The Three Styles Challenge

I've been blogging on how to write in a more literary fashion.  I've heard about an art challenge to imitate the artistic styles of those one admires.  It's a common challenge found on YouTube.  However this challenge has been around for a very long time in multiple fields.  In art classes, I practiced emulating artistic styles of some of the greats as many have done before me.  I've also had been assigned essentially the same challenge but with writing styles.  If you want to learn how to write like the greats, it helps to consciously practice imitating those styles.  Assess what you like about that or those literary styles and do what they do. 

In high school, my English teacher ran out of time to work through both our Greek myth unit and our writing styles unit.  So she had us select three writing styles and three Greek myths.  We were to rewrite the Greek myths in those specific writing styles.  For "Cupid and Psyche," a tale related to the familiar "Beauty and the Beast," I imitated a specific children's book.  I took note of the repetition of the style, its simplicity, and its manner of addressing the reader and did likewise.  "Who was taken away by a mysterious being to become his wife?  Psyche!"  I took the Perseus myth with the Minotaur and rewrote it in the fashion of Joan D. Vinge's Psion.  I used the rough, angry first person prose of the sci fi juvenile dystopia and employed those techniques in the tale.  I took the intensely descriptive, almost purple, style of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks then rewrote yet a third tale.  This was a most fascinating writing exercise anyone can do.  Rick Riordan has made a career of rewriting myths of various origins with the Percy Jackson series and other series except he's invented his own style. 

You can do likewise, if only as an exercise.  Find a writing style you admire.  Does Bronte's Jane Eyre excite you?  Then study her Gothic romantic prose.  What about Austen's Pride and Prejudice?  Study her use of adjectives, adverbs, and dialogue.  Look at the description of each country ball.  Look at how she writes romantic scenes or the rejections of proposals.  What makes her style work?  Do you love Dumas's Count of Monte Cristo?  Look at how he builds suspense, how he illustrates his action scenes, and how the "count" plots revenge against those who destroyed his life.

Once you have done a careful analysis of the style of a literary author who impresses you, use those techniques to rewrite a Greek myth, a fairy tale, or some other simple story you know.  Tell the story of your first day in college in the manner of Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Retell yesterday's shopping trip in the manner of Twain or Hemingway or your favorite poet.  Tell about your most traumatic childhood experience through the dark and brooding tones of Poe.  This exercise may help you come up with something new or learn techniques to rewrite something that feels old and stale.  You obviously can't become that author.  But they're remembered for a reason.  What makes them tick?  What makes them memorable and beloved?  Figure it out and use those techniques for yourself. 

Bad Guys with Depth

I've been writing about how to make any piece more literary.  Serious consideration ought to be given to the source of conflict, the antagonist, the monster, the bad guy, whatever it may be.  In nearly every piece, giving consideration to one's antagonist is just as important as to the protagonist.  I've read books and seen movies in which the antagonist is shallow, evil without subtlety, an easy straw man, or some other character  that is a one-dimensional character.  These are the stereotypical villains who are obviously evil.  These obvious villains undercut and trivialize your protagonist.  If your hero doesn't have a worthy and intriguing enemy, your hero, too, starts to fall flat. 

To figure out how to make a worthy enemy, carefully observe examples of such enemies.  Magneto from the X-men series is not literary, yet he exemplifies the villain who is more than just a man in black with a mustache and a maniacal laugh.  He sees himself as a hero, as someone worthy of emulation.  He sees the human race as the obstacle to world peace and, therefore, wants to eradicate it.  In his mind, he's the good guy.  He's flawed, but then, so are the heroes.  He's like Captain Nemo in Jules Vernes's novels, who seeks vengeance for what he deems justifiable reasons.  Such antagonists are not simply evil. 

In stories like Gregory Maguire's Wicked, the supposed villain actually becomes the protagonist.  As we get to know the witch Elphaba more, we see she never set out to be any kind of a villain but was portrayed as such by her society.  She was forced into the role of the villain, a role she never sought.  The Wizard, then, becomes the antagonist, and he doesn't view himself as a villain either but as someone doing good for society who is willing to destroy anything that stands in the way of his quest. 

The antagonist doesn't even have to be human or even humanoid to be complicated.  Moby Dick from the self-titled work is the antagonist of that piece.  He's a whale fighting for survival.  He's not a villain at all.  Captain Ahab can be seen as a villain, but he's on the side of the protagonist.  That work stands the test of time simply because it's not about simple bad guys and good guys. 

What makes the conflict in your piece work?  Who or what is the antagonist?  What is his/her/its motivation?  What makes your antagonist more than just a simple, shallow villain?  Spend as much time considering this character as you do the hero.  Are they foils, meaning opposites who have much in common?  If they are both equally complex, how does your villain highlight traits in your hero?