So, what I do is pick the thing I want to write about and write. I try to keep the tense the same but I know that I often don’t.
The story sort of floats in my head and only obtains structure when it exits my brain and it exits my brain at different times so sometimes I forget what tense I was writing in, when I do catch it, it try to fix it.
The way I write a story is to pick a point at where I want to finish and then I figure out a path back to where I am starting from. In my head the story is written in reverse which I then tell backwards, giving me a story that appears to run forward.
I try to pick the most direct line between the two points and if there is something not on that line that is important to the story or character development or just sort of cool, I will swing the story line out in that direction to pick it up and then drift it back to the ‘direct’ line.
If I stumble on a chance for alliteration or some other writing device, I will encourage it and blend it in but I will not force it. Sometimes, I will notice a pattern and try to follow through with it.
I try to let the story tell itself, I don’t try to be cleaver. I report the story as it was seen.
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But it is a craft, and a very good one. I know you would disagree about the crafted part.
I don't think I try at the writing hard enough for it to be a craft (or for it to be crafted.)
I do work at the story telling.
Or am I splitting hairs?
Now if I were to tell a story about something that I've never done and made it believable to someone who would know about those things then maybe that would be a craft.
You're splitting hairs.
You do something really well. You put thought into it. You put effort into it. You have crafted it.
No, you don't set out to follow a certain style, but the style and tone are still there. I don't think really good writers set out to follow a template, things just flow from them in a certain way. Some people have a knack for it that gives them a distinctive style that seems effortless. That's you.
All the famous writers I love are the same way.
I can read something sometimes and say "That's in Tim's style". That's a craft.
"I report the story as it was seen."
And that's part of it. The way you see it and they way you write about it is distinctive. Not haphazard or thoughtless and not following a template of anybody else's style. It's uniquely your own.
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