Creative Writing 101

Lesson 7: Basic Style.

Artificial and Assumed Styles.

ARTIFICIAL STYLE.

Artificial style is style that forces itself on your notice. It may be so baroque that you stare at it with amazement, or it may be filled with passive sentences.

Legalese, bureaucratese, and political double talk are all artificial styles, and few of them have any place in creative writing.

ASSUMED STYLE.

Assumed style is something different. It is usually a projection of natural style, employed because it seems suitable for the occasion.

Assumed styles include writing in present tense, using the "voice" of a child or teenager or elderly person when you're none of the above, writing in the persona of an animal, an object or anything else that you're not.

PRESENT TENSE.

The present tense style used in 'Translations in Celadon' is obviously assumed, and I used it for several reasons. One was because 'Translations' is a double first person narrative. Rosanna and Sari take it in turns to tell the story, and at the end one of them is in no condition to conclude her part of the narrative.

A first person narrator using normal past tense can die or vanish by the end of a book, but the author must make provision for this by couching the narrative in the form of a written or taped report. If this is not done, the use of past tense implies that the first person narrator survives to the end of the novel.

If present tense is used, the narrative can break off and be concluded by someone else. This adds an air of immediacy and tension to the novel. It must be said, though, that some readers dislike the technique.

Using present tense in 'Translations' meant I could drop one narrative voice without making provision beforehand. My other reason for its use was that horses live very much in the present. Obviously they look forward to feed and their own paddock or stable, but in general they are concerned with "now". Since Rosanna spends much of the book in the shape of a dun mare, present tense seemed a suitable medium for recording her inner dialogue.

ASSUMED GENRE STYLES.

Other occasions for assumed style include the demands of some genres. You might adopt a "storytelling" style for some types of fantasy, and category romance generally calls for a style including more adjectives and more emotional language.

If writing a first person novel for children or teenagers you will almost certainly use assumed style. If the viewpoint character in your book is a nine-year-old girl, your style will need to reflect this.

Anyone writing a Regency will use the very recognisable "Regency" style. This is probably assumed rather than natural, because the author wouldn't use it if s/he were not writing in this genre.

Hard boiled style is old fashioned now, but is another one that is easily recognisable. It is very redolent of the "mean streets" and two-fisted private eyes of the 1940s.

ANOTHER ASSUMED STYLE

Another kind of assumed style is what you might call "consciously illiterate". This is the style adopted by writers who use pseudonyms that not only mask their true identity but imply that they are someone very different who is writing a "true" story.

PROFESSIONAL WRITERS AND ASSUMED STYLES.

Some professional writers use a variety of styles, and often write under a variety of pseudonyms to match. If you hope or intend to write commercially it is a good idea to develop a few different styles.

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