Low-res Murakami

 "I don't really have a style. I imitate whoever I'm reading at the time," I said, a little uncomfortably.  I didn't remember how we had gotten on to the subject of my writing, and I wanted to change topics as soon as politely possible.

"Your style is imitation, then. Pastiche."  She said.

I laughed. "Yeah, I guess.  That's a way of putting it."  I was going to change the subject then, ask her about her earrings or if she was watching any good TV shows, but she was staring at me so solemnly that I couldn't work up the nerve.

After a brief silence, she said, "Really though, that's your style, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said, "I suppose it is."

"And your content?  Do you imitate their content, too?"

That was a tricky question.  She was being persistent, so I gave a longer answer.  Maybe if I spoke for long enough, she would get bored and switch to a different topic for me.

"That's tricky. In some types of writing, it might be easy to separate the subject matter, or the story, from the style in which its written.  In other types of writing, they're strongly tied."  I said.

She nodded for me to go on.

"Like that Monet painting of the lily pads.  It's more than the sum of Monet's style and lily pads.  They work together.  I'm not a painter so I can't discern what that extra piece is, but I know it's there.  Same with writing."

"I see," she said in a way that did not convince me that she did.

"Anyway, when I'm reading a author with a strong style, they leave an imprint on me.  When I think about words to use, I think in their words, and when I think about what to write, I share their perspective of the world.  For a little, anyway."

"It's still your writing, isn't it?" she said.

"Well, of course," I replied, a little deflated after my long explanation.  I had expected more of a reaction from her.

She seemed to sit on that.

"If -" she began, piecing together her sentence slowly, "If those writers have already gone through an editing process, you're not really getting their perspective, are you?  The perspective in the story, the one that makes an imprint on you, is fictional.  They made it up."

I hadn't thought of it that way and I didn't know what to say.  "Oh, I didn't think of that."

She said, "It starts as reality in the mind of the other author, then becomes fiction when they write it, then, when you read it, becomes reality again, and then you write it out as fiction."

"Huh."

"Do you think the reality and fiction cancel each other out?  Or that they're just layers?"

I didn't understand, but I didn't want her to explain it again so said,  "I think they're layers."

"Yes, that makes sense," she said, and I felt relieved that I hadn't said something wrong.  "Every time the style dips in and out of reality, you should be able to see the fictional part and the realistic part."

"Interesting," I said, and then asked about her earrings.