Analysis of Reading Author Experiment

Charles Dickens

Douglas Adams

I let you down by not analyzing my author experiment last week. I forgot and wanted to talk about the picture book. I will analyze now instead.

First. Who knew Douglas Adams and Charles Dickens were such similar writers?! I picked those two because I figured they were so different from each other the difference in my writing would be stark. While it modernized itself a bit, I couldn't help but notice the similar sense of humor while doing the two different readings. Dickens loves to be literal and honest, to point out the silliness inherent in humans, and to present jokes with a straight face. Adams is blunt, uses silliness to great effect, and acts as if his constant joking were totally serious. The only real differences are genre and time period. I swear these two would have been friends.

Mary Robison

What it means is from what I can tell, my writing modernized between the first and second segments, but the sense of humor - they had reminded me how funny silliness with a straight face can be - remained largely the same.

Things changed more when I added Mary Robison. The book of hers I was reading from, One D.O.A. One on the Way, is minimalist to an extreme. That was reflected in my shorter sentences. Also courtesy of Robison was my turn from being silly to being cynical.

Was this on purpose? I honestly am not sure. Human error is a large factor in this experiment that could only be done away with if I hadn't known my hypothesis and purpose. Basically, if I had done this on accident or asked an unknowing person to act as test subject, it would have worked better.

Harper Lee

I do not think it was completely on purpose, though I was definitely aware it was happening. I think what happens, subconsciously, is that when reading a talented author's work, I admire it and notice the aspects I particularly enjoy. I remember how fun the silliness is, how gritty and true minimalism can sound, and I want to bring it into my writing. It also puts me into a mood that fits that author's tone.

This experiment was tiring. Writing can be tiring when it isn't flowing right (power through anyway!), but this was draining in its own right. I was getting breaks, so the writing shouldn't have gotten me down, but the constant switching from style to style wore me out. That is why the Juliet Marillier section is so short. My story wasn't pushing itself forward and I was continually disorienting myself.

Juliet Marillier

I read it to my husband, and he said it didn't sound like me. It was terse and flippant, were his exact words, which is something I am going to blame on Mary Robison. It took a while to get her tone out of my system, and by the end, it still wasn't quite gone. I think it is because her style is so domineering, whereas the styles of Harper Lee and Juliet Marillier are softer, more mellow. Maybe I needed more time reading from them to soak up their respective tones and phraseology, whereas Mary Robison's prose comes in swinging.

I had never thought about people's writing styles being strong like a personality can be strong, but I suppose it is true. There's a lesson I wasn't looking for.

Have any added observations? Let me know. I'm interested.