My preferred forms/genres

I think one of my favorite genres to write in is creative nonfiction, even though I wouldn’t usually call myself much of a creative writer.  I always feel like whatever I write is going to seem cliché to someone, because everything I write will probably remind someone of something they’ve read before or it will seem like a really been-there-done-that, unimaginative piece.  I’m not going to go off on a tangent and discuss what it really means to be creative or whether or not any idea is really new; I just think my issue is mostly that I have trouble coming up with plots. Otherwise I would probably love writing short stories.  However, in creative nonfiction, the facts are mostly already there.  I have to do some research to find them, but the creativity is in spinning the story. 

Working with creative nonfiction definitely has its constraints.  For one thing, you’re dealing with truth.  When I write a short story, I have total control over the facts, but in nonfiction, I can’t embellish things to make a good story.  Trying to give life to these facts and turn the truth into a story instead of a research paper is difficult. This usually pushes me to find out what it is about the story that other people care about, which is when the essay clicks. I have only written a few pieces of creative nonfiction for class, and I was never really happy with how any of them turned out, but I find it to be one of the most interesting forms of creative writing for me. 

The other type of writing I like to do is generally just business writing.  I haven’t had much experience with it since I’m not in a professional setting, but through Business and Technical Writing class and the countless emails I have to send as an officer in my sorority I’ve found that I actually enjoy analyzing my audience and determining how to deliver information in a way they’ll be responsive to.  It also doesn’t hurt to know that if I do end up working for my dad I’ll be able to use these skills answering email inquiries and constructing online ads.

These two genres are pretty different in terms of the style required for each, but I think the fact that they both have definite constraints has helped me develop my style.  In creative nonfiction, I can let myself into the picture.  I can comment on the facts I’m presenting, I can use humor, and I can be very conversational if I want.  In a lot of the emails I write, it’s more about getting information across in the clearest way possible, but when I’m writing emails for sorority, I’m definitely trying to portray a certain image, depending on the purpose.  For example, if I’m writing to new members who may be intimidated by the payment process or by me in general, I try to adopt a friendlier, conversational style while getting the point across as clearly as I can.  If I’m writing to someone who is behind on payments, I’m usually more firm and straight to the point, but I still have to make myself seem approachable rather than like a debt collector if I want to expect a response.  

the development of my style

It’s hard to pinpoint how my style has changed over the years, other than to say that it has matured.  The content has moved from silly poems and stories about kids dealing with the same things I dealt with in high school to more complex ideas, but it isn’t easy to identify exactly how my style has changed. 

After looking at a few essays and creative pieces I’ve written throughout my college experience, I can see some development in how I stick to conventions.  As a freshman, I was armed with strict guidelines that had been drilled into my head about how to properly write an essay, what each sentence should look like, and what words I could never, ever use.  It was beaten in my brain that I wasn’t allowed to sound like me at all.  Of course, that was garbage.  Contractions and first person input were not going to make my essay implode.  When I started bending the rules in my academic writing, my creative writing shifted as well. 

In the beginning, my creative writing was kind of stilted.  I wrote how I thought I was supposed to be writing rather than how I actually felt I could be writing.  I used a lot of clichés and I was more interested in completing a plot than creating characters that were real and filling the story with meaning.  After a while, when my writing began to change, I played around with writing more like I actually thought and spoke.  I used fragments, added humor and sarcasm to my stories, and wrote dialogue that wasn’t all proper English. I started working with the senses when I realized how much more power there was in showing rather than telling.

A lot of this is just my own growth as a writer through the classes I’ve had to take for my major, but I think that before I took these classes, I never really tried to establish a certain voice.  I can’t say whether or not I’ve really reached the voice I’m trying to achieve for myself. I’d like to say that I’m a straightforward writer.  I don’t like to make things abstract or difficult to comprehend, but sometimes I write rambling sentences that reflect the way I think and seem to run on a little longer than necessary.  I even find myself falling victim to the Virginia Woolf-esque sentences I hate so much with too many commas and thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts.  I don’t work to make my writing especially humorous, but I don’t filter my natural sarcastic tone.