Just as your characters each have a distinct voice, every writing style carries its own purpose, logic, and effect. Knowing the difference will help make you a more versatile and intentional writer.
Language is one of humanity’s best inventions. We use it in all aspects of our life. We communicate ideas, flirt, argue, inquire, and tell jokes. Orators use language differently than songwriters, and poets differently than novelists. The style of writing that makes for a great legal argument probably wouldn’t work in a novel, and vice versa. For every purpose, we’ve developed a mode that fits it best. Sometimes different methods come together and mix for a specific audience.
A “writing style” is a method used to achieve a particular effect.
In this article, I’ll go over five different writing styles. Each can be used in different forms of writing, which I’ll outline as well. Lastly, I’ll give you a Story Weapon to help you stretch your writing muscle.
Master different writing styles that are purposefully utilized to communicate analytically and creatively. Become a more versatile writer by choosing the right method for your specific goal. By exploring these five modes, you can sharpen your voice and write outside your comfort zone.
Technical writing
Civilization is a group effort. Part of the genius of humankind is that we don’t all have to figure out everything from scratch. If someone invents something new, they can tell everyone about it. When you want to express an idea that’s meant to be understood in the same way by anyone who reads it, turn to technical writing.
Technical writing uses precise language to capture a complex idea. Clarity is the name of the game. It shows up in user manuals, research papers, and detailed reports. It also shows up in scientific and factual texts, like mathematics, physics, and medicine. In fact, some great scientists are wonderful writers. They’re able to use language to tell others about ideas well outside of the world of words.
When you enter the field of technical writing, you learn to omit everything that’s unnecessary. You start to omit words like “that” or “this” when referring to something in a previous sentence to avoid misinterpretation. Better to repeat the word or concept rather than try to be lyrical.
Example
Euclid is considered the father of geometry. Along with drawn diagrams, he used technical writing in his treatise: The Elements.
Here are a few of his definitions at the start of the work:
- A point is that which has no part.
- A line is a breadthless length.
- The extremities of a line are points.
- A straight line is a line which lies evenly with the points on itself.
- A surface is that which has breadth only.
- The extremities of a surface are lines.
Persuasive writing
The art of argument is another child of language. Debating ideas, whether it’s a Supreme Court Justice penning a dissenting opinion or a strongly-worded letter to the editor, belongs to this writing style.
The goal of persuasive writing is to present an argument to convince someone of something. That includes copywriting and writing advertisements, as well as speeches, editorials, and letters to your Congressman.
This style of writing generally has three tools at its disposal: logos, ethos, and pathos.
Logic is often the first defense. If you can appeal to someone’s mind, you may convince them of your point more swiftly.
Then there’s credibility; you’re more likely to trust a teacher on education policy than a singer.
Finally, there’s the emotional appeal. Pulling at your heartstrings is a great way to make you buy a product or donate money to a cause.
Example
Let’s look at a slogan from L’Oreal. Their motto is: “Because you’re worth it.”
The implicit argument is that you should take care of your skin because your comfort and health are worth the expense. If you buy that, you’re more likely to buy some sort of skin-care product. And wouldn’t you know it, they happen to sell some!
“You have to know writing styles well before you can copy them — and then incorporate parts of them into your own style.”
– Josh Lieb
Descriptive writing
One of the best parts about language is its ability to transport us to another place at another time. Some writing whisks you away to places real or imagined to experience things you never have before.
Descriptive writing aims to produce a vivid image in the mind of the reader, using details of the various senses. You might find descriptive writing in places like travel guides and cookbooks as well as novels, giving a taste of something new.
Some ideas go beyond physical experience and require the use of figurative language to express what it was like to witness it. This is where the style of descriptive writing flourishes, particularly in works of literature. You can convey a mood and a feeling that others couldn’t otherwise detect.
Example
Let’s take a look at the work of Roger Ebert. In this case, he was actually reviewing a person and not a movie.
In 1970, he found himself watching an up-and-coming singer named John Prine. To those of you familiar with country and folk music, you know this was a rare glimpse of a legend in the making. Ebert’s description of John Prine captures, like a reflection of moonlight, a bit of his ineffable charm:
He appears on stage with such modesty he almost seems to be backing into the spotlight. He sings rather quietly, and his guitar work is good, but he doesn’t show off. He starts slow. But after a song or two, even the drunks in the room begin to listen to his lyrics. And then he has you.
Narrative writing
This fourth style of writing aims to deliver the heart and soul of a story. This is likely the type of creative writing you’re most familiar with. Whether it’s in the form of a screenplay, a novel, a memoir, or a short story, narrative writing is structured around ideas like plot and character.
The best cases of this style of writing are like magic spells. You crack open the pages and find your reading spot has become a pirate ship, a cottage on the moors, a WWII plane with a failing engine, a school of magic — the possibilities are endless.
Narrative writing is able to deliver to the readers or audience members a feeling of satisfaction, a memory of time well-spent, or a message.
A key part of narrative writing is the ability to identify a clear beginning, middle, and end. There are guidelines like the three-act structure and the story circle which help writers perform this sort of magic.
Example
“On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide—it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese—the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.”
– The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Analytical writing
The fifth and final style of writing is analytical writing. Closely related to technical and persuasive forms of writing, analytical writing is devoted to exploring a complex idea and discussing specific parts of it.
The entire world of theory, whether it’s political theory or literary theory, is a product of analytical writing. It offers us a deeper understanding of the things we make and helps evolve craft.
Analytical writing requires depth of thought and the ability to bring those thoughts to the surface of our conscious minds.
Philosophers are often great analytical writers, though some are much better thinkers than they are writers. The best of these enter the realm of poetry, as the ideas they explore are as rich as the language they use to communicate their thoughts.
Example
Here’s a great line from Einstein, whose papers outlining his theories of general and special relativity rank among the greatest works of analytical writing: If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Your story weapon: Write outside your comfort zone
The writers who grow the fastest are not always the ones who work the hardest within their chosen form. They are the ones who occasionally leave it.
If you primarily write fiction, spend a few days writing nothing but persuasion. Pick something you genuinely believe and make the argument for it as clearly and forcefully as you can. You may discover things about the logic of your own convictions that you did not know were there. That discovery will find its way into your characters, into the arguments they make, into the positions they defend long past the point of reason.
If your natural instinct is toward the analytical, try description. Sit somewhere unfamiliar and write what you see, smell, and hear without making a single claim about what any of it means. Let sensory details do the work. You may find that the discipline of pure observation loosens something in your writing.
If narrative is where you live, try technical writing for a day. Write a process you know well, a recipe, a morning routine, a way of getting through a difficult conversation. Use language so precise that a stranger could follow it exactly. The economy you practice here will come back with you into your fiction, and you will find yourself cutting sentences you once thought were necessary and trusting your reader with more than you did before.
The point of this exercise is not to become a different kind of writer all together. The point is to understand how other modes of writing think.
Every style has its own logic, its own relationship to the reader, its own way of earning attention and trust. Your own writing will become more supple, more aware of what it is doing and why.
So, before you return to whatever you are working on right now, consider spending at least one writing session in a style that does not come naturally to you. It doesn’t have to be eloquent in any way. Just see what happens.
When you come back to your own work, you will bring something with you that only comes from having spent time in different writing styles.
A deeper understanding of various writing styles can expand both your range and your precision on the page. For more structured guidance and a supportive environment to explore and apply different approaches in your own work, join one of my next workshops: The 90-Day Novel, The 90-Day Memoir, Story Day.
