Slicing the Pie: Art. Craft. Technique. Style.

Hey, writer types! For the next (next-next, actually) roundtable, let's talk about art, craft, technique, and style. For some these four words may be synonyms. For others, they may be different ways of slicing the same pie. For still others, they may have start differences between them. If you're familiar with my basic interview questions, you'll remember this one: "Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Let's all discuss that together, shall we?

What does art, craft, technique, and style mean to you? 

Paul Landri: Writing is absolutely an art. However much like cooking, if you don't have a technique for the dish, you'll find people spitting out your food into their napkins or feeding it to the dog.

I don't think I have a particular style, but if you read my work you'll see the influence of the old Del Rey Star Wars Novels are pervasive throughout my books. I cut my teeth on those books when I was in the 7th grade and that style of writing comes out a lot even after all these years and countless other novels I've read that have influenced my writing.

I'm very conversational in tone, as I am sure you can read here. I find it allows the reader ease of access. I feel like you can be verbose but only as long as your still engaging the reader and drawing them in.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: I would rank writing as both an art and a science, rather than keeping the continuum as a straight line. It's more of a circle with each moment of writing blending both art and science together in different proportions as needed. This is from my experience in other types of writing and communications over the years in different disciplines.

Bobby Nash: Art is the part that comes out of me naturally, I think. It’s the raw, creative part. Craft is the work. I work on getting better at my craft. Technique is how I handle the craft. These are the tricks and learned odds 'n ends. Style is how I merge art, craft, and technique.

Or I could be completely wrong. This is honestly the most thought I’ve put into these definitions ever.

Ef Deal: Dead honest here: I don't really know how to address the question so far as distinctions. I will say that craft deals with structure. Art deals with the methods you use to evoke a mood: the use of language and poetic devices, for example. Style has a lot to do with your own voice as you select your words. I have no idea how to define technique in this sense. Does it mean one's approach to crafting a story? Plotter or Pantser? No clue.

Sean Taylor: I'm nothing if not addicted to semantics, so I like to parse these bad boys into separate silos. Art is, for me, an innate, natural ability. It's the talent you're born with. Craft is the learning that anyone can do to apply practice and skills to an interest. Technique is the toolbox of skills you practice and learn. And, finally, style is what happens when you master technique and develop a craft that fits your natural talent to encapsulate the things that make what you create uniquely yours. But, again, I love to delineate the differences among similar words. I'm weird that way. 

Is there a difference between craft and art? Style and technique? 

Sheela Chattopadhyay: Art and craft I consider synonymous due to how both are intertwined. Crafting being the making of something and art being the something. Technique is more of the how something is done. Style is the individual blending in their own flair and way of how they do the technique within the crafting to ultimately create the art. The context for each nuance of those terms varies, even within the same discipline based on the circumstances of the situation as the writing is happening. It's not so black and white with how the human mind works to process it all. 

Bobby Nash: Sure. I suppose. Art feels like something you do without borders, without rules. It’s just art. Craft is the job, making the art work within established parameters set forth by publishers, editors, productions, etc. Style and technique are like that as well, I think. We all have our unique styles, but we use technique to make sure our style fits into something we can sell or publish.

Ef Deal: It's like any art. All of us can probably make a clay ashtray. I can't carve the Pieta. Yes, there is a craft to it that anyone can learn, but to make writing a work of art, there must be more than mere words, plot, conflict, character, and theme.

Sean Taylor: As I said about, I think craft is something anyone can learn, but art is something you're born with. Craft can allow anyone to be a good writer, but innate, inborn knack/talent for it is what makes an artist great. How's that for a snotty, snobby, lit-major answer?

Paul Landri: I don't think there's much of a difference, for me anyway. I write what speaks to me, be it superheroes, zombies, vampires, or imaginary versions of my two dogs getting up to shenanigans in a flying mini-zeppelin. My style is conversational, my technique is to tell a coherent story that doesn't bore people to tears!

If so, why are those distinctions important or are they not?

Paul Landri: Writing as an art is hugely important because your art can vary from day to day. You as an artist are going to express yourself in such a way the non-artist part of you can't begin to understand. Having a style and technique allows you to channel that art and that story. For me, I'm just here to have fun and engage with people who enjoy listening to good stories.

Sean Taylor: They're not important in the sense that they affect the way I treat other writers. Most of the writers I know and master crafts-people, and I respect the time and effort they put into their craft. But in a few, I see the stirring of creation, the something else that transforms craft into art. And that distinction affects my ability to appreciate the art itself in real-time. It's sort of the difference between appreciating a wonderful painting of the mountains that looks amazing in my living and appreciating a Monet that hangs in a museum. They're just two different animals, so to speak. But the distinction is purely one that happens inside my mind when it comes to appreciating and enjoying them. Both work on one level, but one reveals even more on a different level. 

Sheela Chattopadhyay: The distinctions do matter in some disciplines, but not much in others. That's why the context helps - it helps the focus, intentions, and goals of what the action of writing and purpose of communication is.

Bobby Nash: All of the above answers look at the questions from a working creator’s perspective. If it’s a hobby for you, ignore everything I just said and do what feels best. If you want to creator as a career, you have to learn the way publishing works. The mavericks who get to ignore long-established guidelines had to learn them to know how to break them. If you want to write or create as a career, you need to understand how the business you’re in is run.