Every writer has their own literary style, the way they use language to create unique characters and tell interesting stories. A writer’s style makes the works they write compelling to read and think about and stamps their works with their personal mark. Many great writers developed and used innovative writing styles to create some of their best novels. Here are three novels with interesting styles that not only enhance their plots, characters, and settings but also create highly memorable reading experiences.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
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In Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall madly in love when they’re young and pursue a secret relationship through letters. After her father pressures her to stop seeing him and she realizes how she and Florentino were practically strangers, Fermina ends the relationship. A doctor named Juvenal Urbino de la Calle eventually courts and marries Fermina, who learns to love the doctor as well despite her initial disdain. Florentino doesn’t get discouraged, though; he remains spiritually devoted to Fermina for decades (although he takes many other lovers in the meanwhile) and awaits Juvenal’s death so he can reunite with her.
Márquez creates a believable romantic relationship between two characters who rarely interact directly and share few conversations with each other by letting the characters’ brief interactions and thoughts highlight the depths of their passion. His use of rich, specific details also makes the world Florentino, Fermina, and Juvenal live in one of the most alive and real landscapes in literature. The way he describes the beauty and degradation of the Colombian town and rainforest the characters inhabit makes it feel like readers can step through the pages of the novel and live in that fully realized world themselves.
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
In Keri Hulme’s The Bone People (1984), Kerewin Holmes, a half-Pākehā, half-Māori woman living alone in a tower, develops an unusual friendship with a mute Pākehā boy named Simon and his adoptive Māori father Joe after Simon breaks into her tower one night. Their growing friendship is threatened by violence: Joe badly beats Simon whenever he does something wrong; Kerewin fights Joe to discourage him from harming Simon again; Simon attacks Joe and Kerewin for hitting him when he acts out. The violence drives the three of them apart into more dangerous situations; however, through their struggles, they realize that they need each other to heal from their various traumas.
Though Hulme’s narrative style can take some time to get adjusted to, the interesting story she tells and way she uses language make the effort worth it. She uses new compound words, unusual imagery, stream of consciousness, and unique grammar and punctuation to bring her slice of New Zealand and odd characters to life. Interestingly enough, Hulme’s writing style made it hard for her to find a publisher for the novel, since they either didn’t understand what she was writing about or wanted her to standardize her spelling and punctuation. Thankfully, the independent feminist publisher Spiral Collective accepted and published the novel exactly how Hulme had written it. The Bone People eventually won the prestigious Booker Prize.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
In Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997), twins Rahel and Esthappen grow up in a troubled family and tumultuous political situation in 1960s Ayemenem, Kerala, India. Not only has their mother, Ammu, angered their family by falling in love with a Dalit man, Velutha, but Velutha is also suspected of supporting a Communist protest against the Keralan government. The twins’ bitter aunt accuses Velutha of being a Communist and killing her niece, who drowned accidentally while traveling down a river with Rahel and Esthappen. As personal and political tensions ruin their family, Rahel and Esthappen grow apart. Eventually, their loneliness and childhood memories draw both siblings to reunite in Kerala decades later.
Writing in energetic prose, Roy uses carefully chosen details and observations to portray the loves and hates of each family member and carefully timed flashbacks to depict the complex cultural and political situations that shape and divide them. She depicts Rahel’s and Esthappen’s inner thoughts in a stylistically innovative way. Since both characters are bookish, smart, and introverted as children, the twins use creative wordplay, such as creating unique compound words, making up nonsense phrases, and rearranging the things adults say into new sentences, to comprehend the events around them. By writing the twins’ thoughts like this, Roy allows readers to see clearly how the two of them observe and understand the world.
Final Thoughts
Each of these writers played with language, narration, structure, and more when writing their novels and ended up creating amazing works of fiction that expanded the possibilities of what novels can do. Their innovative writing styles create exciting reading experiences and leave memorable impressions on readers long after they finish these books. Readers can read these novels to find new lenses through which to see the world; writers can read these novels for inspiration about the ways creative writing can be used to tell stories in unconventional yet engaging ways.
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