Let's share some influences on writing style. But first, a little theory:

My 1st grade teacher, whose name I've forgotten, once told me the style someone writes in is a mixture of styles from all the books they've read. I remember it sounding wrong, but I couldn't explain why. Instead I kept my mouth shut and nursed a rant in a dark corner of my mind for many years. And now I can explain. There are three problems. Each one demonstrates a different source for influences.

First one. If someone just read Shakespeare they don't all of a sudden start typing out couplets in iambic pentameter. And style can be changed deliberately, meaning one's influences can be chosen, not simply passively absorbed. It might take time and it won't necessarily succeed, but it's possible. As a result other influences, such as passive or unconscious ones, could also replaced.

So we can distinguish between influences passive, but which you might one day notice, and chosen, which would of course be noticed by default.

So onto number two. Writing is speech but with squiggles instead of sounds. Meaning the way you speak, and even think, may influence your writing. Poetry and Epics predate literature, standard advice is to eavesdrop on conversations to learn natural dialogue, etc.

So we can distinguish between written and unwritten influences.

And a third issue and that's theory itself. If you are taught to write then your writing may be influenced, but teaching how to write can be entirely abstract and lack a single cited example of writing, to influence you directly. Or the examples could be homework after the lesson. Learning theory will cause you see things in a new light entirely, so when you read a book, perhaps one you've read already, you will notice more of the book's structural elements rather than simply being along for the ride.

So we can distinguish between influences from abstract theory of how to write and influences from writing, or more accurately, language itself.

Feel free to post your personal influences from any of these categories and how they impacted you. Passive and chosen. Written or unwritten. Abstract theory about writing, and writing itself. Or any other type of influence not covered in the three objections to Mrs. Macsomethingorother.





As for me, I really respect writers that can keep things short and down to earth, because I have trouble with both. I've tried to learn from example through Twain, Hemingway, and Cormac McCarthy.

On theory Brandon Sanderson's courses taught at BYU changed my writing a lot. Brandon is an excellent teacher. I think I watched them on youtube, if anyone is interested.

My style pretty much came from reading a lot when I was younger and trying to expand on that when I was older. I grew and had a bigger vocabulary, for example. I took criticism from my friends to help understand where I slipped up or where it didn't sound so right, but most importantly, I trusted my gut. I told the story in a decent manner that I seem to like and others seem to enjoy.

I'll be honest, much of my writing style takes after poetry sometimes, because I wrote a lot of poetry when I was younger and it somehow carried itself over into writing. An example of this is the indented single lines that I sometimes use.

H.iO is really my first big venture into a writing website and I have a lot to explore, in fact, it's a little overwhelming. I sometimes don't know where to start (but hey, if anyone has some good thread recommendations, tell me)! I was asking the other night on the Discord what threads to read, and Prof. Risa suggested the Lock-In. Reading that and a few others inspired me to keep going with whatever this is. There's potential to make something really cool.

But anyways, that's beside the point. I believe my style has definitely morphed in some good and bad ways, ex. when I look back at some old writing of mine.

I've been trying to explore Finley's thought process lately since she's very different from myself in a multitude of ways.

I feel like my writing style is mostly influenced by the grammar in the type of books I read, for example even since I started to read Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter I have started to write and speak ‘British slang’. At the same time my writing style has to do with the topics I like, and I like dark topics. It’s my ‘art style’, not too long ago I got sent to the office just because I decided to write about a very dark topics that happened to me for an English assignment. It’s quite obvious that I like to write about dark topics— I mean look at Jane Victoria... My writing style has also changed because of practice, lately I’ve been trying to practice writing in an ‘old english’ style, but of course that is very hard for me because I have to read each sentence over and over just to make sure I used the words correctly. My style has not only changed and developed because of that, it has also developed through role-playing. By reading many people’s writings I start to lean new ways of writing things and I start to mix it. 

So that’s pretty much how I have developed my writing style.

This thread has me wondering if VC Andrews influenced my writing style. I read her books from a young age (I shouldn’t have with the content ) but then the only other authors I became big fans of outside of HP are John Green and David Levithan.

If I can find the site I’m thinking of where you can put in some of your writing and it’ll tell you your grade level and writers who are similar to you, I’ll link it.

EDIT:

This isn’t the site I meant but it’s fun anyway. It said I write like Mario Puzo who wrote The Godfather.

That's very interesting, @Dymphna Teague! I got Stephen King.

My style has mostly been influenced by the thoughts swirling around my head, the songs I listen to, and the urban environment that I used to live in, and still yearn to be in. That means that my writing style is dark, descriptive, and musical. I mix things in as I try out new ways to leave the magic of words, and as you likely see, I like words that go together very well. I feel like my writing is more developed than most/all of my classmates. The way I write may really be a tad inspired by songwriting and poetry. My poetry is usually dark themed, or about food... Or even both.

sorry about any typos; I'm getting used to a new phone.

Whoa I got Stephen King on the ‘I write like’. Not much of a surprise though... I’ve read many of his books and I like to write about dark topics.

Heh I might try that... The quiz, I mean.

UPDATE: @Jane Victoria, same here...maybe it's rigged.

Or not. I put one thing in there when I tried to make Koko seem defenseless and worthless, and I got JK Rowling... Ironic, huh?

@Koko Riddle So now I just copy and paste something I wrote from a detention role play and I got JK Rowling.... Hmmm very suspicious