On writing style and the troubling flourish
Published by on June 10th, 2008 1 Comment »
One of my major stumbling blocks in quenching my creative writing thirst has been style. Not only has it taken years to come to terms with my personal style, it has also been a journey to understanding how style can affect the worlds we create in words. But a deliberate choice of style has its pitfalls.
TableRappers is set in the Edwardian period, starting in 1903. Even during early development I found adding a little Edwardian flourish to the text helped the general ambiance of the story. My confidence in this grew after reading G.W. Dahlquist’s The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters – a novel set in a pseudo-Victorian age, with a narrative very much styled in the colourful language of the time. When reading that book, I realised writing style and setting can be made to enhance one another.
After over 80,000 words of my first novel now complete, this colourful, style has become almost second nature and has made the process of writing the story much easier. Long, run-on sentences, indulgent metaphors, and often less than concise descriptions help to solidify the setting, while sending the more modern, tightened rules of concise writing off on a long deserved holiday in the sun. It is a fun way to write and offers a playground with few boundaries.
Here comes the ‘but’… I am far too accustomed to it.
I have other books I want to write that are most certainly not set in the same period. The available time aside, the one psychological obstacle I have in preventing me making a solid start on one of those projects is the difficulty in switching to a more modern and concise writing style. I’ve tried it, and it’s downright painful.
Here’s hoping I can un-learn the Edwardian flourish so I’ll not have to set everything in 1903!
One Response to “On writing style and the troubling flourish”
HI Neil –
I know exactly what you are talking about. After completing my thriller, I started writing a humorous murder mystery. Just a totally different style required. And now I am working on both that and another thriller with my co-author, so that makes it even more challenging. My method of getting the words out is fairly mechanical (although I hope my style isn’t) so what works for me to switch styles is writing a little bit of garbage in a style the opposite of the tendency I want to avoid. Which isn’t necessarily the same as the style I am shooting for, it’s more like a palate cleanser for what I am trying to shake. For instance, if you are trying to shorten your sentences, try to write a paragraph that flows and holds together but where no sentence is longer than 7 words. Maybe no verbs in some sentences. If you read the first chapter of Lee Child’s “The Killing Floor” you’ll see a perfect example of the opposite of the Victorian style that you could try to imitate to clear things out. Just one random thought on this.
Cheers,
Ed Parrot
co-author of the podcast novel, New World Orders