What Joan Didion and Norman Rockwell Have In Common
My writing style, apparently.
As I’ve begun sharing my work, both publicly through contests and privately through critique groups, writing partners, and beta readers, it’s been fascinating to learn how my writing style is perceived by others. Hearing their comparisons, and their reasons for coming to those conclusions, has at times left me confused and at others, needing to tamp down my ego. So, this isn’t an essay on the commonalities between Joan Didion and Normal Rockwell as the title suggests (though I do muse on this a bit), but rather a self-indulgent personal reflection on some of the feedback I’ve received on my style.
Having taken only a handful of college level creative writing classes, the majority of my knowledge in this field has come from independent study. I feel relatively confident with the quality of education I’ve managed to create for myself through conferences, webinars, online classes, YouTube videos, podcasts, and craft books, but all of that is lacking in one key area: external feedback on my work. The first time anyone read one of my completed fiction manuscripts was in 2022! That means I’d been operating with limited external input, and was relying entirely on myself and my own perceptions of my writing.
Now, I’d written poetry and short stories in the past and, as I mentioned, I did have the benefit of a few classes in my teenage years and early adulthood which included critique. But, I just turned 40 a few weeks ago, so it’s been a while since anyone has looked critically at any of my fiction work. When I decided in 2021 to focus on writing again, I knew I wanted to do so within community instead of isolation. I remembered well not only how much I enjoyed receiving feedback (even if it’s a little scary), but how much it improved the end product of my writing. I was keenly aware of my need for outside perspectives if I wanted to truly pursue writing in any meaningful way.
I started small with short stories. Even as I began drafting my first full-length novel, I continued writing and submitting short stories to contests under a pen name. It was nothing big or impressive, but it gave me some much needed experience as I shared each week. Reedsy Prompts has a weekly contest where they provide 5 prompts centered around a particular topic, theme, or idea, and I found it an easy way to have some fun while challenging myself to improve my skills. When one of my stories was selected for their shortlist, I was ecstatic. It was only the second short story I’d ever submitted for any contest, and the positive response definitely bolstered my confidence.
It was that story which elicited my first style comparison. One reader compared the piece to Norman Rockwell, the American painter, referencing the authenticity to real life. Another reader said Hemingway. And within just the past few months, two readers have compared my style to Joan Didion.
Resisting the urge to hide my shortcomings in terms of education and exposure, I’ll admit… While Joan Didion’s name sounded familiar, no examples of her work came to mind when she was first mentioned. As an art minor in college, and as a lifelong visual artist, I was aware of Norman Rockwell and his true-to-life style which captured single moments in vivid detail, sharp specifics a characteristic in each of his scenes. I knew immediately what the reader meant when he compared my writing to that, even if I wouldn’t have drawn the comparison myself. Hemingway has always admittedly been a guide for my own writing style, so I wasn’t terribly surprised when someone named him, though I felt far too novice to be granted such a nod. But I do love and appreciate his utilitarian, straightforward approach and think it’s influenced me to cut back on some of the floweriness of my earlier prose.
After the second person made the Didion comparison recently, I decided to look her up. I found that I had, in fact, read some of her essays back in college. She hadn’t stood out to me at the time (obviously, I hardly recognized the name, which now feels like a crime), but as I’m currently reading her book The Year of Magical Thinking, I see it. Not to say I think I’m anywhere near her caliber at this point… I struggle to put my name in the same sentence as her, honestly. She’s a literal legend, and the way she writes just sings to my soul. I know she’s a somewhat controversial writer, in that most people acknowledge her significant impact on writing as a whole while many view her style as polarizing—either you love it or you don’t.
I get why. From what I’m reading, her style feels at times abrupt. It feels raw around the edges even when it’s clearly been polished to perfection. Didion writes in such a striking way about every day things, but it makes me look at them differently simply for the details and perspective she offers with not only her word choice but the way she phrases and constructs her thoughts. There’s something so authentic about it.
It’s not unlike how Rockwell paints.
Both Rockwell and Didion create scenes—snapshots of life—with careful attention to detail. They elicit a feeling of nostalgia, of having been there before. The way they communicate the scene evokes exactly the story and emotion they intend, simply by the way they’ve put ink and paint to page and canvas. It’s real and vivid, infused with personal anecdotes and experience while remaining universal and collective. Both Didion and Rockwell created work that communicates the complexity of American society, culture, and the human experience while managing to make it feel personal through their use of specificity. They may have used different mediums, but their art captured the same essence thanks to their detailed storytelling and unflinching look at our real lives.
One of the readers who compared my work to Didion’s explained further that it’s because I “have such a talent of taking the mundane and making it beautiful, like Didion.” If I could choose one goal for what I hope people appreciate about my style, it’s this, so to have someone say as much really struck a chord! There is magic in the mundane, and it’s a primary purpose with my writing… not only to share all the magic I see in every day life, but hopefully to help other people begin to see it, too. I truly believe we create and experience more magic in the world when we start seeing the magic that’s already there. To be told this is a hallmark of my style was perhaps the very best compliment I could have received.
Needless to say, I’m grateful for the outside perspectives I’m getting now that I’m sharing my work. I haven’t agreed with everything (which is to be expected), but I’d be thrilled and satisfied as a writer if my style continues to develop along this same line. It seems to translate across projects, as one of the Didion comparisons came from a short story and the other from a novel manuscript. I’m a believer that most things can be learned when it comes to writing, and writing style is one of them. While we can try to incorporate elements of style from other writers we admire, ultimately style emerges the more we write, ideally becoming unique and distinctly our own.
To the readers who compared me to these icons, I humbly thank you. And to the ones who said Didion specifically, an extra portion of gratitude, because now I’ve got an entire backlog of her material to go through, and I cannot wait to dive in!
