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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, understanding the 4 writing styles: how to identify and use them.

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A piece’s writing style can help you figure out what kind of writing it is, what its purpose is, and how the author’s voice is unique. With so many different types of writing, you may think it’s difficult to figure out the specific writing style of a piece or you'll need to search through a long list of writing styles.

However, there are actually just four main types of writing styles, and together they cover practically all the writing you see, from textbooks to novels, to billboards and more.  Whether you’re studying writing styles for class or trying to develop your own writing style and looking for information, we’ve got you covered.

In this guide, we explain the four styles of writing, provide examples for each one, go over the one thing you need to know to identify writing style, and give tips to help you develop your own unique style of writing.

The 4 Types of Writing

There are four main different styles of writing. We discuss each of them below, list where you’re likely to see them, and include an example so you can see for yourself what each of the writing styles looks like.

Writers who use the narrative style are telling a story with a plot and characters. It’s the most common writing style for fiction, although nonfiction can also be narrative writing as long as its focus is on characters, what they do, and what happens to them.

Common Places You’d See Narrative Writing

• Biography or autobiography
• Short stories
• Journals or diaries

“We had luncheon in the dining-room, darkened too against the heat, and drank down nervous gayety with the cold ale. ‘What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?’ cried Daisy, ‘and the day after that, and the next thirty years?’    ‘Don’t be morbid,’ Jordan said. ‘Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.’ ‘But it’s so hot,’ insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, ‘and everything’s so confused. Let’s all go to town!’ - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

You can quickly tell that this passage from the novel The Great Gatsby is an example of narrative writing because it has the two key traits: characters and a plot. The group is discussing eating and drinking while trying to decide what to do for the rest of the day.

As in this example, narrative writing often has extended dialogue scenes since the dialogue is used to move the plot along and give readers greater insight into the characters.

Writers use the expository style when they are trying to explain a concept. Expository writing is fact-based and doesn’t include the author’s opinions or background. It’s basically giving facts from the writer to the reader.

Common Places You’d See Expository Writing

• Newspaper articles
• Academic journals
• Business memos
• Manuals for electronics
• How-to books and articles

“The 1995/1996 reintroduction of gray wolves (Canis lupus) into Yellowstone National Park after a 70 year absence has allowed for studies of tri-trophic cascades involving wolves, elk (Cervus elaphus), and plant species such as aspen (Populus tremuloides), cottonwoods (Populus spp.), and willows (Salix spp.). To investigate the status of this cascade, in September of 2010 we repeated an earlier survey of aspen and measured browsing and heights of young aspen in 97 stands along four streams in the Lamar River catchment of the park’s northern winter range. We found that browsing on the five tallest young aspen in each stand decreased from 100% of all measured leaders in 1998 to means of <25% in the uplands and <20% in riparian areas by 2010. Correspondingly, aspen recruitment (i.e., growth of seedlings/sprouts above the browse level of ungulates) increased as browsing decreased over time in these same stands.” -”Trophic cascades in Yellowstone: The first 15 years after wolf reintroduction” by William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta

This abstract from an academic journal article is clearly expository because it only focuses on facts. The authors aren’t giving their opinion of wolves of Yellowstone, they’re not telling a story about the wolves, and the only descriptions are number of trees, streams, etc. so readers can understand the study better.

Because expository writing is focused on facts, without any unnecessary details or stories, the writing can sometimes feel dense and dry to read.

Descriptive

Descriptive writing is, as you may guess, when the author describes something. The writer could be describing a place, person, or an object, but descriptive writing will always include lots of details so the reader can get a clear and complete idea of what is being written about.

Common Places You’d See Descriptive Writing

• Fiction passages that describe something

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or eat: it was a hobbit hole and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted...” - The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

This is the opening passage of the novel The Hobbit . While The Hobbit is primarily an example of narrative writing, since it explores the adventures of the hobbit and his companions, this scene is definitely descriptive. There is no plot or action going on in this passage; the point is to explain to readers exactly what the hobbit’s home looks like so they can get a clear picture of it while they read. There are lots of details, including the color of the door and exactly where the doorknob is placed.

