Navigating Prompts: Style over Substance

Style and substance

What makes a story a really good story? Anyone can write a list of events: “this happened, and then this, and I felt like that, and then this other thing happened.” That’s not a story; it’s barely a narrative. Stories aren’t all about substance—they’re about style. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, you want to do it in a way that pulls a reader in and anchors them in the world you’re presenting to them. Let’s take a look at how you can achieve this.

Ready, set, go

It was a dark and stormy night….

Well, actually it was probably sunny in May, when we talked about element-based genre prompts. This month we’re looking at the flip side of that coin: style-based genre prompts. What’s the difference, and how do we work them into our stories? Here’s the scoop.

What is this prompt and why is it here?

Some genres are defined by what’s in the story; others are defined entirely by the way the story is written. If voice, vocabulary, or organization are the critical identifying elements of your prompt, you’ve got a style-based prompt. Consider, for example, epistolaries, high fantasy, or noir, all of which require a particular voice or style of writing. If it’s a prompt defined by “these things need to be in this story,” (science fiction, urban fantasy, fairy tales), you’ll want to hop back into the post on element-based genre prompts for a refresher.

“But wait,” you say. “High fantasy requires certain elements: magic, elves, wizards, heroics. How is high fantasy a style?”

It’s true: style and genre are closely linked. High fantasy, steampunk, literary fiction—all of these are examples of genres that require both specific elements and a specific style or voice. A story that includes all of the elements of high fantasy but is written in modern parlance with characters who swear and others who speak in a broad drawl is not actually high fantasy, it’s just fantasy. Confused? We’ll go into more detail below.

Anthologists love this kind of prompt because it allows them to put together a collection of works that can anchor the reader in a particular mood or mindset. Style-based genres also let the writer demonstrate their understanding of voice and, well, style—not just story structure. In fact, for a quick bonus for nonfictioneers, jump to the bottom of this post where we’ll chatter for a moment about how style prompts manifest in nonfiction, too.

How do you use it?

Genre styles are all about presentation: not “what is the story about,” but “how is it told?” You might want to do a little reading before you start to write. Google your genre, list out the elements that make it what it is, and try to separate the concrete elements from the stylistic elements.

In general:

The first and most important thing you need to do is to identify the stylistic elements that differentiate this genre from any other. What makes “high fantasy” different from “low fantasy” or “urban fantasy” or “paranormal”? The concrete elements of these genres overlap a great deal, but stylistically, they are very different genres.

Let’s be specific:

Let’s start with a broad genre: fantasy. “Fantasy” doesn’t have a voice element, just some concrete things that have to be in the story: magic, mostly, which can manifest as magical abilities, fantastic creatures, impossible settings, etc. But what differentiates urban fantasy and high fantasy? Besides the fact that one must have a modern city setting, there’s a massive word choice shift between the two. Let’s look at a passage from Lord of the Rings, and then imagine what it might be if the trilogy were not high fantasy.

A little apart the Rangers sat, silent, in an ordered company, armed with spear and bow and sword. They were clad in cloaks of dark grey, and their hoods were cast now over helm and head. Their horses were strong and of proud bearing, but rough-haired; and one stood there without a rider, Aragorn’s own horse that they had brought from the North; Roheryn was his name. There was no gleam of stone or gold, nor any fair thing in all their gear and harness: nor did their riders bear any badge or token, save only that each cloak was pinned upon the left shoulder by a brooch of silver shaped like a rayed star.

The king mounted his horse, Snowmane, and Merry sat beside him on his pony: Stybba was his name. Presently Éomer came out from the gate, and with him was Aragorn, and Halbarad bearing the great staff close-furled in black, and two tall men, neither young nor old So much alike were they, the sons of Elrond, that few could tell them apart: dark-haired, grey-eyed, and their faces elven-fair, clad alike in bright mail beneath cloaks of silver-grey. Behind them walked Legolas and Gimli. But Merry had eyes only for Aragorn, so startling was the change that he saw in him, as if in one night many years had fallen on his head. Grim was his face, grey-hued and weary.

See what we mean about the word choice? And even more than that, the word ORDER. That last sentence is probably nothing you’d ever say aloud in your life. Let’s drag this up closer to modern day, from the fields of Rohan to Flanders Field.

The Rangers sat quietly, but not far from us. They had mostly pulled their hoods up to fend off the rain, but here and there you could see a spear or a bow or a sword. The only jewelry they wore was their unit pin, a silver star on the left shoulder. They had good horses, but hadn’t groomed them in a while, including the horse I had thought was a spare at first until Aaron hugged him and called him Rory. I found out later they’d brought him down all the way from the North.

