Your Writing Style

[Palamon]

Well... what is your writing style? Describe it in the best way you can.

[Noblejanobii]

My writing style? Hm… sporadic, random, and fantastical like me. I tend to jump from story to story as I get inspiration so I often forget things in between stories. But it also incorporates a lot of elements of fantasy or sci-fi (depends on what I'm writing) because I'm very much into those genres. I'm a slow paced writer that doesn't get much done quickly unless I've got encouragement behind me to finish it.

[Vishnal]

Depends on the type of writing. I try to adapt based on whether the topic is formal or informal (or a mix of both). However, since most my previous works have been formal (yay college) some of that formality has leaked into my informal writing. Fortunately, RPing + a few creative writing courses have helped me NOT do that.

Also, I abuse em dashes, semicolons, colons, and parentheses to no end.

[Neo Emolga]

There are times when I do a TON of writing, and there are times when I do pretty much nothing. If I get really into writing a story, it can easily be on my mind pretty much all the time (and right now one currently is). I also listen to music that fits the theme that I'm going with and let it inspire the events, battles, and situations playing out in my imagination.

Some other bits:

I try to avoid doing this with back and forward conversations:

"I thought you said you were coming home!"
"Whatever."
"Your mother and I are really upset. You should have called us when it happened."

Instead, I tend to do this:

"I thought you said you were coming home!" Janice told her daughter Erin, looking disappointed at her.
"Whatever," Erin muttered, avoiding her mother's eyes.
"Your mother and I are really upset," David told Erin, feeling frustrated he still couldn't get her to tell the truth. "You should have called us when it happened."

I almost never throw down a character quote without some clue as to who said it, how they said it, and what they were doing while they said it. Otherwise your characters might as well just be floating, stationary mouths.

I've read books where back and forward conversations are going on and they're not explaining how characters are saying things and what they're doing and thinking about while they're talking. In my opinion, it paints a very flat picture and it makes it hard to track who is saying what.

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As far as coming up with storylines, I almost always wing it. To me, making a strict outline and forcing yourself to adhere to it just feels like it sucks all the fun out of writing a story and makes it feel more like a homework writing assignment. I understand this works better for some people who need things planned out and organized in a certain way to make things work, but for me, nah, I don't work well with that kind of thing.

There were times before where I outlined future events in the plot only to deviate from them later on because I felt there was something more interesting to throw into the mix once I considered all the options. Winging it also makes writing the story more like a surprising adventure into the unknown in itself that you don't know how it's going to end until you're about three-quarters in. When you get to that point, just have the loose ends get tied up while making sense and you're gold. Throw in a few unexpected surprises that will keep your reader wondering.

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I also adore writing in first person and I find it opens up a lot of opportunities. I find it's a lot more fun and interesting to kind of pretend you're the character going on an incredible journey, and having the character react and reflect on everything they come across. I find it's also easier on the reader so they're only presented with things that the character knows about in sequential order, one at a time, step by step rather than have a gazillion things going on at once, switch from viewpoint to viewpoint, and leave your reader trying to piece it all together. To me, that's just as weird as eating a little bit of breakfast, having some dinner, then having lunch, then going back to breakfast, take a nibble out of dessert, and then go back to lunch again.

I find with first person perspective, you can also keep the main character's adversaries hidden. There are a lot of unknowns your character can discover later, and that keeps the element of surprise fresh and interesting. But if a person using third person perspective just reveals all the details about the threats the characters are facing, you're giving the reader an opportunity to easily figure out how the rest of the plot will go. Also, your readers learn as your narrating character learns, which to me, is a HECK of a lot easier for readers to digest rather than have a bunch of things all going on at once with a massively confusing preface or prologue overstuffed with a million places, people, names, events in history, and other crazy things to remember. If it gets worse and worse, my reading turns into skimming, which later turns into outright SKIPPING if it gets really bad. So yeah, I like to let readers learn and experience as the main character does it. Much, much easier.

Also, some of my favorite books, including Catcher in the Rye, All Quiet on the Western Front, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest use a first person perspective to narrate the story and I really enjoy it. They're definitely not fantasy books, but they open up examples of how it can work well.

