Getting Stylish

As promised, this week I will be concluding the two-part series I began last week, and address how developing writers should go about developing style in their work. Pinning down exactly the role of style in progressing as a creative writer is not easy, especially given the vastly differing degrees to which it is utilized, or more specifically utilized in a highly noticeable way, by authors. It can be easy to point to some writers' work as being "without style", but really that just conveys a lack of knowledge on what style really is or can be. Often, natural-sounding, unadorned prose (which often is cited as being "without style") is, in and of itself, a stylistic choice. Yes, there certainly are authors whose work is more "stylized" (Cormac McCarthy, for example), but really to a certain degree there are elements of style present in all creative works. So, the big question facing every would-be auteur is: what is mine going to be? This question is quite interesting, as it both should not be asked as it forces unnatural attempts to add "flair" or stylization to pieces, but also requires an answer, as every good writer (at least in my opinion as this is highly subjective) has some unifying stylistic undercurrent throughout their all works. So it should not be asked but also must be answered, a beautiful little paradox of the writing process. Many teachers and authors, such as the wonderful Stephen King, advise writers to overcome this hurdle by starting off without giving any thought to personalizing the manner in which they convey story, gaining practice by imitating the styles or other authors and seeing what works. Every author of note has some sort of at least vaguely recognizable way in which they place words on the page, and so an interested beginner could seriously benefit from attempting to emulate such ways, observing how it feels, and internalizing whatever feels natural. This is something I have done repeatedly, and find to be very fun. As a developing writer myself, I have yet to completely pin down a personal style of my own that feels truly representative of who I am as I writer, so for now I can only hope to play around, imitate, and grow. Of course, as Stephen King and many others have also highlighted, imitation will only take you so far, and is never the hallmark of a true master. To be great, one has to go their own way to some point. But we all have to begin somewhere.