I've watched your comments lately, Wax. And had a little chuckle, but love you, nevertheless.

Best
Sion

I don't read strongly-flavoured writers when I'm up to my neck in my own stuff. The rest of the time I reckon that they counteract each other. And yes, there are an awful lot of awful Carver-imitators about, not least among the Creative Writing course brigade. The trouble with seemingly 'plain' writers is that it looks easy, and it isn't. But I don't think one should condemn Carver for that. 'Elephant' is one of the great stories.

DJC, if I grab my collected Katherine M. now I'll get caught, so I'll post some recommedations later, if that's ok by you!

Emma

Agree with all your short story riter choices - can we add William Trevor, please!

Oh for God's sake. While I fully appreciate the 'let's not imitate other writers' standpoint, we do not write from a vacuum (airless place, not hoover). Part of the writer's journey is through reading the work of others and finding what parts of their style work within your own voice. This is not plagiarism - it is a form of learning. I fully agree with Emma in that it is often a mistake to be reading something too stylised when you're writing, but there is absolutely nothing wrong in trying out different styles and seeing what works best for you. There is an awful lot of self-conscious tell-don't-show stuff on this site which could do with a dose of Carver or Hemingway or Munro to pare it down and make it mean something.

Blandly copying someone's style without thought to the process is lazy. Examining their style from the inside out, whether it be through stories or poems, is not. It is a challenge, but one that can ultimately result in the writer understanding more about how the writing process works. We do, after all, in Newton's words, 'stand on the shoulders of giants'. Without these giants this website would not exist, so I think some of the comments above are rather naive.

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PS Emma - I've just got Mansfield's 'The Garden Party' out of the library. Any particular stories I should look at?

Yes, everyone has their influences, and you are right to say that all your influences should mix with your own way of saying things to give birth to your own 'style'.

What I mean is that when people refer to this or that writer's style as a 'method', as if it is a blueprint to good writing, makes me feel a little cold.

You're not the only one to do this, so don't take it as a personal insult. I get what you mean, really. I just wanted to make the distinction between simulation of a style and actual writing.

JB

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Sion - I'm glad you find me so amusing. ;)

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By the way, can someone please come up with a better way to try and insult me other than calling me 'naive'. It's getting a little tiresome darling.

Then again, I'd rather be naive than a cold hearted, materialistic, over-intellectual, dry boned copyist. ;)

DJC - I read 'The Daughters of the Late Colonel' years ago, and it's hung around in my head ever since. 'Marriage à la Mode' is much shorter, and makes me shiver; absolutely brilliant!

Emma

Oh for God's sake. While I fully appreciate the 'let's not imitate other writers' standpoint, we do not write from a vacuum (airless place, not hoover). Part of the writer's journey is through reading the work of others and finding what parts of their style work within your own voice. This is not plagiarism - it is a form of learning. I fully agree with Emma in that it is often a mistake to be reading something too stylised when you're writing, but there is absolutely nothing wrong in trying out different styles and seeing what works best for you. There is an awful lot of self-conscious tell-don't-show stuff on this site which could do with a dose of Carver or Hemingway or Munro to pare it down and make it mean something. Blandly copying someone's style without thought to the process is lazy. Examining their style from the inside out, whether it be through stories or poems, is not. It is a challenge, but one that can ultimately result in the writer understanding more about how the writing process works. We do, after all, in Newton's words, 'stand on the shoulders of giants'. Without these giants this website would not exist, so I think some of the comments above are rather naive.

I couldn't agree more. In Ray Bradbury's book-on-writing: Zen In The Art of Writing, he suggests that imitating a writer's style is a natural thing for writers to do. It's those writers, after all, that influenced us to write in the first place. This only helps us to define our own styles as we progress.

Ste

Ste, JB

I like the Japanese approach to learning, which is to copy something you admire until you can do it yourself. From there you can go on and be good in your own right. The point is, the copying is something to be admired, acknowledged as intrinsic to the process. Well, they did it with motorbikes...

Pete

Pete, I agree. That's what Bradbury's on about. It really is an inspirational book of essays (Zen In The Art of Writing). Really opens up your mind to the possibilities, instead of patronising you He's a god in my eyes!

