{"id":914,"date":"2012-01-31T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T17:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=914"},"modified":"2012-01-31T11:00:44","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T17:00:44","slug":"the-sarastory-quilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=914","title":{"rendered":"The Sarastory Quilt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Quilted chaos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Someone told me once that my writing is very Terry Brooks-ish. I suppose that makes sense, since one of my very first epic fantasy novels (after J.R.R Tolkien, of course) was The Sword of Shannara<\/em>. When I try to write high fantasy, that\u2019s what it comes out sounding like.<\/p>\n

I used to unapologetically write like my favorite authors. Whatever I was reading leaked into what I was writing. I\u2019ve stolen style from brilliant TV writers like Joss Whedon and Jane Espenson. I\u2019ve imitated the dialog in the Stephanie Plum<\/em> novels by Janet Evanovich. I\u2019ve tried to mimic fantasy worlds of some of the great epic fantasy writers like Brooks and Tolkien and mood from some of the more recent urban fantasy writers like Cassandra Clare and Laurel K. Hamilton. I\u2019ve also borrowed attitude from my unpublished writer friends.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taken me years to develop my own voice as a writer. I had to try on a few other authors\u2019 styles before finding my own. I\u2019ve been compiling and tweaking what I\u2019ve borrowed, keeping what worked for me and ditching what didn\u2019t. Even now my writing continues to evolve, shaped by what I read and what feedback I get from my fellow writers. My writing style is like a patchwork quilt that I keep adding squares to. Sometimes patches go over the top of other worn out pieces. When I get tired of a certain pattern, I rip it off the quilt or patch over it.<\/p>\n

But even though the quilt changes over time, it\u2019s always the same quilt. My quilt. Even in my attempts to mimic other writers, my voice is still my own, decidedly distinct from those I\u2019ve borrowed from. For better or worse, my writing is in my voice. I might write different genres or story lengths, but you can still find more of me in there than you can of other authors. Even my Doctor Who<\/em> fanfic is written in my voice, although the characters and the world are stolen.<\/p>\n

So as you read something I\u2019ve written, you may feel that the mood could have been from a Clive Barker novel, or that a quip could have come from Buffy herself, a sex scene might be reminiscent of Karen Marie Moning, or a plot twist worthy of Steven Moffat, but you would still know it was a Sara story. My voice always sounds like me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone told me once that my writing is very Terry Brooks-ish. I suppose that makes sense, since one of my very first epic fantasy novels (after J.R.R Tolkien, of course) was The Sword of Shannara. When I try to write high fantasy, that\u2019s what it comes out sounding like. I used to unapologetically write like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[150,560,566,582,592,608,1059,1128],"class_list":["post-914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influence","tag-cassandra-clare","tag-j-r-r-tolkien","tag-janet-evanovich","tag-joss-whedon","tag-karen-marie-moning","tag-laurel-k-hamilton","tag-steven-moffat","tag-terry-brooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}