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I got 4 likes and a reply that's enough let's go this is gonna be kind of haphazard but here's the rough deets on how I developed my style 1/? https://twitter.com/felinefelix1/status/1362566562461356040
2/? to start with, I read very, very widely. poetry, essays, nonfiction are my bread and butter--while I mainlined fiction as a kid, around uni I didn't have time and shifted primarily to nonfiction & poetry. that's not to say I don't read fic! we'll get to that in a min
poetry in is huge on my style. in uni, for about two years I entirely stopped writing prose--my writing major was a poetry focus, so I was writing, editing, reading, and just inhaling poetry constantly. I still read tons, and keep a collection of favorite poems of all styles 3/?
this DRASTICALLY altered my prose. writing in so many styles of poetry (i practiced with both strict forms & free form) means every word and phrase when I write prose gets hyper analyzed--whats this doing? can I deliver this emotion with fewer words? 4/?
this takes tons of practice to get fast, and I never am gonna comfortably write that 50k slow burn hell I keep promising (because I'll end up doing it in half that) BUT the limited space and restrictions of strict form poetry is an invaluable lesson in conveying emotions 5/?
I ment. that I collect favourite poems--i also do this with ANY prose I read; I have a very, *very* old google doc that's just passages from both fiction and nonfic with citation that have in some way moved me, with notes on why/how they moved me at the time 6/?
stopping to just breathe in and look at good works, no matter genre, and try to articulate why i liked it as well what I'd want to emulate from it helps a lot to keep me always looking outside myself for inspo, so I don't feel "stuck" 7/?
I also mention I mostly read nonfic now, but I can't not mention how hugely influential learning and reading in korean has been on my style for *clarity*. I def was not always so clear a writer, and the majority of fiction I read now I read in my 2nd language 8/?
this has done so much to teach me *exactly* how and why we do certain things in english. I write (nonfic) in korean, and that back and forth between these two makes me hyperaware of what CANNOT be cut (a very valuable skill) and what CAN be safely reordered for lyricism 9/?
learning a whole new language is not feasible for most ppl, but I do think any sort of technical reading or structural analysis of english can lead to similar results--WHY do we say certain things, HOW do we safely chop them up in speech? 10/?
another thing for authors whose voice i like is I do actual copycat writing. I try to mimic that voice and style, try to identify what MAKES them THEM. these don't get shared--theyre practice *for me*. the process lets me take what I like from a style and discard the rest 11/?
I have actual notebooks filled with trying to copy nabakov, oscar wilde (high school!!! lord I was obsessed), andrea gibson, and too many more to count, trying to capture the essence of what draws me to those works--prose AND poetry. 12/?
and on that note, special shout-out to nonfiction, because it often is both wildly funny and moving while also needing to be technical and precise, plus it gives me SO MANY of my ideas for the metaphors I actually use. I'd never have half my ideas without nonfic 13/?
I think that covers it. I def do this to my own work, too-i have favourite lines and passages I go back to, and those are the ones I build my future work on to improve, while going "yeah that didn't work why" but KINDLY about stuff I stop loving. 14/?
the last thing is im queer, if my work doesn't give it away, and I just try to shove every last soul rending exp of being this gender mess of a shark into everything I write, & everything above is in service to howling myself into being 15/15 THE END thx 4 rdn I hope u got smth
