In search of a rhetorical style.. or any style

First post in a long time. Mostly because I haven’t written anything in a while. A month or so ago, I finally had more than a page written and something weird happened. I sat down to add more to what I had and realized that my style and tone had completely changed in a matter of days.

My esteemed colleague recently asked about his writing style. His ability to question his influences made me realize that I have either none or far too many. I wish I could write like my favourite author, but whenever I start to force myself to use their styles, I feel like a hack. However, when I write free form I feel bland.

I think I have remedied that for now by starting a new project in which I am harnessing Vonnegut and some Douglas Adams in spirit but without many of their biggest style choices. Allow me to share the first few paragraphs I’ve written (be kind):

Hello.
How are you doing on this fine day or night?
I find that all too often stories are told without any consideration of the reader and as such will try to maintain all niceties while conveying a tale of regret and social ineptitude. In this spirit let me compliment you on what, for my money, is one of the nicest reading outfits I’ve ever seen. Have you lost weight recently? It really shows.
With that out of the way, let me begin in the best way I know how: the end. This story ends with the protaganist staring at his computer screen full of self loathing and wishing he had the ability to change himself.
Isn’t that cheery?
Let’s flesh out this protagonist. His name is Harvey Walters. At the end of the story he will 20 years old. He’s white and from an upper middle class family that lives in the suburb of a big North American city. Honestly, suburbs are all the same regardless of the city they satelite, so please feel free to pick your favorite city with a population of over two million and assume that within a 20 minute drive of said city exists a suburb by the name of Winchester. His parents were excessively successful in their chosen fields, which both can only be explained with technical and economic jargon, hardly a proper use of our time together. Lt me just say that Howard was comortable econimically without the decadence his generation (Generation Y, that is) generally aspires to.

Any thoughts? Feel free to correct my grammar as I wrote this at 4am and probably made several mistakes. I’m hoping that by fleshing out my style here I’ll be able to tone it done for plot driven projects like the fantasy ideas or the steampunk project.

Also, stay tuned for a short story I’m working on as a backstory for my D&D character.

~ by willdanceforideas on August 4, 2008.