Ray Bradbury Writing Style

Ray Bradbury was born on August 22nd, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. In 1931 Bradbury began to write some of his first stories and in 1938 his first story "Hollerbochen's Dilemma" was published in Imagination, an amateur fan magazine. In 1942 Bradbury writes "The Lake" the story in which he feels that he discovered his unique style. During his early adult years his work was routinely rejected and not until the late 1940's did he breakthrough with the publication of his horror and fantasy stories in "pulp" magazines. Bradbury's real breakthrough to a mainstream audience came in 1950 with the publishing of his book "The Martian Chronicles", a series of short stories which describe the first attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars. After reading the book Chris Isherwood a critic for Tomorrow Magazine raved "that even a book decorated with rocket ships and bug-eyed monsters contained writing that he immediately thought was good".

Bradbury's writings are not your typical science fiction. Although the future and its technology have a well-established place it is not the key part in any of his stories. Bradbury is a very controversial writer whose most severe criticism comes from inside the science fiction community. No definition of science fiction exists that pleases everybody and to attempt to apply one casually to Ray Bradbury would be unfair. Many people inside the science fiction field argue whether Bradbury is truly a science fiction writer. At the time it was thought by those in the field of science fiction that good science fiction needed to be consistent with known science and Bradbury's work was not. Many of the critics were doubtful of his credentials as a real science fiction writer even though he is widely seen as a science fiction prophet by the public. He has been referred to as not only a science fiction writer but as a fantasy writer in the tradition of the great Edgar Allen Poe. In fact Bradbury himself has been quoted as saying "I am not a science fiction writer. Fahrenheit 451 was my only science fiction novel. The Martian Chronicles was a Greek myth an Egyptian myth. It is all fairy tales and fantasy; there is no science fiction in there at all."

His literary style can best be described as enchantment as he captivates his readers with charm and bewitchment. He is something of an impressionistic writer, building up his scenes indirectly with a flood of images, using suggestion rather than direct contact. He is conscious of the link between his art, his own dreams and the dreams of his audience. His work charms his readers with visions of a timeless past, a challenging future and a tough present. Bradbury is also known as the author who enhanced both the prestige of science fiction and fantasy writing. He likes to use his science fiction to show the difference between deeply human values of the past with sterile gadgetry of the future. When he wrote about Mars he was not concerned with how the astronauts got there but about their strengths and weaknesses, both good and bad. His science fiction stories are closer to fantasy than science fiction... and closer to reality than fantasy. Even though he has been encouraged and assisted by a number of friends and teachers Bradbury is largely a self-taught writer. He discovered his literary voice when he learned how to tap into his own experiences for his subject matter and themes. His writing style has been compared to writing a bunch of short stories about some characters or a subject and then editing them into a novel.

Bradbury admires those writers whose realism has mythic hints. But he has always been bored by the books that get into to much detail. Throughout his books you not only find a reflection of society at the present but all the memories he has learned from the past as well as some of the hopes he has for the future. Bradbury admired other writer's techniques and made them his own tools that he would use to express his personal vision of science fiction. Many of Bradbury's influences come from a wide range of authors as well as other media such as film, radio, and theater. Bradbury was directly