I've written a few thousand words of a story based on my boyhood. The words spilled out of me like a fountain and it was just one big black pool of a paragraph. I've reworked this a few times and tidied it up a lot. I've read quite a few of the stories submitted here. My work so far seems very "minimalist" in comparison. There are no speech quotes. There are no long descriptions. Although I am very comfortable writing this way and I feel the work is quite legible and doesn't suffer in the telling, I am worried a little, is this just laziness? I'm influenced by a book I read years ago, "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt. I really would like to emulate the style of that book. Am I aiming my sights too high? Can I really master it like Frank did? BV
Only you can answer that last one. I would not worry if the story lacks dialog, mine has basicly none (I think three lines of dialog, which are not connected) instead it is all inner dialog and descriptions; it works fine. Style is style, if the story is there, and you have the ability of convey it to your reader, it will work out
Exposing yourself It's easy to get caught up worrying and comparing your writing to everyone else's. I'd say write your own way, and show it to people. There is a LOT of elbow room when it comes to style, and the only real judge is whether it works or not, and the only real way to know this is by exposing yourself as much as possible. Yes, by exposing yourself.
I agree with krevency. Don't compare the way you write to the way someone else writes. If your style is minimalistic, then it's minimalistic. There are plenty of published writers who are minimalist writers and one of the things I heard in my English classes a lot was "simple and concise." They wanted minimalist writing then, so I'm sure that your style is perfectly acceptable. Not to mention, style is just that- the style in which you express yourself. That's what writing is all about, so if you feel comfortable with what you've written, then leave it the way you wrote it. ~Lynn
Since it is an internal story I think that style will work well. If you present the story in your point of view then not much dialogue is needed. But make sure you still create interaction in other ways... it is important to have that insight.