Best,
Ste

It's one view, but I'm more into the raw art of writing. Stephen King calls it 'the hole in the paper' - that moment practiced concentration and contrivance leave you, influence and skill leave you - and you just write. It's like flying. It is real magic.

I get the whole imitation-is-the-greatest-form-of-flattery thing (though it's very like something an English Lit. teacher would say to me... fifteen years ago) and appreciate it has a little value... but it is often taken much to far - and to the detriment of letting a freshman writer's own inner voice develop.

What I mean is, if you're basing that voice on someone else's efforts wholesale (by this I mean on one particular writer, and being somewhat of a fanboy about it...) then I'm not sure it's healthy or conducive to the true art. You risk your own style becoming a pale shadow of someone else's. You risk being muted, and churning out what agents and publishers sniffingly term 'fan fiction'.

So, I would expand 'influence' to incorporate as many different influences as possible. That's certainly what I do - I read and I read widely, but I don't get hooked on one special author.

Instead, you can dance between influences, and when you see the multitude of voices shouting in the dark out there, you realise you have your own special voice anyway, and with any luck, you go in search of it. Then, and only then, do you discover your own style... though a good writer is one that never stops searching, never stops listening to advice or learning. A good writer cannot afford to be deaf to his audience, good or bad. The moment I do that, I'll quit this business, having missed the point entirely.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on it. It's an interesting discussion. Just remember every writer you admire also started out admiring someone, and no one can be truly known if you see them up on a pedestal. Remember that your imagination is just as valid.

JB

JB

I suppose I'm stuck on an idea that writing is a craft, one that has to be learnt like any other, and that only when there exists a grounding in skill and technique do the moments of flight that you describe have the opportunity to be expressed. Maybe this is a received idea and I need to shake it off.

I would guess that writing (I say guess because I've not done much)is mostly about perspiration and only a bit about inspiration. (Somebody else put that better somewhere!)

Maybe some people are lucky enough to have been born with innate skills and an inherent mastery of the craft, and these people should be admired just as much as somebody who takes the more pedestrian route.

Lucky them though!

Cheers

Pete

Pete, that's a Dennis Wheatley quote I mentioned last week:

"Writing is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration."

Now his theories on writing are an absolute riot. An interviewer, nervously said: "Yes, but you're styles not so hot, is it?" - "Oh absolutely not," he replied, in hysterics. "It matters not one jott. Critics can can say what they like. Let them try and write the books and make the money. My style might not be so hot, but I do know how to tell a damn good story."

The only 'snob' that's made me smile. What a bloke. He was a right pisshead. His autobiography is called: 'Drink And Ink' He didn't use a typewriter because his spelling was so bad!

Ste

I wouldn't claim to know either way, it is such a subjective thing. I think both are true. Passion without skill, or skill without passion, will only take you so far. Yeah, it is most certainly a craft - but as you get good builders and bad builders, I think the key element is the passion with which one approaches that craft.

I have definitely leant a great deal about skill, and my writing improved and become publishable as a result. That is a result of a different kind of influence though - the influence of the good folk on this here website, rather than any particular noteworthy author.

Some people don't believe in natural born talent. I do. And I believe it shows a mile off.

JB

By the way, can someone please come up with a better way to try and insult me other than calling me 'naive'. It's getting a little tiresome darling.

Sorry WL - everything you've said after my post makes me realise you're anything but!

What I mean is, if you're basing that voice on someone else's efforts wholesale (by this I mean on one particular writer, and being somewhat of a fanboy about it...) then I'm not sure it's healthy or conducive to the true art. You risk your own style becoming a pale shadow of someone else's. You risk being muted, and churning out what agents and publishers sniffingly term 'fan fiction'.

This is succinctly put. And almost impossible to do well (if we can call apeing someones style doing something 'well'. We must at all costs maintain our voice, but use the giants around us to give us the ideas, the structures, the turns of phrase. We need to read them with far more awareness than the average reader - my love of reading only grew after I began writing.

Cheers for the interesting ideas, Wax.

Where do these bloody smileys come from? They drive me nuts...