Writing: Style

By Sarine Moumdjian

When I think about John Green and the amazing work that he has put out there, I can not help but let the jealousy rush over me. He has a way of putting words together that can grab me by my shoulders and shake me to the core, but he also has the ability of making me feel exactly what the character is feeling. The way he does this is what experts in writing call "style". 

When we usually think about writing, we all want to follow this absolute road to perfectionism that we feel will get us to where we want, but sometimes we overlook the little intricate unintentional detail we create that set a certain style to the way we pick out our words and form them into an image. 

John Green, who is an American author of young adult fiction, started off his career as a novelist with Looking For Alaska, a novel about a teenage boy who leaves his town, off to high school to "seek a great perhaps". He meets a group of friends who accept him for who he is, one of them being Alaska Young. His plots never usually include a very dramatic turn of events, but he is known for a lot of quotes that come from this specific novel. He also wrote An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Town, the Fault in Our Stars, and collaborated on Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Let It Snow. He has not written a great amount of books, but nonetheless has proven to have a style of writing that is entirely his own: when I personally read his work, I can automatically know that he's had a hand in creating it. 

Usually, this develops with time and practice. Some people think that words need to be carefully picked out and bundled up together to spark something in the reader. But the same result can be achieved without going all out, but rather writing with a true passion, because no one wants to read something that has already been put out there. 

When asked about how he goes on to write for adolescents rather than adults, he said:

"When I write, I'm trying to imagine what it's like to be someone else more than I'm trying to express what it's like to be me". 

Writing is also about having a voice which is a factor that contributes to that style. When John Green is writing, his target audience is ranging from 15-25 year olds. Being 35 years old himself, he needs to put himself in place of his character's age. His style becomes much more different then if he were writing from a 30-year old's perspective. 

The ability of forming a train of thought on a paper in an organized matter is what makes up a person's style and what sets his or her originality into place. The only way this can be achieved is through writing as much as humanly possible, and discovering what style fits you best. This way, not only can you please yourself, your readers will appreciate the way you have found your own unique voice.