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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47413
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47413
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Neil Gaiman writes:

> Don't worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can't help doing. If you write enough, [...] you'll have a style, whether you want it or not. (Neil Gaiman, _The View from the Cheap Seats_, A Speech to Professionals Contemplating Alternative Employment, given at ProCon, April 1997)

He also writes:

> We all swipe when we start. We trace, we copy, we emulate. But the most important thing is to get to the place where you're telling your own stories, painting your own pictures, doing the stuff that no one else could have done but you. (_ibid_)

Your style is whatever you do, the way that you do it. Don't worry about it. Emulating others is a normal learning process. Don't worry about that either, just don't get stuck there forever. Another quote from Neil Gaiman:

> Dave McKean, when he was much younger, as a recent art school graduate, took his portfolio to New York, and showed it to the head of an advertising agency. The guy looked at one of Dave's paintings - 'That's a really good Bob Peak', he said. 'But why would I want to hire you? If I have something I want done like that, I phone Bob Peak.' (_ibid_)

Now, you're trying to write like author X, but it doesn't come out like author X's work. Here's the question you should ask yourself: does it not come out like X's work because you don't know how to make it more like his work, or does it not come out like X's work because you want to take it somewhere else instead?

If your work doesn't come out like author X's work because you don't know how to make it more like X's work, **that's not because "you're forcing yourself". That's because you don't know how to write in that style.** You can learn if you choose to. You don't have to, but you can.  
Similarly, a modern artist might not work in an Impressionist style, but he can learn it if he chooses to. He might not enjoy working in that style, the same way the Impressionists didn't enjoy the Neo-Classic school, but it's not that they _couldn't_ do it. In fact, they could do it quite well.

If your work doesn't come out like X's work because, while knowing what X would do, you choose to take your work somewhere else, well - that's your prerogative. You can take the work wherever you like.

Original score: 8