: Re: Does each writer have a unique writing style? I admire the writing style of many other writers and I try to emulate them, but most of the time it doesn't turn out how I want it to. Is

@Odierno164

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+1 Galastel, Your style is literally like your voice, instantly recognizable as "you" but nearly impossible to convey to somebody else in words. It is how you, with your thought processes and training and imagination, attack the problem of conveying a scene. So I'll try to come up with something different than her.

I approach(ed) writing like an engineer, not like a poet. I presumed there were techniques behind the good stories I read, ways to introduce a story, or a chapter, ways to describe a scene, or a character, ways to do plot, plot twists, everything, so the things I imagined could be realized on the page.

I was right about that. I recommend anybody that wants to write should do the same. You should try to copy what your favorite authors have done, but get deep into the weeds on what they've done. Count the words, count the adjectives. Pay attention to the tense. Pay attention to whether they use active or passive voice, and why. How many details did they mention about a new room? Why? Is it more or less for some purpose? Exactly how do they write a fight or battle?

I think of it as taking apart a machine, in a way that will let me put it back together, or build a similar machine. They constructed a scene. Presume there is order in the scene, in the way things are described and told, in the way the scene ends, in the way dialogue is used and when it is not used.

Many of these 'parts' you can find on sites like this one, there are many others giving writing advice. They can help you identify the types of things to look for, but what you really want is to see how the authors you love and aspire to emulate are using those parts, or not.

Eventually you will learn those patterns, and have your own favorite "parts" to build a machine with. Your style may be similar to theirs, but it will still be unique, just because you will find you like using the parts in slightly different ways. Some more frequently than others. And also because if you write original stories, the stories will just call for using the parts differently. The characters, settings, goals and descriptions will all be original.

Your first task, and it's a long one, is to start reading analytically, looking for the patterns and techniques that show you how a novel, a chapter, a scene, a conversation is crafted and made to work by someone you regard as a master. What did they do, to evoke from you whatever feeling they evoked?

What you write will be heavily influenced by your unique path through life, and ultimately that is what will determine your style.

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