What’s your writing style?

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I took two fiction writing courses while in college as electives. To be honest, a lot of my college courses fell into the “elective” category. The sage advice I got from mom and dad was “You can study whatever you want. You’re going to college for your MRS. Degree.”

They told my brother that he should enroll in Pre-Med.

On the positive side of my parents advice, I took classes in whatever interested me. From ballet, to writing and drama, with a mind’s eye out for credits I needed to graduate — science courses like Botany, Astronomy plus math.

I loved my children’s lit class. I struggled more with literary fiction. I enjoyed it just as much and worked on a story based on my experiences working part-time in a hotel restaurant with a creepy customer who was a stalker. My professor didn’t see much merit in my writing style. He said my sentences and paragraphs were too concise. He gave me suggestions of authors to read including William Faulkner.

Have your read Faulkner?

In describing the writing process for his work, “The Sound and the Fury,” Faulkner said, “One day I seemed to shut the door between me and all publisher’s addresses and book lists. I said to myself, ‘Now I can write.'” After its completion, Faulkner insisted that Wasson, his literary agent, not do any editing or add any punctuation for clarity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner

I wasn’t a big Faulkner fan. I told my literary fiction professor that I was graduating as an editorial journalism major.

“That makes sense,” he said. But he encouraged me to expand my writing style for his class.

In the old format of writing for newspapers — before websites and blogs — the goal was to use as little space as possible, write clearly and and get important information up front. As it’s said in Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, “Omit needless words.”

In a 1957 New Yorker column, writer E.B. White (Cornell Class of 1921) praised “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr., his former Cornell English professor, as “an attempt to cut the vast tangle of English rhetoric down to size and write its rules and principles on the head of a pin.”
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/03/omit-needless-words-elements-style-turns-50

Here’s another famous quote from “Elements of Style:”

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”
― William Strunk Jr., The Elements of Style

I believe there are different styles of writing used for different formats and purposes. I’m trying to expand my sentences and paragraphs a bit for my NaNoWriMo manuscript that I wrote about HERE. But, then I think with our micro-attention spans, maybe short chapters with shorter sentences works in today’s world.

How would you describe your style of writing?

Have you used Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style?“

55 thoughts on “What’s your writing style?”

  1. I loved lit classes, but it was always the analysis and opinion. I don’t write fiction. Even my blog posts are to the point, factual and just the way I would speak to someone sitting across from me. I do remember some class that required we read the Stephen King book on writing- hated it. I just had the opportunity to sit down and read through my Senior BA Capstone research paper. It was really clear that academic writing was “my thing”. So proud of that 25+ page paper 🙂

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    • I am a fan of to the point, factual writing. Even in fiction, I don’t like to read flowery, lengthy descriptions. I get bored. What a great idea to look back on your research paper and reflect on all the work and writing you did.

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      • A long time reader of my blog during the time I went back to get my degree had asked to read it. I’ve been going through files, putting various things on my family blog for the kids and found the paper so I put it there with a warning to them that it is VERY long and VERY academic but it really reflects a side of their mom they have probably never seen

      • What a great idea to have a family blog. I will think about that. How nice to share the research paper so your kids will know so much more about your younger self.

  2. My favorite author growing up was Truman Capote and Somerset Maugham. My parents had an excellent library. I have read Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style” and used for many years as an English adjunct at local schools and colleges. I still have it. This past year, I gave away some of my training books from Macmillian, Pearson, etc. It was heartfelt but as I approach retirement, needed. I would like to say sparse and concise but I work to get there. I have shared this past weeks my revising from the publishing of my debut novel “The Bayou Heist” so I can move forward into finishing my second novel. Hopefully, with keen insight.

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      • Thanks. I do notice as I get older I get sloppier with my grammar checking in my replies on WordPress. Forgive my sloppy errors. My eyes are tired. I love Stephen Kings “Rules of Writing”. I put together a PowerPoint about Stephen King when we reviewed his short story ‘On Writing.’ For me, Truman Capote was the master of the story. It is always a work in progress.

      • I find myself having to look more things up including spelling. I wonder if that is due to getting older, or relying on our phones and computers? I haven’t read Truman Capote but only know him as Dill in to “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

      • He also wrote “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and several excellent short stories. While I lived in Alabama, I actually met his relatives at the Bookstore I managed in Orange Beach. It was so interesting!! They loved books and Alabama.

