In a writing workshop I took in college, our professor posed a challenge to the class: each of us was to write one paragraph on the same assigned subject, which we would then submit anonymously. At the next class, we would review the paragraphs and try to match them up with their authors. A few of us, of course, viewed this as an especial challenge, and did our best to disguise our styles, even imitating our classmates' work. But at the next class, we found to our dismay that almost everyone's work was readily identifiable – and our professor had correctly guessed every single paragraph. Some of us liked to flaunt our styles, while others worried that we had cultivated no special style at all – but in fact we each had a style so readily recognizable that our paragraph could be guessed by almost everyone else in the class.  We all had style – we just didn't know it.

Here on The Slam, we all have our favorite authors, our favorite types of writing.  Even if we can't explain what makes up each writer's style, we can recognize work on sight.  But a cohesive style is often harder to recognize in our own work. The writers with the most recognizable styles, however, tend to be those who are least conscious of it. Jenna of Missouri, the very Slammer who challenged me to write on this subject, has in fact developed a very distinct and memorable style all her own in the few months she has been active on The Slam.  In fact, her three latest works of microfiction – "Rocket Girl," "Saturday at the Hotel," and "When the Ticking Stops" – are perfect examples to use in discussing some of the stylistic elements that hold a writer's work together.

The first determinant of style is often subject matter.  Writing is not just a mechanical exercise, but a thought process – and a writer's thoughts can be as important to style as a writer's word choice.  Jenna, while she writes on three very different subjects, reveals in her topic choice a unity of thought. She is a writer who can see magic in the everyday object, whether a playground rocket ship or a clock face on the wall. Jenna has developed a niche for the fantastical, a genre style that is not quite sci-fi, not quite dystopia, but (a bit like the character of Bell in "Rocket Girl") a unique blend of dread and whimsy. She does not write on what she sees on the surface, but rather asks, What if? She has a distinct way of viewing the world.

A second determinant of style is the way a writer moves – through words, through sentences, through paragraphs.  Just as you can recognize your friend a hundred yards down the sidewalk by a certain lightness of step or thrust of the shoulders, so writers can be identified by how they move through their writing.  Some authors swim.  Some skip. Some stomp. Jenna strides. From the first line of each of her stories, we know exactly where we are and when. "I first met her when we were seven years old, in the plastic rocket ship on the playground near my house." "Swarms of people gather outside the Hotel de Ver each Saturday evening." "At precisely 9:00 p.m. the round white faces ceased glowing and fell into shadow." Jenna wastes no time in getting to the point. She may stride a little too quickly at times, leaving the landscape to blur into mystery – but her confident step tells us that we will discover everything we need to know if we just follow along and keep up the pace.

Once a writer picks a direction and gets moving, style can be deduced from word choices along the way. Does she focus on the big picture or the details? Is the story told through a telescopic lens or a microscopic one? One of my favorite stylistic traits in Jenna's writing is her tendency to pause a moment in mid-sentence to look deeper. The words will be striding along, and then a phrase will suddenly interrupt the flow, bringing in a wider context and new connotations. In "Rocket Girl," the protagonist laments upon meeting Bell that "Even my best glare, the one that every new kid must perfect to ward off teasers and unwanted sympathizers, bounced right off of her." In "Saturday at the Hotel," Jenna uses the same technique to insert background information on one visitor’s wardrobe: "A woman in what appears to be a wedding dress, probably her grandmother's, judging from the style, catches the concierge's eye first." [Emphasis mine.]  Each of these side thoughts gives greater depth to the observation.  Other writers might provide this same context through other means – longer exposition, character dialogue – but Jenna's style is to slip such background information unobtrusively into a sentence, leaving the reader to process the info as the story goes along.

Of course, these are only three areas in which a writer's unique style might be apparent. In fact, I might look closely at any element of writing – dialogue, description, paragraph breaks, you name it – and find similar evidence of style there. So here's my advice to Jenna, and to every other writer out there: don't worry about your style. Style will come – in fact, if my college class is any indication, style will be unavoidable. Taking note of other writers' styles can help to inform you as a writer, but only when you are confident enough to write un-self-consciously will your own true style coalesce. Ray Bradbury, a writer who has had a clear influence on Jenna's work, says it best: "if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer's make-up … I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto." So write with zest about whatever way you see things.  Swim, skip, stomp, or stride with gusto. The rest will work itself out.

Cheers,

Ann Pedtke
Slam Master