Finding Our Style

Recorded 2026-07-17 As usual we start off topic for a few minutes before getting into progress reporting. I've gone through 68 pages of my most recent edit, well over my goal of 50, the first time I've truly killed a goal in the past few months. As a follow-up to our last episode, I came very close to killing one of my darlings. Fortunately I found a fix that let me keep it. Michael edited four chapters in full, and is in a second cycle through the fifth. We decided he's 4.5 chapters toward his 5 chapter goal. After Michael reports, I remember to mention that I wrote a little piece of flash fiction. This takes us into a side discussion of the sort of feedback Michael gets in his feedback and how sometimes it doesn't make sense to him. I mention that I'm thinking of writing stories based on new technological developments that I see in newsletters and we discuss where we get ideas from. We get back on track and set some goals. I go for another 30 pages of edit, Michael is aiming to get his word count down to 90K and plans to edit five chapters over the next two weeks. We talk about how editing can be such a slow process. This episode's topic: finding our style. Michael starts by trying to identify what he means by style: style as in method of writing, style of prose, and genre as a style. Michael writes mysteries because those are the kinds of story he enjoys. He talks about having difficulty writing for a competition that wants something in a different style (genre). I talk about why I primarily write science fiction. We talk about some of our methods, how we keep track of our story ideas. Next episode: dealing with timelines.