So then Theo got up on Snowy, and I mounted up beside him even though Stubs barely came to old Snow’s shoulder, and we waited for Theo’s son to come down with Aaron and Hal and a couple tall guys I’d never met, twins by the looks of them, with dark hair and light eyes and expensive-looking gear. Larry and Gary were with them too but I almost missed it, because I’d never seen Aaron looking like that before, like the weight of every year he’d dithered over enlisting while good people died was on him.

It’s the same story. The exact same story. But the images in your head are wildly different, aren’t they? This is how style works to set reader expectations for what kind of story is being told, and how, and by whom.

And even more specific:

Yes, I know I said “specific,” but we’re going to generalize here, before we try another example. How do you pick out style elements? It’s the same process as picking out concrete elements, but you’re paying attention to what the words ARE, not what they MEAN.

• Format: An epistolary is written in letters or other correspondence. Noir is written in brief, choppy sentences. Other styles might have you follow the structure of a poem. Consider how long paragraphs are, how long sentences within paragraphs are, and so forth as you read through your samples of the genre.
• POV: Some genres tend to be almost all in one POV. Others change. For example, high and low fantasy tend to be written in third person; urban fantasy and paranormal are often written in first person. But mysteries vary: where Ngaio Marsh uses third person limited, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle works in first person, even though “British mysteries” is the same genre (this, incidentally, is how you can tell that this is an element-based genre, rather than a purely style based or a combination of style and elements).
• Voice & Vocabulary: What words are you using, and in what order? Are they long, complicated, antiquated words? Or are they modern slang? What is the structure of each sentence? Remember, There was no gleam of stone or gold, nor any fair thing in all their gear and harness: nor did their riders bear any badge or token, save only that each cloak was pinned upon the left shoulder by a brooch of silver shaped like a rayed star and The only jewelry they wore was their unit pin, a silver star on the left shoulder are the same sentence, written differently.

You know what would help?

How about some examples?

Let’s pick apart a few common style-based genres. As you read through the examples, think about what the style tells you, what it leads you to think about the characters, the stories that might be told about them.

Epistolary

Epistolary stories or novels—a story told entirely in letters or correspondence between two or more characters—belong to one of the few genres that is almost entirely style-based. Setting doesn’t matter; plot doesn’t matter; voice only matters in that each character should remain consistent and true to themself and to the world in which the story takes place. In an epistolary, characters might be developing a romance or they might be investigating a killer. The story might take place in the far future, in the distant past, or in a universe that doesn’t even exist. The secret to a good epistolary is how the story unfolds, bit by bit, from each character’s perspective.

Examples:

• The Color Purple by Alice Walker, where an impoverished black teenage girl, Celie, tells her story through letters to both her sister and God.

DEAR GOD,
Me and Sofia work on the quilt. Got it frame up on the porch. Shug Avery donate her old yellow dress for scrap, and I work in a piece every chance I get. It a nice pattern call Sister’s Choice. If the quilt turn out perfect, maybe I give it to her, if it not perfect, maybe I keep. I want it for myself, just for the little yellow pieces, look like stars, but not.

• Compare that voice to the journal entries of a young Jewish girl in The Diary of Anne Frank:

Dearest Kitty! Let me get started right away; it’s nice and quiet now. Father and Mother are out and Margot has gone to play Ping-Pong with some other young people at her friend Trees’s. I’ve been playing a lot of Ping-Pong myself lately. So much that five of us girls have formed a club. It’s called “The Little Dipper Minus Two.” A really silly name, but it’s based on a mistake. We wanted to give our club a special name; and because there were five of us, we came up with the idea of the Little Dipper. We thought it consisted of five stars, but we turned out to be wrong. It has seven, like the Big Dipper, which explains the “Minus Two.”

Noir

Noir stories must include certain elements: a protagonist (often a detective) who is an outsider of some sort, a femme (or homme) fatale, a crime or mystery, a bit of violence. However, these elements alone don’t make a story “noir”—any thriller or cozy mystery might include all of the above. (See, for example, almost any Agatha Christie novel.) What makes a story “noir” is its style: first-person POV, sparse prose, hard-boiled voice, a fatalistic attitude, a certain grittiness. Noir often (but not always) takes place in an urban setting, and darkness—both figurative and literal—plays a role in the story.