  3. You know, I once read this story that Usain Bolt, widely considered to be the world’s best sprinter, supposedly told. He has a relatively unique running style, and someone once told him that he expends too much energy on it, and if he ran like others do, imagine how fast he could go then. Bolt’s reported response was “then I’d run only as fast as everyone else, not faster.” 🤓

    While there are certain rules we should all adhere to, like reading a lot, if you wrote like everyone else, won’t you sound like everyone else?

    Btw, one of my favorite rules is “substitute ‘damn’ every time you want to write ‘very.’“ 😁 It gives more clarity about how few “very”s we should use and find more expressive words 🤓

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  4. Yes….”Elements of Style”…ah yes. My head’s been so full of writing and style guides over the years depending upon the audience. Academic writing was more to-the-point and same for writing in a therapeutic realm, case notes, reports. Learning to write fiction is a whole new adventure. Love your musings about Faulkner and his perspective. I think it’s important to hold on to whatever we believe is our personal ‘voice’ whenever possible. 🥰

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    • I 100 percent agree with you to hold onto our own voice. I had not thought about the volume of writing you have done in your career in academia and as a therapist. Also, you’re correct about the many style guides. We used the AP Style guide for newspapers. I still do for my HOA newsletter. A person I work with corrects things every issue, and I explain, no that’s how it’s supposed to be according to the AP Style.

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      • You captured that perfectly, Elizabeth! Good to hold on to our voice/style and think about the intended audience/reader. And good golly…be flexible whenever possible. Otherwise…won’t all of our writing eventually have an “AI” overtone???? 😜

      • Don’t get me started on AI writing. I see local news articles that use AI. They are boring plus filled with errors in spelling and grammar. Why bother?

      • Yup…and there’s a certain tone that’s just ‘off’. Maybe it will improve over time, but I feel like I can pick it out. Know it when I read it. But…I also bet I’ve been fooled. 😜

      • My son told me that the majority of children’s stories on Kindle or other download sites are AI. He said they are awful. How sad is that? It’s hard to compete with free.

      • And yet…I think there’s still a market and an interest in stories and storytellers…the ‘realness’ of it all. Keep working! You’re 100% fabulous! 🥰

  5. I majored in English Lit/Comunications in college but never took any fiction courses. I was on my way [so I thought] to working in business so I was more interested in serious classes like journalism, PR, legal writing. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized by my natural writing style was chatty but always heading to a point. When asked I tell people my blog is like a lifestyle column in your local newspaper, relaxed but informative.

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    • I love your writing style. You have a good description of your blog. You’ve got a great sense of humor that shines through. My focus was journalism and I had a professor who assigned us out in the field with local newspapers. We’d turn in our real world stories for him to review and grade. Then he took us to the state capitol for a semester to do the same. It was a great learning experience. The fiction classes were a break from that.

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  6. I am reminded of a letter that Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son that included the line, I’m sorry this letter is so long. I didn’t have the time to make it short. My ABC’s of Writing. Accurate, Brief, Complete, Dressed, Easy to Read, and Fun to Read.

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    • That’s great! Yes, the editing is what takes so long. I remember getting a complaint from an editor for an article I wrote that had to be a limited number of words. I had to interview, write, and edit it down to size. The editing took more time that the interviewing and writing. The editor thought I was padding the bill.

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  7. I wish I had taken some creative writing classes in college. Because most of the writing I did in my career was business/technical, I tend to write tight (few words “tight,” not drunk “tight” 🙂 ). Expanding sentences and paragraphs for a novel sounds difficult but I really appreciate authors who can weave a story beautifully.

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    • Haha! Love your “tight” clarification. I don’t see my writing style changing much for a novel. But I’m trying to expand the chapters a bit with more things happening and dialogue.

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  9. I do have Strunk and White, as well as Stephen King and too many other books on writing! I do my best to adhere to “omit needless words.” I’m pretty straightforward on style, not good at metaphor. I like a zinging conclusion that ties back to the opening, but often don’t get there in blogging. I’m hoping to learn braided essays and short stories. Never took writing in college, except as part of my biology degree. All our assignments had to be no longer than one page. That’s tough!!

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  10. “My professor didn’t see much merit in my writing style. He said my sentences and paragraphs were too concise.” Um, me thinks the professor is full of baloney. Ha ha, when did being concise become a bad thing. Yes, you need to tell the full story — whether it’s journalism or a novel or whatever it is — but what’s wrong with being on point. I don’t get that advice!

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  11. As you know, I haven’t taken any creative writing classes, but I have read bits of The Elements of Style. So, I love the quote by William Strunk Jr. I use to ramble on, but in the last decade or so, concise but telling is what I focus on when writing short stories or haibuns. It’s inspiring to know you’re working on your book.

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