Personal Narrative: My Style Of Writing

Who am I as a writer? To properly answer that question, in my belief, one must first analyze themself as a person. Everyone projects a little of his or her personality into their work, no matter what it may be, but especially when it comes to the stylistic habits someone uses while writing. Every person’s voice is unique, so naturally every piece of writing will have certain characteristics distinctly used by that particular writer. My style of writing is a depiction of my thought process. When reading something I’ve wrote, while it may take you awhile to get through it all, contains glimpses of my life, sarcastic comments, and generally a lengthy beginning. All of these aspects bring a little of myself into my writing, which creates an overall genuine tone that ties everything together.
My family is super goofy, cracking jokes day and night. That environment growing up
shaped my personality, hence, influences my style of writing.
I make use of sarcasm to not only put some of myself into my writing, but also to give a personal feel to the words, making them more relatable and believable. As Allan Sloan said, “I talk that way, so I write that way.” Although, my sarcasm may not transfer as well on paper as it would in person, I try to keep everything I type on the keyboard, or scribble down on a piece of paper with the intention of the reader thinking, “Yep, that’s something Emily would say.” Reading a paper of my mine is the equivalent of having a face to face conversation with me, because who I am as a writer is the same as who am I as a human being. Basically, I like to have a sense of life in what I write, and these lifelike characteristics create the genuine tone, essential for a good work of
writing. Personal touches in a piece of writing, to me, are one of the key components to making a successful representation of your thoughts, no matter the effect you’re trying to achieve. Persuasive, informative, reflective, all need feeling to be successful in grabbing the reader’s attention. Whether you’re trying to persuade your mom to let you go to the movies or get a man walking down the street to stop and read your article about politics, you need a level of pathos, appeal to the reader’s emotions, to truly gain their interest and win them over. The quote, “My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.” as told by Anais Nin is a metaphorical representation of how I use my life experience to justify my thoughts. When you can appeal to someone’s emotions, you create a level of better understanding for the reader. When you read my writing, you’ll notice I’ll reference past experiences, people I know, personal decisions, etc. all because it creates a conversational tone. It’s like a glimpse into my life that others can read and think about a similar situation that has occurred to them. When you can relate to someone, it makes the task of being assured the reader understands your points much easier. Even if the reader doesn’t agree with what you’re saying, they can respect your thoughts.
I view my writing as a creative process, one in which I usually experience as I go. Joan Didion said it best in his quote “I write entirely to find out what I 'm thinking, what I 'm looking at, what I see and what it means.” which is a clear explanation of myself while writing. My writing is my best way of putting my thoughts together, the majority of what I write is a pretty accurate representation of my thought process. A lot of times, I write an entire piece before I go through and read it. I write before I even give myself the chance to think about it because if I do, I will lose the thought and be back to square one. As I’m writing this now, I don’t know if it makes sense, is relevant to what I should be describing, or if it even has a type-o. My thoughts are composed through my writing, and my creation is the result of finding what my meaning is. The two above images go hand in hand, but in a way that they both represent different portions of my writing process. Going back to the idea that my writing is a mirror of my thoughts, my mind while I’m writing is constantly throwing ideas, words, and sentences to me which I write down so, in turn, my writing tends to get pretty lengthy. While length of an essay is an important component, I believe that quantity is not to be confused with quality. My mind gets so wrapped up sometimes on one particular subject that sometimes I spend too much time on one topic and do a poorer job on other points I want to get across. Timed essays are probably one of my biggest challenges, the typical style you’ll see is long, descriptive first few paragraphs, but the last paragraph may be only a few sentences, sometimes it’s as bad as to not even have a conclusion. This is one of the flaws my writing possesses, and these pictures depict that: my attitude at the beginning of writing is like that of the first picture, but my expression as time runs short and I rush just to finish, well I’m sure you can gather from the ladder. To fully understand anything requires a level of evaluation, sometimes even going as deep as to self-analysis. Before I typed up this conclusion, I went back through and read the three some-odd pages I had schemed up, analyzing my analysis of myself. And what I concluded is all too shocking: I have proceeded to categorize myself as a writer. I’ve always considered writing my best subject, and in doing this paper, I’ve come to understand the fundamentals of the subject I personally excel at, making the future works that much better because pointing out the key components demonstrate what makes my writing truly mine, and ultimately myself as a person. The overall theme of my writing is personality: my unique qualities being portrayed through words sometimes carelessly thrown on a page while containing specific stylistic qualities, such as long descriptive beginnings followed by short and choppy conclusions (other than this one of course). All in all, my writing is nowhere near perfect, but the representation of my thoughts through my sarcasm, personal experiences, and conversational characteristics is spot on in representing my voice as a writer.

Works Cited
Bannykh, Alex. Picture. “Picture of an Intelligent schoolboy writing a long story at his desk”. www.schoolclipart.net. 2013. www.brainyquote.com. Quote. Bookrags Media Network, 2001-2013. Web. 28 August 2013 www.thinkexist.com. Quote. Thinkexist.com Quotations, 1999-2013. Web. 28 August 2013.
Uknown. Picture. http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/writing-things