Examples:

• The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett, featuring Sam Spade, the quintessential world-weary private investigator lured into the seamy underbelly of the city

Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down–from high flat temples–in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.

He said to Effie Ferine: “Yes, sweetheart?”

She was a lanky sunburned girl whose tan dress of thin woolen stuff clung to her with an effect of dampness. Her eyes were brown and playful in a shiny boyish face. She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it, and said: “There’s a girl wants to see you. Her name’s Wonderly.”

• Andrew Vachss writes modern noir—see if you can spot the stylistic similarities between his short story Dead Game and Hammett’s work. (CW animal death if you click through that link)

This is the first time I saw him. They don’t let me face the other guy at the weigh-ins anymore. Sometimes, I go after them right there. I have to save it for the fight.

He’s a little bigger than me, but he’s still inside the weight limit.

He’s younger than me, too.

But I’ve been around a lot longer. You can see it on my face. And all over my body. Experience counts for a lot in these fights. You can’t tell if a fighter’s any good until he gets nailed the first time, that’s what Tony says. Then you find out about his heart.

They say it’s in my blood, fighting.

But I really only do it for Tony.

I love him.

Others:

• Steampunk. It’s not quite enough to put a gear on your story; you’ll need to pick up that Victorian voice.
• Gothic/Southern Gothic. Any gothic, really – gothic fiction is characterized by its overwrought language. The wind doesn’t blow, it howls. People aren’t surprised, they’re thunderstruck. Vocabulary choice is critical to gothic style, but so is a vaguely journalistic reporting structure. And so, so much metonymy.
• Word or phrase prompts. You’ve seen them. Opening and closing lines, sentences that you have to include. The trick for these style prompts – and they are style prompts, as much as they don’t seem like it, because they constrain how you write your story – is to analyze the heck out of them until you can write in such a way that the sentence sounds like you wrote it. Is it in third person? that’s your POV now. Omniscient? Limited? By the time you get done reading and rereading the prompt you might not know what story you’re going to tell, but you should know how it’ll be told.

We’re sure you can think of more examples, but frankly we’re tuckered out. Or, tired. Exhausted? Near to death. Each of those phrases tells you something about who’s speaking too, right?

Save yourself some trouble: don’t make these common mistakes

• If you’re writing a short piece, pick out a few key elements to include rather than trying to get all of them in. Lean heavily into a few phrases, and make sure you don’t fall out of voice in the rest of the piece.
• A story’s style is all about feel. Have a beta reader describe the feel of the story to you—they should be able to pull out some of those stylistic elements without being prompted.
• That being said, don’t focus so much on the style that you forget to include any concrete elements that are part of a genre prompt! A great noir voice is wonderful, but if you’re missing a crime, it’s not truly a noir story.

Your turn!

Check out our weekly prompt posts and write a story or essay in the given style. Don’t forget to ask for help in the Coffeehouse on Facebook or Discord if you’ve got questions – you can post a link to your draft or even a snippet of your story or essay (up to 250 words) for immediate feedback. Don’t forget to use content warnings where they’re merited, so that you can get the best and most engaged readers for the words you like to write.

And now for something completely different

Nonfictioneers, we promised we’d get to you and now we have! When you’re given a prompt that’s a word or a phrase, that’s your version of a style prompt. When you see one of those, your job is to extract every bit of meaning from it and proceed in the style you’ve been given. That means paying attention to:

• Word choice: If the word is a complex, lengthy one, it shouldn’t be the only word like that in your entire essay.
• Word order: Is the sentence in passive or active voice? You don’t have to change your entire essay into that voice, but the sentence shouldn’t be the only one with that structure.
• Structure: If you normally write like Hemingway, but you’ve been given a long, complex sentence, you’ll need to consider stretching and complicating your ordinary writing. Conversely, if you’re James Joyce and you’ve been given a six-word sentence, don’t make it an island in the rest of your work.

For nonfiction, your goal is to sound like you wrote the prompt word or sentence, as well as the rest of the piece. Some folks have managed this so well our judges had to use the Find feature to locate the prompt, it had been so well integrated. That’s your target, right there: make the seam between your writing and the prompt vanish entirely by analysing the style in the prompt and making it your own.

What’s next?

Wondering what the year has in store? Here’s a handy roadmap!

Get out your map

Here's the general flow of this year's workshop series. You don't have to follow them in order, but you may find that one builds on the next.

September: Retellings

October: Style over Substance

November: Combination Prompts

December: Roundup

About the author:

About the author:

Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.

rowan@yeahwrite.me