You won’t often find long pieces of writing that are purely descriptive writing, since they’d be pretty boring to read (nothing would happen in them), instead many pieces of writing, including The Hobbit , will primarily be one of the other writing styles with some descriptive writing passages scattered throughout.

When you’re trying to persuade the reader to think a certain way or do a certain thing, you’ll use persuasive writing to try to convince them.  Your end goal could be to get the reader to purchase something you’re selling, give you a job, give an acquaintance of yours a job, or simply agree with your opinion on a topic.

Common Places You’d See Persuasive Writing

• Advertisements
• Cover letters
• Opinion articles/letters to the editor
• Letters of recommendation
• Reviews of books/movies/restaurants etc.
• Letter to a politician

“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ - “This was their finest hour” by Winston Churchill

In this excerpt from his famous “Their finest hour” speech, Prime Minister Winston Churchill is clearing trying to convince his audience to see his viewpoint, and he lays out the actions he thinks they should take. In this case, Churchill is speaking to the House of Commons (knowing many other British people would also hear the speech), and he’s trying to prepare the British for the coming war and convince them how important it is to fight.

He emphasizes how important the fight will be (“Upon this battle depends the survival of the Christian civilization.” and clearly spells out what he thinks his audience should do (“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties…”).

Common Writing Styles to Know

Each of the four main types of writing styles has multiple subsets of styles within it. Here are nine of the most common and important types of writing you’ll see.

Narrative Writing

Character voice.

Character voice is a common writing style in novels. Instead of having an unknown narrator, the audience knows who is telling the story. This first-person narrator can help the reader relate more both to the narrator and the storyline since knowing who is telling a story can help the reader feel more connected to it. Sometimes the narrator is completely truthful in telling what happens, while other times they are an unreliable narrator and will mislead or outright lie to readers to make themselves look better. 

To Kill a Mockingbird (Scout is the narrator) and The Hunger Games (Katniss is the narrator) are two examples of this writing style.

Stream-of-Consciousness

This writing style attempts to emulate the thought process of the character. Instead of only writing about what the character says or does, stream-of-consciousness will include all or most of the characters thoughts, even if they jump from one topic to another randomly or include incomplete thoughts.

For example, rather than writing “I decided to take a walk to the ice cream shop,” an author using the stream-of-consciousness writing style could write, “It’s pretty hot out, and I feel like I should eat something, but I’m not really that hungry. I wonder if we have leftovers of the burgers Mom made last night? Is Mom staying late at work tonight? I can’t remember if she said. Ice cream would be a good choice, and not too filling. I can’t drive there though because my car is still in for repairs. Why is the repair shop taking so long? I should have listened when David said to check for reviews online before choosing a place. I should text David later to see how he is. He’ll think I’m mad at him if I don’t. I guess I’ll just have to walk to the shop.”

James Joyce and William Faulkner are two of the most well-known writers to have regularly used the  stream-of-consciousness writing style.

Epistolary writing uses a series of documents, such as letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, or even text messages to tell a story. They don’t have a narrator, there’s just whoever purportedly gathered the documents together. This writing style can provide different points of view because a different person can be the author of each document.

Well-known examples of epistolary writing include the novels Dracula  (written as a series of letters, newspaper articles, and diary entries) and Frankenstein (written as a series of letters).

Expository Writing

You’ll find this style in textbooks or academic journal articles. It’ll focus on teaching a topic or discussing an experiment,  be heavy on facts, and include any sources it cited to get the information. Academic writing often assumes some previous knowledge of the topic and is more focused on providing information than being entertaining, which can make it difficult to read and understand at times.

Business writing refers to the writing done in a workplace. It can include reports, memos, and press releases. Business writing typically has a formal tone and standard formatting rules. Because employees are presumably very busy at work, business writing is very concise and to the point, without any additional flourishes intended to make the writing more interesting.

You’ll see this writing style most commonly in newspaper articles. It focuses on giving the facts in a concise, clear, and easy-to-understand way. Journalists often try to balance covering all the key facts, keeping their articles brief, and making the audience interested in the story.

This writing style is used to give information to people in a specific field, such as an explanation of a new computer programming system to people who work in software, a description of how to install pipes within a house for plumbers, or a guide to new gene modifications for microbiologists.

