Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
It's fairly common for a novelist to try to re-create the feel of a big hit. Most novelist tend to either get past that and grow or they fall by the way side. I do think that writers do tend to have specific characteristics that is common in their works, in the computer world it's called a look and feel. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing.
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With writers it's called "voice". It can be a strange thing ... not unlike what you see among actors.
Some actors always produce the same character; some actors are such chameleons that they can be hard to pick out (curiously, this great skill is not necessarily a good thing for fame and fortune); other actors retain something distinctive while still managing to fit different roles. We watched "The King's Speech" again last night: Helena Bonham Carter fascinates me, from Jane in
The Theory of Flight, to Beatrix in
Harry Potter to the Queen Mum in
The King's Speech, all such different roles, and all so perfectly matched by Helena, and yet still there is something distinctively
her about all of them.
You see the same gamut run by writers. Some always produce what feels like the same story, others produce such different work that they're difficult to pick out, while others manage to be distinctive while being different. One that stands out for me is Neil Gaiman. Here is a writer that tackles a wide range of stories, each wonderfully and appropriately done, and yet he still manages to sound like Neil Gaiman. (As you can tell, I admire him a lot, even if I don't necessarily love everything he's written.)
I'm guessing Andy Weir is still trying to find his voice ... most of us are.