newer stuff and want to go back and do things better, so that really puts things into perspective for me. Normally I'd get frustrated and give up, but I don't really want to this time because writing is just as much a part of me as music making and songwriting was something I did, so writing is just the natural evolution of that lol.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I will disagree with the power through to the end theory. My premise is to power through honing your writing until you don't think it sucks. Then some more. Then some more. Then power through to finish. There was no way in hell I wanted to be staring at rewriting 150k words, so I rewrote 10k, then 15k, then 20k. By the time I had rewritten/rehashed/edited to about 40k, I hammered through the next 100k in little time, and Eve of Snows was birthed kicking and screaming from my head. My lack of marketing skills has held the book back more than the book has, so I won't complain about its growing pains.

Of course, this is a "what works for you" situation, but that's what worked for me. I also turned into an editing freak. I went from an editing hater to loving it.

 

[CrystalD]

I will disagree with the power through to the end theory. My premise is to power through honing your writing until you don't think it sucks. Then some more. Then some more. Then power through to finish. There was no way in hell I wanted to be staring at rewriting 150k words, so I rewrote 10k, then 15k, then 20k. By the time I had rewritten/rehashed/edited to about 40k, I hammered through the next 100k in little time, and Eve of Snows was birthed kicking and screaming from my head. My lack of marketing skills has held the book back more than the book has, so I won't complain about its growing pains.

Of course, this is a "what works for you" situation, but that's what worked for me. I also turned into an editing freak. I went from an editing hater to loving it.

So I tried this when I got stumped on how to continue, and it super works. I may adopt it here and there, because it did show me more closely what I felt was lacking from my writing, and as I read later chapters I like it more then the earlier ones, and wan to rewrite them before continuing lol.

 

[Nighty_Knight]

I have developed my writing style so far. I call it, “bad”.

I hope to get better though, with time lol.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

People talk about powering through, but the reason I had trouble powering through was simply I wasn't happy with what I was writing. Oddly enough, I didn't understand that until I studied screenwriting. It also helped that screenwriting assisted in defeating the muddy middle, but when I was piling up chapter after chapter of stuff I knew needed a lot of work, it wore on me. Once I had my voice and style down, it was much easier to just cruise through the rest. With my style now, I can pretty much just write the novel, do my editing addiction as I go, and by the time I get to the end I just send it for a final edit because there isn't much left to be done.

So I tried this when I got stumped on how to continue, and it super works. I may adopt it here and there, because it did show me more closely what I felt was lacking from my writing, and as I read later chapters I like it more then the earlier ones, and wan to rewrite them before continuing lol.

 

[pmmg]

People talk about powering through, but the reason I had trouble powering through was simply I wasn't happy with what I was writing.

Well...you gotta do what works for you...so long as its working. If its not working, see the rules

 

[Finchbearer]

I’ve recently started writing short stories that are branches off of my longer stories, and have found this a great way to flex my creative muscles so to speak, almost as exercises.

Many novelists who have written longer works have simply extended or worked from an idea in one of their shorter works.

Taking an individual character or location and writing a short story or novella from it, I think, is a great way to exercise the brain.

 

[Nighty_Knight]

I’ve recently started writing short stories that are branches off of my longer stories, and have found this a great way to flex my creative muscles so to speak, almost as exercises.

Many novelists who have written longer works have simply extended or worked from an idea in one of their shorter works.

Taking an individual character or location and writing a short story or novella from it, I think, is a great way to exercise the brain.

This is what I am focusing on now. My writing just isn't good enough to write a full length novel. So I'm focusing on just getting better and writing spinoff prequel novellas. I'm in the middle of the second novella and have 2 drafts of the first done. It's actually going better than I thought plotwise, my writing is still bad though. I am hoping once the two are done, final draft and all, I will feel comfortable enough with my writing to go bigger.