Technical writing is highly specialized for a certain occupational field. It assumes a high level of knowledge on the topic, and it focuses on sharing large amounts of information with the reader. If you’re not in that field, technical writing can be nearly impossible to understand because of the jargon and references to topics and facts you likely don’t know.

Descriptive Writing

Poetry is one of the most challenging styles of writing to define since it can come in many forms. In general, poems use rhythmic language and careful word choice to express an idea. A poem can be an example of descriptive writing or narrative writing, depending on whether it’s describing something or telling a story. Poetry doesn’t need to rhyme, and it often won’t follow standard grammatical or structural rules. Line breaks can, and often do, occur in the middle of sentences.

Persuasive Writing

Copywriting.

Copywriting is writing that is done for advertising or marketing purposes. It’s attempting to get the reader to buy whatever the writer is trying to sell. Examples of copywriting include catalogs, billboards, ads in newspapers or magazines, and social media ads.

In an attempt to get the reader to spend their money, copywriters may use techniques such as descriptive language (“This vanilla was harvested from the lush and exotic island of Madagascar"), exciting language (Stop what you’re doing and learn about this new product that will transform your life!”) and exaggeration (“This is the best cup of coffee you will ever taste!”).

Opinion 

People write opinion pieces for the purpose of stating their beliefs on a certain topic and to try to get readers to agree with them. You can see opinion pieces in newspaper opinion sections, certain blog posts, and some social media posts. The quality of opinion writing can vary widely. Some papers or sites will only publish opinion pieces if all the facts in them can be backed up by evidence, but other opinion pieces, especially those that are self-published online, don't go through any fact-checking process and can include inaccuracies and misinformation.

What If You’re Unsure of a Work’s Writing Style?

If you’re reading a piece of writing and are unsure of its main writing style, how can you figure which style it is? The best method is to think about what the purpose or main idea of the writing is. Each of the four main writing styles has a specific purpose:

• Descriptive: to describe things
• Expository: to give facts
• Narrative: to tell a story
• Persuasive: to convince the reader of something

Here’s an example of a passage with a somewhat ambiguous writing style:

It can be tricky to determine the writing style of many poems since poetry is so varied and can fit many styles. For this poem, you might at first think it has a narrative writing style, since it begins with a narrator mentioning a walk he took after church. Character + plot = narrative writing style, right?

Before you decide, you need to read the entire passage. Once you do, it’ll become clear that there really isn’t much narrative. There’s a narrator, and he’s taking a walk to get a birch from another man, but that’s about all we have for character development and plot. We don’t know anything about the narrator or his friend’s personality, what’s going to happen next, what his motivations are, etc.

The poem doesn’t devote any space to that, instead, the majority of the lines are spent describing the scene. The narrator mentions the heat, scent of sap, the sound of frogs, what the ground is like, etc. It’s clear that, since the majority of the piece is dedicated to describing the scene, this is an example of descriptive writing.

How Can You Develop Your Own Writing Style?

A distinctive writing style is one of the hallmarks of a good writer, but how can you develop your own? Below are four tips to follow.

Read Many Different Styles of Writing

If you don’t read lots of different kinds of writing, you won’t be able to write in those styles, so before you try to get your own writing style, read different writing styles than what you’re used to.  This doesn’t mean that, if you mostly read novels, you suddenly need to shift to reading computer manuals. Instead, you can try to read novels that use unreliable narrators, stream-of-consciousness writing, etc.

The more you read, the more writing styles you’ll be exposed to, and the easier it’ll be able to combine some of those into your own writing style.

Consider Combining Multiple Types of Writing Styles

There’s no rule that you can only use one style for a piece of writing. In fact, many longer works will include multiple styles. A novel may be primarily narrative, but it can also contain highly descriptive passages as well as expository parts when the author wants the readers to understand a new concept.

However, make sure you don’t jump around too much. A paper or book that goes from dense academic text to impassioned plea for a cause to a story about your childhood and back again will confuse readers and make it difficult for them to understand the point you’re trying to make.

Find a Balance Between Comfort and Boundary-Pushing

You should write in a style that feels natural to you, since that will be what comes most easily and what feels most authentic to the reader. An academic who never ventures outside the city trying to write a book from the perspective of a weathered, unschooled cowboy may end up with writing that seems fake and forced.

