It's literally your hand!

On writing style, "stealing," and developing your voice through others

I didn’t mean to write an entire mini essay on style. Actually, I don’t think of myself as a very great essayist so this is a bit out of character, but after an hour and a half that initially started with me jotting down notes on word choice and congruency (another conversation for later) here we are!

A digital photograph of a landscape. A large cloud floats in the sky, half of it bright orange with the sunset. Below is a deep green horizon of trees. Shot by Rachel, 2023

Writing style is something I get a lot of questions about. Some from people who really like mine (very nice!), and some from people who’d like to find their own. I’ve been meaning to consolidate my thoughts in a neat little “how-to” video, but maybe my ambivalence toward the idea of “writing advice” (also another conversation) has put me off this goal for a couple years. But particularly with the idea of writing styles, a bullet-point tutorial never seemed appropriate. This topic is hard for me to summarize because I don’t think it really can be, considering it means so many different things to so many different writers. But I do hear from people who don’t know how to “find” their style and who are looking for advice. I do wish I had a simpler solution than these thoughts.

---

The problem with “finding” a writing style

Finding a writing style is an endeavour that seems so ominous because it suggests an end point to something. If a writer is to find a style, that means a style in itself is an object to be obtained. But writing, at least to me, is closer to an abstract practice that keeps developing forever, rather than a skill you max out on once you reach a certain level. I think this explains why to a developing writer, the idea of a “writing style” can be daunting.

It’s easier for me to illustrate how I feel about style if we shift mediums. People handwrite in a certain style that is unique to them. Maybe it’s how you hold a pencil, how much pressure you use, how the muscles in your hands work, but your handwriting will look different to someone else’s just by nature of you being a unique individual. This is similar to how a visual artist draws in a certain style because their hand moves in a certain way. There’s therefore an innateness in “styles” of all mediums to me—a style comes to be because you are. It’s more digestible then to think of style as something that always exists in a writer rather than as something a writer needs to create from scratch. And because people change over time, a style naturally can too.

This is why I struggle to give advice on how to “find” a writing style. There are definitely ways to develop the voice you already have, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a matter of finding something. In fact, I’ve observed that if you work against your inherent voice, the writing can suffer for it. That said, I also strongly believe there are no rules and writers can do whatever they want, so if you want to try to achieve a different style, that’s fine too! But I think a lot of writers tend to shy away from their own voices in hopes of sounding more like someone else other people admire, or in worry their own voice isn’t as interesting or admirable as someone else’s.

---

Imitation is the sincerest form of… developing your own style?

Though I’ve mentioned some writers may avoid their own voice in favour of someone else’s, I do believe there are benefits of “sounding like someone else.” There’s something valuable in emulating and studying the voices of writers you admire.

I’ve long recommended finding “literary godparents” and spending lots and lots of time with their writing. There’s nothing wrong with writing in conversation with another writer or being so greatly inspired by someone you want to recreate what they do to see how it was done in the first place. In fact, I believe that’s actually a large part of developing (or becoming more aware of) a style.

While I don’t think interests necessarily define an entire person, for the sake of simplifying my thoughts, I’m operating under the framework that we are what we like—and that what we like can be a part of us. When you find a “literary godparent,” it can feel like opening a floodgate. I myself “developed” my own style in part by studying the writing of artists I strongly admired. The process looked like this:

1. Writing a lot in my organic voice without an idea or direction of what style I “had.”

2. Becoming aware of “styles” as a concept and discovering works of writers I wanted to emulate.

3. My raw voice and the voices of those writers converged and eventually the voices of the other writers took over. (That seems scary, but to me it was a natural part of that development—to really understand how to push style, I engaged with someone else’s voice so it overshadowed mine, in turn showing me how to control voice altogether.)

4. My own voice began to break through the soil, and now, several years later, I’ve found a style that feels distinctly my own.

However, just because my voice is at a point where I now more easily recognize it, doesn’t mean it’s stopped developing.

---

Development as a good word

Development is not a bad word—it’s quite literally, to me, the writer’s most natural resting state. Maybe at one point in my journey, I might’ve thought of “development” as a state of literary purgatory, eager to conquer it. But viewing development as my resting state has been surprisingly freeing—if I’m always growing, imperfection and mistakes aren’t failures, but neutral parts of the process that will come and go (and come again, then go again, etc). Thus, the idea of an ever-developing writing style is also exciting to me—what will my work look like 10 years from now? 10 years ago (when I started writing), my style of course looked very different.

So now, as I continue to find more literary godparents, I’m excited by the changes they inspire, as I see in them what I want to do in my own writing. Sometimes those inspirational voices again eclipse my own for a week or two in the joy of discovering great work, but I always end up above the soil with the same voice that’s always a part of me, just with maybe a new bloom or two.

