The Art of Discovering and Dedicating Yourself to Your Style

Of course style is not easy, if it were, we would all be so cool and cut-of-the-edge trendy. Writers spend their entire lives haunted by the fear of lacking style. Style—as an element of person—is always one of a kind, the essence of the soul, maybe similar to others, but never the same. Katherine Anne Porter describes it as “an emanation from your own being.” In other words, style is difficult because it is never learned, instead it is something to be discovered from within. 

It’s easy as a writer to become captivated by the idea of commercial success, not necessarily selling out, but rather prioritizing fitting your work into a box of what is “publishable” or currently popular. You read something already published and perhaps you think to yourself, “I could write that!” But that terrain is unstable, it shifts quickly. In this choice, we inhibit our stories and neglect our individual style. 

Your style is best discovered through the survey of writers who seem to speak directly to your soul, the ones whose writing rings so resonantly it leaves you slightly off-kilter.

Those narrative and voices that you read too quickly but that linger forever, those hold the foundation to your individual style, and if you wish to focalize your writing using someone else’s structure, that is where you should settle. Concerning yourself with genre, point of view, themes, or character types that don’t come naturally will hold you back, even if they seem to guarantee success. That’s not to say that experimenting is a bad thing, but experiment with limitless freedom, allow every possibility, write, and rewrite and rewrite again. As Robert Frost says, allow your mind to skate circles around itself as it moves forward. Once you find yourself writing effortlessly, lost in your own story as it pours out onto the page almost unconsciously, you’ve found your style. 

Embrace this writing, hone, and sharpen it, and most importantly, let it guide your identity as a writer. Writing should be fun, enlightening, it should bring joy and satisfaction. Then, when you begin to approach publication, it is essential that you believe in your own writing, in the essence of your soul that shines through your narrative. Blaise Pascal once said, “when we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted, for we expect to see an author, and we find a man.” 

There will always be a home for writing that has genuine style, there are literary magazines for more literary niches than you could probably imagine. If you wish to publish a piece, the best way to honor your narrative and style is to seek a publisher that compliments you the most, not the other way around. This is why it is so important for writers to read a magazine’s previous publications, not so you can skip back to a new blank document and replicate what you’ve read, but so you can find a community that further emphasizes your narrative, your tone, your themes, and your style. 

While there are many magazines that stringently reject any genre or long-form fiction, there are just as many others that have a passion for publishing narratives that aren’t often suited for mass consumption. AZURE, for instance, is a literary magazine that “seek(s) authors who revel in the rhythmic possibilities of the poetic line… who are committed to the pyrotechnics of the written word.” Their goal is to support underrepresented styles of writing, focusing on a genre they call otherworld realism. After Dinner Conversation is a magazine that publishes narratives that focus on philosophy or ethics, they want to leave their readers in conversational reflection. Lightspeed is a digital science fiction and fantasy magazine that publishes both short and long form stories. There is no reason to contort yourself around a magazine’s requirements, if your story does not immediately fit, it is easy to move on to the next!

Duotrope, Heavy Feather Review’s, and The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses are all great databases for literary fiction writers looking to find magazines seeking submissions. On the other hand, The Submission Grinder, SFWA’s Market Report, and Codex Writers, supply great resources for genre-fiction writers. 

The point that I’m trying to make is that style is difficult, it’s complicated, and it requires a great deal of reflection, revision, and intimacy. Your style will expose your subconscious, your soul, and the observations you have made on life and existence that reflect your own humanity, in ways that might surprise you. Your style might not be evident to you, maybe you need a reader’s removed perspective to identify it, but no matter what, write what you love, and write what you know, because so long as you are true to yourself and your sensibilities, your writing will have style, and genuine style will always be publishable.

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About the author: Kristen Michone Barber is currently based in Los Angeles and is about to finish her BA in English Literature at Arizona State University. She loves writing both fiction and creative non-fiction and has spent the last two years working on an anthology of short stories. She primarily specializes in literary fiction or magical realism but is a voracious reader of all genres. She is extremely passionate about literature and loves helping others discover what aligns with them and their voice.