Post by mdnoyon on Jan 15, 2024 0:25:01 GMT -5
Anyone who is about to write stories for the first time imitates someone else. I did it too, many years ago: initially I imitated Terry Brooks, fascinated by his fantasy novels; then I imitated Cormac McCarthy, struck by his writing style. Each of us has had our favorite writers, writers who left a mark and perhaps made us want to write like them. It is difficult to understand that it is not our voice, but that of others. Imitating, emulating, trying to copy a writing style - I underline "trying" to copy, because in my opinion it is impossible to copy other people's style perfectly - is completely normal: even famous writers of today and yesterday have done it. Why do we tend to copy other writers? In my case the answer is simple: because I had very little reading behind me.
When you copy a writing style, you are convinced that that style is the maximum of aesthetics, of rhythm, of the combination of words, of the very use of words. This is a Phone Number List mistaken belief, of course. Each writer has forged their own writing style by combining hundreds of readings (and authors read) with hundreds of written pages. Which is none other than Stephen King's age-old advice: "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all else: read a lot and write a lot." By dint of reading books, differentiating my readings and always discovering new authors, that tendency has disappeared. That doesn't mean I've finally found my own writing style: maybe I never will. Perhaps the style, as I have said other times, needs to be adapted to the type of story we have to tell – that is in fact what I try to do.
Perhaps it varies continuously for some, while for others it “stabilizes”. Copying is a sort of compass Why do we tend to copy other writers? There is also another equally valid answer: because we need someone to show us the way. Those who copy need to orient themselves in the world of words: they cannot write the first sentence of their story because they don't know where to go; every sentence sounds amateurish, every word inappropriate, every verb banal. Copying a way of writing is a sort of compass: it gives us the initial orientation, but then we have to walk on our own two feet and abandon all external help. We must find our personal compass within ourselves, we must be able to find the way on our own, without interference from others. Cultivate your writing I think all writers have gone through the emulation phase. It is completely normal to be fascinated by a way of writing or by some stories. They are the seeds - those styles and those stories - from which our writing will be born, which must be cultivated with assiduous reading and assiduous practice.
When you copy a writing style, you are convinced that that style is the maximum of aesthetics, of rhythm, of the combination of words, of the very use of words. This is a Phone Number List mistaken belief, of course. Each writer has forged their own writing style by combining hundreds of readings (and authors read) with hundreds of written pages. Which is none other than Stephen King's age-old advice: "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all else: read a lot and write a lot." By dint of reading books, differentiating my readings and always discovering new authors, that tendency has disappeared. That doesn't mean I've finally found my own writing style: maybe I never will. Perhaps the style, as I have said other times, needs to be adapted to the type of story we have to tell – that is in fact what I try to do.
Perhaps it varies continuously for some, while for others it “stabilizes”. Copying is a sort of compass Why do we tend to copy other writers? There is also another equally valid answer: because we need someone to show us the way. Those who copy need to orient themselves in the world of words: they cannot write the first sentence of their story because they don't know where to go; every sentence sounds amateurish, every word inappropriate, every verb banal. Copying a way of writing is a sort of compass: it gives us the initial orientation, but then we have to walk on our own two feet and abandon all external help. We must find our personal compass within ourselves, we must be able to find the way on our own, without interference from others. Cultivate your writing I think all writers have gone through the emulation phase. It is completely normal to be fascinated by a way of writing or by some stories. They are the seeds - those styles and those stories - from which our writing will be born, which must be cultivated with assiduous reading and assiduous practice.