Are you a Stylist?

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 five of a 12-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 (remaining parts coming soon):
— Bookish — Deeper Than You Think — Fearless — Grounded Fantasist — Stylist (below) —

Are you a Stylist?

You respect conventional sentences, but you’ve learned how to deconstruct the sentence for your own use. You especially love the short story form, because in short fiction, language and style can take precedence over plot.

It’s not that you write without a safety net — it’s just that you like to write to see how long an idea will sustain itself.

Deep down, you know that you might actually be a poet: you are seduced by rhythm more than character. You trust your reader even more than most writers, but writing for you is a game of how far you can push it, and you find a thrill in being subversive and playful.

For you, language will always be king.