What is the author's style in The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway?

Hemingway's writing style is generally concise and straightforward. In most cases, he spends little or no time describing locations—with the important exception of natural settings—and hardly ever gives so much as a vague description of a person's physical appear. Nick himself is never characterized physically, and others are described only when it is somehow relevant to the story—for example, Alice's weight in "The Light of the World" is described but it is important to understanding her interactions with the other prostitutes and the cook.

Occasionally, Hemingway experiments with other styles and methods of writing. In "A Way You'll Never Be," he describes the insane Nick's dreams by using a chaotic stream-of-consciousness approach which rambles on for over a page. This same method resurfaces in a few other places, such as "On Writing" and, briefly, in "Fathers and Sons."

In "On Writing," the thoughts of Nick may be taken to represent Hemingway's own views on writing. Nick likens his writing to French painter Cezanne, a painter who bridged the gap between the impressionists and later, abstract painters. In his paintings, less emphasis was put on detail and more on simply capturing the general, geometric shape of the objects. Hemingway, accordingly, also spends little time on detail and simply tries to capture the general "shape" of a character or scene.