A great way to change up your writing and see where it can be improved is to rewrite certain parts in a new writing style.  If you’ve been writing a novel with narrative voice, change a few scenes to stream-of-consciousness, then think about how it felt to be using that style and if you think it improved your writing or gave you any new ideas. If you’re worried that some writing you did is dull and lacking depth, add in a few passages that are purely descriptive and see if they help bring the writing to life.

You don’t always need to do this, and you don’t need to keep the new additions in what you wrote, but trying new things will help you get a better idea of what you want your own style to be like.

The best way to develop your own writing style is to expose yourself to numerous types of writing, both through reading and writing. As you come into contact with more writing styles and try them out for yourself, you’ll naturally begin to develop a writing style that you feel comfortable with.

Summary: The 4 Different Styles of Writing

There are four main writing styles, and each has a different purpose:

If you’re struggling to figure out the writing style of a piece, ask yourself what its purpose is and why the author wants you to read it.

To develop your own writing style, you should:

• Read widely
• Consider mixing styles
• Balance writing what you know and trying new things

What's Next?

Literary devices are also an important part of understanding writing styles. Learn the 24 literary devices you must know by reading our guide on literary devices.

Writing a research paper for school but not sure what to write about?   Our guide to research paper topics has over 100 topics in ten categories so you can be sure to find the perfect topic for you. 

Are you reading  The Great Gatsby for class or even just for fun?  Then you'll definitely want to check out our expert guides on the biggest themes in this classic book, from love and relationships to money and materialism .

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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The 4 Main Types of Writing Styles and How to Use Them as a Writer

Understanding the 4 main types of writing styles can help you grow as a writer and attract an audience for your written work. Here’s how to identify each style of writing and tips for using each of the 4 common writing styles to develop your written skills.

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One of the things that can help you grow as a writer is to learn the 4 main types of writing styles and use the characteristics of each to further develop your own personal voice as a writer.

By learning how to use the different writing styles in your work, you will not only improve your skills as writer, but also learn ways to better connect with your audience of readers.

In this post we’ll cover the 4 main types of writing styles and how to use them as a writer to create compelling books, stories, essays, poetry, articles and more.

What are Writing Styles?

Writing styles are basically another way of saying the form or type of written work you are creating. Think of it as a classification for being able to identify what kind of writing you are creating.

For example, if you are writing a cookbook, that is a completely different style of writing than if you were writing a steamy romance novel!

Each writing style has a different purpose – and therefore, different characteristics are present when you are writing each type of different work.

Now that we understand what a writing style is – let’s talk about the 4 main writing styles which are commonly talked about amongst writers and literary educators.

The 4 Main Writing Styles & What They Mean

The four main writing styles which are commonly recognized are expository , descriptive , narrative , and persuasive .

Style #1: Expository

The definition of expository is this: “intended to explain or describe something.”

Most types of written work that fall into this category explain something in more detail, or provide insight and instruction in regards to a particular topic.

What types of writing fall into this category of expository writing style?

While there are many different types of written work which can be categorized as expository style of writing, you can often identify this type of writing by noticing the purpose of the work.

• Does the work intend to explain something in more detail?
• Does the written piece inform?
• Does the written piece answer questions such as “what, how and why?”

Here are some examples of the different types of writing pieces which can fall into the category of expository writing:

• Newspaper and Magazine Articles {not including editorials}
• Non-Fiction Books
• How-To Books
• Self Help Books
• Writing about Hobbies & Interests
• Recipes & Cookbooks
• Instructional Guides
• Scientific Research
• Textbooks & Educational Resources
• Business Articles & Books
• Medical Research, Journals and Articles

When you write expository style pieces, your main goal as a writer is to inform your readers with insight and facts that pertain to the subject of your piece.

For example, if you are writing about the history of ice cream, you would be including a lot of research and fun facts into your piece.

Note that this type of writing style is not intended to persuade or influence your audience. In writing your piece on the history of ice cream, you would NOT be trying to persuade your readers.

You would not want to say things like “Everybody should eat ice cream!” and “These 5 reasons will convince you forever to choose strawberry swirl flavored ice cream as your favorite flavor.”

Sometimes it can be confusing on whether an article is expository or persuasive. For example, an article called “The 5 Unexpected Health Benefits of Ice Cream” – would not fall into expository writing, even though it is providing information.

