Different styles for different works

[Jo Zebedee]

Is it okay to have different styles in different works, do you think? I don't just mean voice, because of course that changes with the characters, but completely different styles?

One of the series is for the adult market and it has longer sentences, and words, and a richness of language. It's a sort of epic space opera series, so there's a big world in it and a reasonable cast of characters (about six main ones, and lots of secondary.)

The other stuff I write is mostly YA and it's all terse, voicey stuff.

And then I have a fantasy that's wildly descriptive and, for me, fairly slow paced, and it's got a mix between the terse and the more flowing style.

Is this okay, or do you expect a writer to maintain a basic style across all their work? Can anyone think of writers who vary their approach according to series and genres eg I haven't read the Gunslinger, but is it different in feel to King's horror?

 

[Vertigo]

I think it's fine when you're switching genre or market like that. I can think of loads of examples:

Iain [M] Banks: his SF and non-SF have very different styles. Though both tend to share similar dark humour.

Richard K Morgan: SF - very good, Fantasy very different and, for me, dreadful.

Ursula Le Guin - for example Earthsea and The Dispossessed - you wouldn't think they were the same author. (only 6 years apart).

Joe Abercrombie - there have been comments in another thread about the different style of his adult fantasy and his more recent YA fantasy.

 

[HareBrain]

As well as what Vertigo says, there are a couple of other considerations.

One, the differences might be obvious to you, but to readers they might all still clearly be "your" voice.

Two, you don't know which of these is going to take off first. After one does, your agent or publisher might encourage you to write more in that style. But until you know which way your writing's going to go, you should feel free to vary it as much as you like, I'd have thought.

 

[thaddeus6th]

I hope so.

My comedy and serious stuff are clearly different. Serious stuff has more description, more in-world lore references and so on and so forth.

 

[Hex]

N.M. Browne changes very much between books. Catherine Fisher? Robin McKinley.

I wouldn't worry about it

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Two, you don't know which of these is going to take off first.

I love your optimism...

Thanks, all, that's reassured me.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Agatha Christie?

Poirot and Marple have quite a different tone to them. Hound of Death is her short stories and they are different again. Tommy and Tuppence are very different.

Yet somehow it is all identifiably Agatha Christie.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Agatha Christie's Spy Stories (Passenger Frankfurt, Bagdad: I forget exact titles) are like a different person writing again.
I'm disappointed actually that they are not the majority of her work!

Tommy and Tuppence are very much different style to Marple and Piorot.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Also Witness from Prosecution and Murder of Roger Ackroyd are different again.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Is it all right? Yes. Is it easy to do? To maintain a completely different voice / style through different books? I'm not so sure. I think there would always be the risk of slipping between them while writing.

To counter this I'd suggest having a different editor for each book - one who has not been involved in the other and so will hopefully immediately pick up if and when things suddenly change.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hi,

Is it all right? Yes. Is it easy to do? To maintain a completely different voice / style through different books? I'm not so sure. I think there would always be the risk of slipping between them while writing.

To counter this I'd suggest having a different editor for each book - one who has not been involved in the other and so will hopefully immediately pick up if and when things suddenly change.

Cheers, Greg.

I could see trying to do it deliberately would be horrendously hard to achieve, but in this case it just happens naturally. As it happens, though, Teresa is editing the space opera and my agent is looking at the other work, so I might have been lucky enough to come up with an editorial balance. Good point, ty.

I do have to be aware of slippage - Ulster voices in a space opera don't quite work.

 

[JoanDrake]

As someone who can't even develop one style I can do nothing but envy someone who has two.


I have read books where it seemed the author was actually varying the style within the same page, let alone the same book and it was entertaining. Whatever works, works, yes?


As for your Ulster voices, "Wy d'ya think that wo' be a problem, Cap'n? I's not like yer askin' me poor bairns to gi' ya Warp 9 like ya did last week"

 

[tinkerdan]

It can be done though it might be about as easy to do as changing tenses is for some people. I suspect that many of those writers that use multiple pseudonyms do so with the intent to write with different styles. It probably works; though once they reveal who they are I often hear people say, 'Oh yeah I thought that sounded like the same author'.

So it's probably an illusion that works both ways.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Also Witness from Prosecution and Murder of Roger Ackroyd are different again.

What's the Mary Westmacott incarnation of Agatha Christie like?

Isn't there a good argument for different pen name for genres that don't attract the same readers?

The Hollow is one of the oddest Poirot? It's mostly from the POV of someone that doesn't even know Poirot.

Or Anthony Horowitz. Is he really a syndicate of six writers? Seems versatile as young adult, adult, humour, serious, adult and scripts. Foyle's War, Midsommer Murders, Diamond Bros (crazy stuff), Alex Rider (dry your eyes 007!), Power of Five, A Sherlock Holmes "Authorised" story "House of Silk".
(I think though he got fed up with Midsommer Murders.)

 

[AnyaKimlin]

The first Miss Marple "Murder at the Vicarage" is first person from POV of the vicar. She has lots of different "voices" but they are all distinctly her.