Why might a writer be considered to have a 'style' or 'formula'? Is this a good or bad thing? Do you, as a writer, have a recognisable 'style'?

 “By the time you have perfected any style of writing, you have always outgrown it.” George Orwell: Why I Write.

We, as humans seem to take pleasure in singling out a particular style in everything we do. Be it writing, art, music or even fashion, we have this urge to categorise everything into labelled boxes just so we can understand them better. It is impossible to associate a writer with one particular style, because style changes. Why are we still labelling our writing when we are trying so hard to make our work stand out?

I agree with George Orwell that a writer grows with their writing; therefore the ‘style’ of the writing will grow too. Yes, it is possible to identify specific features in a person’s writing, but it is unfair to characterise a writer with a particular ‘style' for our own clarification.  Not only does the style of a piece depend on the character of the writer, it depends on the form and content. For example the style of a piece of journalism would be completely different to a piece of prose-fiction. Therefore if a writer changes form or content, the ‘style’ would be considered different.

Imagine a group of writers were told to look at the ‘style’ of a piece of writing and try to emulate it. Whilst there would be ways of discerning the features of a particular style, not everyone would share the same perspective. Therefore there would be various similarities in each piece submitted; but each ‘style’ will be different regardless of the level of the reproductions because everyone has a different perception of the world.