Thursday, April 05, 2012

Guide to Style

So first of all, a public service announcement:


If you can view that without giggling, you are made of sterner stuff than I.  I've gone back multiple times in the past few days just to look at it.

Secondly, I've brushed up A Dose of Aconite for future submission.  Because I keep a rolling submissions list of a specific number of stories - which remain in as close-to-continuous circulation as I can manage - it won't be hunting for a home until I either sell or retire something else, but it is next up on my list.  It's a very dark story - one of my darkest pieces.  It was originally written for a "villain POV" challenge over at FWO, and got some comments that reviewers weren't sure which side was which.  That's intentional when it comes to the Borderwatch versus the water-witches ... but Mannix himself is a cold, calculating piece of work.

What's interesting is I occasionally come across phrases that I don't think I would write now - but I don't feel the urge to change them.  They're not bad or inferior, just different from my present stylistic approach.  Has anyone ever encountered this?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, I think that happens to us all, or at least it should if we're making any sort of forward progress with our writing.

Like you said, not necessarily worse, but just a different style, almost as if a different person had wrote it.