Comparing My Writing To That Of Dave Eggers

While house-sitting this weekend, I poked around a bookcase and found a small book of short little stories by Dave Eggers (How The Water Feels To The Fishes). I have been wanting to read his writing for a while, deeper than just skimming, so I took a lazy quiet Sunday moment and dove in. They were nice little picturesque stories—warm enough to hold my attention and make me smile with applause—all beautifully written. The deeper I read, the more the writer part of me started to question if what I was doing with my writing was different enough to hold it's own. In a self-conscience comparison I came to see that yes, there are obvious preferences to the way I write and read!
 
1) I write close-up. I realize that I don't often write in third person because I feel further away from the visual of the story. I like to read the way the author sees, and far away characters feel too far away to me.

2) Song and dance. I like the lyrical qualities of words that roll through syntax and meaning down gory alleys. Stupid and silly and playful and perfectly capable of making the reader have a good time, even if that reader is me, the writer!

3) What you see is what you hear. This is my voice, even though it sounds nothing like me. It's something you can't hear with your ears, or see with your eyes. It's a hearsay seesaw heehaw—a party disguised with words.

4) My thoughts and fingers are not your thoughts and fingers. Even when we point at the same thing, we are pointing at something different.