Lean into style

The ultimate life hack is self-acceptance.

For the past few days I’ve been writing about improving and mitigating poor mental imagery, but not every author writes vivid descriptions. For a random example, here is a character walking into her room to find a book to read.

Raymie went into her room. The shelves over her bed held rocks and seashells and stuffed animals and books.
Raymie Nightingale, by Kate DiCamillo

That’s the setting. It doesn’t seem like much, does it? It doesn’t have to be. The rest of the scene shows the main character, Raymie, picking out a book from her shelves, remembering the person who gave it to her, and what she thought of the book then. The author writes the scene from the character’s experience so there’s no need to describe the color of the bedspread, or even how many books are on the shelves.

And that’s the secret. Whatever my experience of life looks like, that’s the experience I can translate into fiction. That becomes my style.

I can work to build my capabilities and skills, but meanwhile I just lean into style.