Young Writers Society

How to Write With Style
by Kurt Vonnegut

Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.

These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time. Does the writer sound ignorant or informed, stupid or bright, crooked or honest, humorless or playful --- ? And on and on.

Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you're writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead --- or, worse, they will stop reading you.

The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don't you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an emptyheaded writer for his or her mastery of the language? No.

So your own winning style must begin with ideas in your head.

1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble, though
3. Keep it simple
4. Have guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean
7. Pity the readers

Read the whole article here.

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I'm assuming I can post it here without infringing copyright...

I read the whole article and it has some good ideas. I agree with just about everything in it, and i also find it a bit odd that Vonnegut was the one who wrote it.
Nonetheless, it was worth the read.

Style. Hm. When I first saw this, I thought of an article I read, I don't recall if it was from Writer's Digest or not.

Really, style is a kind of hard concept to wrap your mind around. It's, essentially, your "scent" in writing, really. Sure, you listed ways to bring out style and it's pretty obvious to write what you like about or you'll be miserable. But writing with style? That's something more personal, more you.

Sure, you listed ways to bring out style...

Heh, just a note, this wasn't written by me this was written by dear Kurt.

XD Then dear Kurt must realize that style is personal....

I'm just saying, just as a note.

I think most problems with stories occur when writers try to be more sophisticated in their descriptions than they are in real life. So when you see these descriptions, they feel artificial, for the very reason that they are artificial.

Griffinkeeper: Yes, pretty much. And for some reason style also appeals to genre. You see romance and fantasy writers, in a much much more detailed area of genre [i suppose scifi can belong with this too] that tend to overdo it on details, cliche and strange ones that don't fit alike. And it's usually fantasy writers doing it, but mostly because it's usually in a whole new world where they're having to describe every little thing because not every little thing works in relation to how Earth works.

But I still hate the hackneyed terms. >.<