Are you a Minimalist?

Influence has an important role in your writing. As you understand and work with different styles and influences, you’ll learn how to find your own voice.

This is part eight of a 10-part series on style and voice.

Writers in the Story Course and the Story Intensive can determine their writing style by taking the Style Diagnosis Quiz. This is a tool to help you highlight elements of style in your own work and point you to authors who may inspire you right now.

Read the rest of the Style Diagnosis series here: — Bookish — Deeper Than You Think — Fearless — Grounded Fantasist — Stylist — Quirky but Serious — Intimate Orator — Visceralist — Pointy With Intellect— Minimalist (below)

Are you a Minimalist?

You desire freedom from excess. You eschew the non-essential sentences, words, punctuation in your writing in order to focus on what is truly important and of value. In a successful piece of writing, less is more. Simplicity brings you joy.

Your writing is accurate, true, and beautifully uncluttered. You believe that the essential beauty of a clear sentence is as stunning as a smooth, round stone.

You want nothing to stand in the way of the story. Too many adjectives, adverbs, or fancy verbs are gratuitous. Quotation marks make the page look like it’s wearing costume jewelry.

For you, it’s clarity over everything.

Read the following books to learn about other Minimalist writers:

• Nnedi Okorafor, Binti: The Complete Trilogy

• Raymond Carver, Cathedral

• Jhumpa Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies

• Sally Rooney, Normal People

• Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore

• Cormac McCarthy, The Road

• Marcy Dermansky, The Red Car

Please leave your suggestions for other Minimalist writers in the comments below.

xo,

Photo credit (top): Sarah Dorweiler on Unsplash

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