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When I hit Writer's Block and find it hard to keep going, I do several things.

• Reread what I have already written. Not only does it help with proofreading and editing, but I find I sometimes spot untouched elements of the plot that I can touch base upon again that could be used to keep going. It also helps remind me of parts I enjoyed writing and helps inspire motivation to keep up the pace. If you don't wing it and have too many intricate things planned out, this ends up working against it.
• Backtrack. Maybe the story took a direction that just isn't working out or doesn't seem to hold much future promise. Consider deleting some stuff. I had one story that struck a horrible Writer's Block snag, and I found deleting the last 30 pages and having one event in the story get totally changed saved it and allowed me to finish it all the way to the end. It took a VERY different direction, but hey, it worked well and I'm glad I did it.
• DO NOT start writing something else. I find it distracts me from me current story and eventually I'll forget or not care about why I started it in the first place. Not to mention the ideas that I had building for it will just go drip down into the gutter. Unless you're giving up on the story, it's better to just read through things again and backtrack to see if there's an alternate route that might work better.
• I often compare my story to a video game or movie and come up with a few that are very similar to it in terms of themes, events, and characters. I then listen to that game's or movie's soundtrack, imagine the characters/events/themes in my mind, and get inspired to create events, situations, and settings by giving that brainstorm session some inspiring music. If a crazy idea comes to mind that might have some potential, I just try it! I've tried a few this way and they worked well and fluidly with other components in the story. This is often how I start a story in the first place and it helps through the process mid-way as well.
• Using placeholders for things isn't such a bad idea. For one story I wrote, I originally used a town of Halflings, but I decided later on that it just seemed too boring and not very original. Instead, I replaced them by creating a whole new race of creatures that resemble humanoid foxes that have wings and called them Fennians.

So yeah, those are some of the things I do as I write. I like writing fantasy for the most part because there's just so, so much you can do with it.

[Dratini]

I only write when I'm inspired, so I never stare at the page hoping to find inspiration. I go from top-to-bottom without stop, and I don't back-track. If the piece turned out worthy, I proof-read for grammar, but that is the full extent of my editing. As I fix my typos, I generally am amazed there's any coherence in my words at all as I'm simply free-styling.

Due to this, I rarely write. However, I also find it's easy to get inspired if I bother to start. Often, my writing only occurs when necessary, such as for the GREs (a test taken in the United States prior to attending graduate school). In spite of this, I nearly always get perfect scores on those standardized timed writing tests, so my writing can't be too horrid despite the complete lack of practice.

When I do write, I tend to latch onto a novel inspiration (a theme) and simply creatively expand upon that thought one sentence at a time.

[Fate]

I've been told my writing is "'pretty,' for lack of a better term." I like weaving little metaphors and allusions and stuff.

I don't do as much writing as I'd like to, and when I do it's never anything long. I can't write for extended periods of time without getting totally stuck. And then sentences start getting lazier and I, being a total perfectionist (which is bad), end up hating the whole thing. Because of this, I tend to do constrained writing. My writings lack depth, though.

[VeloJello]

Honestly, I'm not really sure what mine is like? I tend to jump between perspectives in story to story depending on what I feel works best, so that's not really a hallmark of mine. I know I use a lot of semicolons and commas, too.

Now, what I try to do with my writing is be as immersive as possible. I like to feel like I could be "part of" whatever story I'm reading, for lack of a better term, so I try to recreate that when I write. As a result, I like to do a lot of describing, though I also try to be conscious of the pacing and omit descriptions where they're not necessary. I really like good pacing. XD Another thing I like to focus on is the characters' emotions. Stories are more fun if you can get into the characters' heads, imo, so I like to delve into that - the more extreme the emotions, the better. I also tend to change my style a bit where the story demands it - for instance, if a character is feeling distressed, I might repeat words or write disjointedly in order to convey hysteria, or if a character is extremely happy, I might focus on describing the things around them in dynamic, positive terms. I don't know how what I do comes across to others, but I know this is what I like to focus on.