Word Riff

Everything is subjective. What do you want to say? Someone will be upset, someone else will love it. I’m not apologetic, I tell the truth even if it hurts, life’s too short to go around making excuses all the time--Cobb. I feel my writing is that way, I work to get out my ideas and some people hate it for one of a hundred reasons, while others love the style.

Style is the thing, anybody can come up with a story idea and write a screenplay, I want to write prose and not everyone can do that well. I have read that you don’t teach a writer a style, they have a good one naturally or they don’t. My style is different, thick, that should be a good thing right?

I feel my story concepts and plots are great, I get myself giddy sometimes just thinking about the coming twists. I love my characters, but I know that’s not my strong point, everyone out there is a working on character driven stories. To me, a character’s character is itself, subjective. Do I need 1000 words to explain the mental processes of a character? Or can you just trust in me, knowing the character is a real person to me.

Choice is the thing that defines style. If two writers sit down with the same outline and write a story, you will get two vastly different stories. Because, different writers make different choices in what to say, what needs to be said, and how to say it. I make the choices I want, to tell the things I want to. Shouldn’t that be a good thing too?

I’ve read some comments where people think I just dish out words because they sound good together. I spend a lot of time re-reading my words and tweaking everything out to send out my concepts in clear language. If I have the opportunity to make a given sentence more lyrical at the same time, then shouldn’t I take advantage? I would be in neglect if I didn’t, don’t you think? I want to give my readers a trip to another world, and I want them to take that trip on the rails of a linguistic adventure.

Maybe my stylistic problems come from my lack of language skills and reading experience. I don’t know what to tell you? I want to write, I’m not a reader. I’ve read maybe a dozen novels in my entire life. Does that exclude me from being able to be a good writer? I think my lack of exposure will give me the ability to till new ground, simply because I don’t know what is out there.