---

All about honour

I think there’s also a stigma, particularly in fiction writing, of emulating. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s a personal observation. I actually like the term more in poetry, at least how I learned it as honouring. In poetry, borrowing and learning and building off the work of other writers has a long history someone else could definitely explain better than me. The act of engaging with another writer’s voice, trying it on my own writing like playing dress-up with my prose, is an element of fun that I think can be lost in traditional conversations about style that take us down a path of “finding.”

In personal sketches and practice, honouring the voice of a writer I deeply admire can be so educational. When I work with my interpretation of someone else’s voice, especially in my poems, it feels almost like a sacred process. I only ever go into writing that way with the utmost respect for the other artist and the work I’m inspired by. I’ve come to find those moments with other writers, writers I often don’t even know personally, to be some of the most beloved parts of the process.

For many writers, myself included, it might be hard to understand what the difference between honouring and copying is. Copying can certainly be a writing exercise in its own right like how tracing can be a tool in visual art (and there’s definitely a lot of controversy on both sides). I remember a discussion about unabashed stealing in my poetry workshops. There is of course, that famous T.S. Eliot quote that goes, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal” which actually comes from a larger quotation:

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.”

For some writers, it can be difficult to see words like “steal” and “theft” and understand what is being said.

An important disclaimer: This discussion isn’t about ethics or publishing copied work, nor is it an endorsement (or suggestion) to actually steal the work of other writers (I’ve had that happen to me before and even on small scales it’s not fun). This conversation also isn’t about plagiarism.

So instead, I like to think of these terms (“steal” and “theft”) as more abstract than literal. This is probably also why I like language like “honouring” to describe incorporating the voices of others inside our own, because the intent of the action is clearer.

I learn a lot from other writers. When there’s something in particular that excites me, I pocket that knowledge and tend to it within my process until it becomes my own. That doesn’t mean copying and pasting, which perhaps the other words imply (though again, isn’t uncommon in other writing practices like poetry—another conversation!). To me, I see it as a transformation of myself guided by the wisdom of someone else. I think there’s a journey of discerning the difference too.

But back to T.S. Eliot. Not to comment exactly on the quote, but this idea of “theft” ties back into what I’ve said about honouring and before that, about adopting and subsequently absorbing the voice of other writers within the context of my own. Even when in conversation with other writers, I ultimately always trust my voice. I also trust my brain to emphasize my voice so those I’m inspired by are more like echoes or little parcels left inside the walls of a newly constructed or renovated house.

---

Self-celebration and a connection to style

An underrated method I’ve used to develop my style is to study and celebrate my own work. I don’t undertake endeavours hoping to change a lot of things, but I do genuinely hope that however small, I’ve helped some writers learn that it’s totally okay (and also AMAZING, SLAYYY) to be your own biggest fan. Studying my own writing, be it from the past or present, continues to be one of my favourite ways to clarify my style to myself. What did I do in a paragraph or a sentence that I really liked? How did I achieve that? Do I want to recreate that? Why do I like it so much?

Close reading my own writing and being “self-indulgent” (a term I don’t really like lol, indulge yourself always, life is short!) has been so helpful in not only seeing my voice in a landscape of other voices, but also in helping me learn to be proud of the work (and love) I pour into my writing. That work (and love) in turn return to my writing practice and continue to develop my voice.

There’s certainly been times in my writing journey where celebrating my style has been hard and times where I haven’t wanted to at all (or where I haven’t at all). Self-celebrating is also an act that takes patience and lots of practice. Sometimes I’m still not happy with my writing style. Sometimes I see someone else’s work and badly want their voice to be mine. But sometimes I look at a sentence I’ve written and it’s like a collage of all the beautiful things I’ve seen.

---

An heirloom of voices

I’m sure there are writers out there whose style has been informed by mine—actually, I’ve been told that a couple times, which is mind-blowing to me! I feel extremely humbled and flattered whenever I get comments like that. I think there’s something beautiful in that, that my own voice that’s been informed and that will continue to be informed by writers I admire then informs the voice of a new writer—almost like a charm bracelet of voices. That’s a sense of community that to me makes the often-insular act of writing feel quite warm.

---

It’s literally your hand!

Two blue text bubbles sent by Rachel. One reads “exactly!” and below, the second says, “it’s literally your hand!”

In texting my sister paragraphs of this impromptu digression about writing style, I, recalling my metaphor on writing/drawing, messaged one sentence I want to leave you with: “it’s literally your hand!”

---

A digital photograph of a purple sky at sunset. Orange and pink clouds float along. Shot by Rachel, 2022

Thanks for taking the time to read through this ramble on style.

Lots of love,

Rachel