Rami Ungar The Writer

I was talking to someone who lives on my floor today, and we started talking about our mutual interests in Stephen King and James Patterson. At some point during this conversation, he asked me if my style was very much like Stephen King’s. To which I replied, “My style is more like my style.”

I returned to this conversation just a moment ago, thinking about what goes into style. There’s word choice, tone, pacing, character archetypes, setting, conflicts, themes…all these and more go into style. But trying to categorize something like style in words never seems to do it justice. When we enjoy an author, we get a feel for their style, and that’s how we define style, by that feel we get. It makes us say, “This is definitely one of his/her books.”

And speaking of feel, I had a feeling that my friend was talking about my influences, so I told him I was very much influenced by King, Anne Rice, and Patterson, with a few others adding here and there. But it’s mostly those three, and they all have a very interesting style of their own: King has a rawness even after all these years. His plots are strange and convoluted, often veering to the science-fiction areas of fiction, especially in his recent work, and he’s not afraid to go to places most of us wouldn’t, be it a crass joke or a sex scene involving fifth graders.

Anne Rice is an aristocrat among writers. Her work is dark but deep, philosophical and full of supernatural mystery. There’s a sensual feel in her words, as if every gesture of her characters has a hidden flirtation in it, and the worlds she paints are rich and vivid, almost like a painting. But as her characters sometimes remark, no matter how pretty the painting, it’s always just a painting, and we are aware of the trappings we adore, and the things we possess, and we realize that they are all meaningless, that this entire world is meaningless if we detach from it, just like Rice’s characters are often detached from the world.

And James Patterson is fast-paced, full of emotive power and simple sentences that convey to us what is happening in the story. When we see into the minds of some of the characters, we can sense all their feelings, whether despairing, angry, or full of sick glee (especially true of the villains).

But my style? I’m probably not the best person to categorize it. It’s dark sure, and it does show that I’m not as experienced as others in my field. Occasionally you get a feel for the zany character that wrote my fiction (and don’t deny it, I’m plenty zany). But most of all, I think you can sense a yearning. Yes, yearning. I’m yearning, yearning to give the world fiction that people will like and that they’ll read and possibly review on Amazon and maybe talk about with others, whether to trash it or praise its merits. I’m yearning to give people that sort of work, and I think you can sense it when you read my creative work. Maybe that’ll go away as I gain more experience, but until then, it’s part of me and my writing.

In the meantime, I shall work on my stories, yearning or no yearning, and see if they can bring joy (or terror) to others. Wish me luck.

What’s your style like, if you have to define it? Who influenced you?

People have some strange image of writers, that we sit at desks with pen and paper or computers all day and easily crank out word after word, and then in the evening we rub shoulders with the paparrazzi and the rich and elite and educated and the celebrated.

Well, that’s wrong.

True., we’re often at desks, and more writers are turning to computers to create their works of art. However, it’s not at all to write. We spend hours trying to force ourselves and our Muses to work, to create what for some is a means to live and for others is plain living. And you know what? We do it alone. Sure, some of us have assistants. Many of us have family and friends that support us, and of course there are Internet groups and people who critique your work and, should you be so lucky, fans.

But you’re the only one who’s doing the writing. And rarely do you get to hang out with the stars, if you even want to (they can be so snobbish sometimes). If you do get to hang out with the stars, it’s probably because your books are published by a major publishing house in New York and you’re one of their major money-earners. Then perhaps a few stars might show up at your launch party, but that doesn’t happen often.

I’m getting off-track. Where was I? Oh yes, now I remember:

You are alone in the writing endeavor. It’s just you, the story, and the medium you’re using to write. Most likely, those last two aren’t living, and if they are you have a huge problem! And it’s up to you to sit down and write what you’re writing, to go out and do the necessary research for the story, and to edit and re-edit the story before you send it to an editor or someone you trust to critique your story. You are alone in your passion, your art, your gift. It’s both a blessing and a curse.

Sometimes people will mistake your devotion to writing for being antisocial or for being socially awkward. I’m not antisocial, though I do like at least an hour of alone time for myself each day to unwind, and as a student, I’m often by myself as I head to classes or eat a quick meal before I get a start on homework. As for the socially awkward…yep, that’s me. Sometimes I have trouble with social situations and figuring out what’s the best course of action. It’s led to some awkward moments in my life.

However just because writers must sequester themselves away from others to do their craft doesn’t mean they’re intentionally avoiding being social. In fact, a writer, especially a fiction writer, can’t be any good at what they do if they can’t empathize with the feelings and emotions in the real world and in the world of thier creations. It’s just a requirement for us to be alone for hours on end if we want to create stories that bring us and others joy. It’s the sad truth, but it’s the truth.

And if it brings us the next Harry Potter or a future Ernest Hemingway, doing a solitary activity can’t be all bad, can it?