And now to style, the beast that's as elusive as it's present in everything we write. I'm still trying to determine what my style is, and from what I've read so far, it's how I tell the story in its bones, not trying to tell it some special way but simply telling it as is. That's when my style comes out. I used to try very hard to be ornate and whimsical and poetic (Siren Suicides), then I tried to be witty and sarcastic (Rosehead), then blunt and brutal (Irkadura), then funny again (The Badlings), and so now in TUBE I have slashed all of this trying and concentrated on simply telling a story.

Many times I'd be frustrated to the point of tears when I would see in my head exactly what I wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come out simple enough. I was trying too hard. Slowly a pattern emerged. I started noticing certain turns of phrases or pairings of words in the other novels I've read, and I started collecting them in a little file, and that little file grew and grew, and then I began categorizing it into chunks applicable to particular novel, so glance at later, while I was in the middle of writing and got frustrated and needed inspiration. Below are the truncated (they are very long in the original file) paragraphs as I use them in the Style sheet for TUBE (note, these are not my words but words taken from other books, and it's impossible now for me to pinpoint the exact sources):