depend on subconscious, automatized premises. This is even more true of style.
In style, form follows function. In other words, what determines your style is your purpose—both in the book as a whole and in each paragraph or sentence. But given the number of issues involved in even the simplest story, there is no way to calculate the function and form consciously. Therefore, you have to set your literary premises and then write without self-consciousness. Write as it comes to you, on such premises as you have.
Do not decide to have a “brusque” style, a “dramatic” style, a “sensitive” style, or whatever nonsense you might have heard in literary schools. No such lines can be drawn. Above all, never imitate anyone else’s style. Some writing schools ask students to write a story in the style of Sinclair Lewis, and another one in the style of Thomas Mann, and another one in the stream-of-consciousness style. Nothing could be deadlier: this is a sure way never to acquire a style of your own. A style comes from the combination of all of a writer’s purposes and premises (and not only his literary ones). You cannot borrow another man’s soul, and you cannot borrow his style. You would only be a cheap imitator.
Write as purposefully and clearly as you can, on your own premises, and your style will develop with practice. If you have set yourself some literary premises, the elements of your future style will be apparent in your first attempts. But it is impossible for anyone to have a recognizable style of his own prior to practicing. Given the complexity involved, a style has to become automatic before it can be thoroughly individual and polished.
If, after some years of work, you feel that your way of expression is not right, you have to do more thinking about what you do and do not like in literature. Identify what your style is missing, what category the error belongs to; then identify the right premise, which will enable you to express things more exactly or colorfully.
But never try to force a style. When someone is writing in a phony manner, it is as apparent as a neon sign. It is much better, even if your writing is slightly awkward, to be natural.
I have selected some passages which I consider stylistically typical. They fall into three groups: the first six quotations deal with the subject of love, the next two are descriptions of nature, and the last four are descriptions of New York City. By seeing different writers treat the same subjects, you will be able to better identify their stylistic differences.
Look for what is accomplished in each quotation, and for the means by which it is accomplished. Identify first the “what”—the author’s assignment; and then the “how”—the selection of content and of words.
In the first six quotations, as I said, the author’s assignment is to present love, particularly the intensity of love.
From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
[The woman in these two different passages is Dagny Taggart, the man is John Galt. The “temple” is a powerhouse containing a motor which runs on atmospheric electricity and which has been invented by Galt.]
She was suddenly aware that they were alone; it was an awareness that stressed the fact, permitting no further implication, yet holding the full meaning of the unnamed in that special stress. They were alone in a silent forest, at the foot of a structure that looked like an ancient temple—and she knew what rite was the proper form of worship to be offered on an altar of that kind. She felt a sudden pressure at the base of her throat, her head leaned back a little, no more than to feel the faint shift of a current against her hair, but it was as if she were lying back in space, against the wind, conscious of nothing but his legs and the shape of his mouth. He stood watching her, his face still but for the faint movement of his eyelids drawing narrow as if against too strong a light. It was like the beat of three instants—this was the first—and in the next, she felt a stab of ferocious triumph at the knowledge that his effort and his struggle were harder to endure than hers—and then he moved his eyes and raised his head to look at the inscription on the temple....
She collapsed, face down, on the bed. It was not the mere fact of physical exhaustion. It was the sudden monomania