Writing style – Deneroff Education and Writing Coaching

Mark Twain pondering at his desk — You don’t have to be a Mark Twain to allow your personal voice to come through as a writer.

At an art college where I used to teach, students were required to go on a field trip. As an incentive in my class, they had to write a 250-word report that would count for 5% of their final grade; I also guaranteed they would basically get an A on this assignment if they just finished it and handed it in. Interestingly, some of these reports were better written than their term papers. Freed from the necessity of conforming to their preconceived ideas of what an academic essay is supposed to be, they allowed their real abilities as writers to surface. More importantly, their personal voices came through.

Allowing what you write to reflect who you are and what you believe is a perennial balancing act for students and academics alike. But it is also an issue for people in a wide variety of situations—the businesswoman giving a keynote address at a dinner or writing copy for her company’s brochure; an aggrieved citizen writing a letter to their local district attorney; or an immigrant for whom English is a second language trying to write their resume.

Some editing services advertise they can transform a piece by an ESL author to make it read like it was written by a native speaker. To some extent, this is what we also do. But I don’t think it should be done at the expense of neutering who that person is. As a professor, one of the joys of working with international students was the added perspectives they brought to the classroom. And as a magazine editor, I likewise found the pluses of having contributors from around the world far outweighed the extra effort that may be involved in working with them.

Writing without fear can be especially hard for high school students writing their personal essays when applying to college. The hypercompetitive atmosphere surrounding the process can be very scary, which can lead applicants to be overly conservative. The resulting essay might seem to fulfill all the school’s requirements except one: the clear sense of who the applicant is. In other words, a lack of a personal voice, a quality admissions officers really do look for.

The one type of writing we have worked with that does not really suffer as much from artificial constraints is the personal memoir. These can be rather fun to work on. For instance, we once got a book written for family and friends (it was to be self-published). As such, the prose was casual and unforced, so we could concentrate on things like grammar and structure to allow it to breathe better. In this case, the author did not seem to understand how to break up their text into proper paragraphs (i.e., he made paragraphs that went on for pages, or run-on paragraphs). The results were very gratifying, and our job was made easier because the writer was speaking from his heart.

Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes in the 1932 A Farewell to Arms movie.

Tips for creative and other descriptive writing. Whether you’re writing a novel or ethnography, description places the reader in the scene.

That night at the hotel, in our room with the long empty hall outside and our shoes outside the door, a thick carpet on the floor of the room, outside the windows the rain falling and in the room light and pleasant and cheerful, then the light out and it exciting with smooth sheets and the bed comfortable, feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal.

— Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Good writing is good writing, whether it’s literature or a scholarly journal article.
Provide enough evidence so that the reader agrees with you. In the quote above, everything that precedes the last line is evidence for the private world of Hemingway’s characters, Henry and Catherine. We accept Hemingway’s assertion because we have experienced it for ourselves.
If you’re doing an ethnography or other academic writing, there is a paradox. Part of providing evidence is acknowledging alternative views. You want the reader to understand why you came to the conclusion you did.
In fiction writing, alternative perspectives are less important, since you don’t have to justify the existence of the world you are creating.
The point of this excerpt is that Henry and Catherine were living in their private world. The last words, “all other things were unreal,” says this explicitly. Don’t be afraid to be explicit.
Try to use all 5 senses, although not all at once, which would be overkill. The new writer’s tendency is to say what things look like, but if you place yourself in any situation, there is a lot more going on. The Hemingway passage is very tactile, even though it appears at first read to be visual. Smooth sheets, thick carpet, comfortable bed. Long empty halls come with a feeling, and subconsciously evoke smells, and even sounds or absence of sounds.
Focus on describing rather than telling. In this passage, Hemingway does not tell us the main characters Henry and Catherine are blissfully happy with each other, he uses words so we feel it.
Describing is NOT emotionally neutral. Hemingway’s images are deliberately chosen to evoke feelings. Good writing, especially good academic writing, has a definite perspective. Make your point without apology.
Economy of words. Eliminate words which don’t create images relevant to your point. Hemingway is famous for being lean and economical with his words. However, you can see that the carefully chosen images in the quote provide a rich sensual experience for the reader.

Recommended reading: H.L. Goodall’s book, Writing the New Ethnography.

— Vickie Deneroff