The word “benefits” has a positive connotation to the title. If you were to be writing an article on possible health benefits on ice cream, it would be very important that you as the writer keep your opinion separated from the facts and information if you plan for it to be an expository style piece. To be expository in nature, you would want to use a title such as “Scientists Research The Health Effects of Ice Cream.”

Books and articles that explain how to do something are also very popular examples of expository writing. Cookbooks are very popular, as they explain to others the tips, techniques, and recipes on how to cook something. How-to books for hobbies and crafts are also a good example of this type of writing.

Style #2: Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing goes deeper than expository writing. While expository writing might have some descriptive details and factual information, descriptive writing will make use of many writing elements and literary devices such as metaphors and similes.

The purpose and goal of descriptive writing is to bring your reader into the written work as if the reader were to be experiencing it first hand.

Most fictional pieces fall under the category of descriptive writing, and even some non-fiction pieces such as memoirs and creative non-fiction can fall under the category of a descriptive writing style.

If you are writing fiction, the more descriptive you can be with your words, the more relatable your story will be to the reader.

For example, we recommend that writers ask their characters questions as one way to really intimately understand the details about a character. Details about the setting, events, and people present in a story will help your readers be able to imagine and understand the piece.

This style also includes poetry. If you browse through some of our poetry writing prompts , you will see there is a lot of attention put on using details to create a scene or feeling in writing a poem!

Here are some examples of types of descriptive writing pieces:

• Poetry & Prose
• Travel Diaries
• Personal Journals
• Lyrics in Music and Songwriting

Most pieces using only a descriptive writing style are not very long. It is uncommon for a fictional novel to be 100% fully descriptive without getting into our next writing style, which is narrative writing.

Style #3: Narrative Writing

Narrative writing is far more complex that simple descriptive writing.

While a poem for example may describe a scene or even events or people – generally you do not get into the deep inner thoughts of the characters or even get a full story with a clear middle, beginning, and end complete with conflict and dialogue.

Nearly all fiction novels fall into the case of narrative writing, as well as longer epic poems and sagas.

In narrative writing, there is a story to be told – a clear plot complete with setting, characters, dialogue, conflict and resolution. A narrative piece often has a timeline or sequence of events which further build to the point of conflict and resolution.

Here are some examples of the works which would be considered to have a narrative writing style:

• Fiction Novels
• Memoirs & Biographies
• Screenplays
• Myths, Legends, and Fables
• Historical accounts
• Essays which talk about a lesson learned or valuable insight from an experience

Narrative writing pieces are generally easy to identify, although sometimes it can be confused with descriptive writing styles. The key difference in determining which one a written work might be is whether or not there is a developed storyline or plot.

If there is a well developed plot and storyline, you are most likely reading narrative writing.

Style #4: Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is a type of writing style where the purpose is to influence someone into believing or doing something. As the word “persuasive” suggests – your goal is to persuade someone’s actions or thoughts to align with your own goals as the writer.

The persuasive writing essay is a popular homework assignment for many kids. For example, a student might be assigned to write an essay to convince their parents of something. “Why We Should Get a Pet Rabbit” and “5 Reasons You Should Not Make Me Clean My Room”.

Persuasive writing is intended to convince someone of something, and so it usually needs to have a good bit of research and logical analysis – but also should attempt to make an emotional connection to the desired audience as well.

A classic piece of writing which serves as an example of persuasive writing is Thomas Paine’s book Common Sense , which was written in the Colonial times of the American Revolutionary War, urging citizens that separating from England was of utmost importance.

Here are some examples of types of writing which are persuasive writing:

• Editorial & Opinion pieces in Newspapers and Magazines
• Essays on a specific belief or “hot button” topic
• Letters written to request an action or file a complaint
• Advertisements {Convincing you to buy something}
• Copywriting {Note, copywriting is different from copyright!}
• Company Brochures
• Business Proposals
• Political speeches

When the intention of the work is to convince the audience of something – this falls into persuasive writing.

How to Use the 4 Main Different Writing Styles as a Writer

Now that we know the different types of writing styles, you may be wondering how do you use each style?

The first thing to do is think about what you are planning to write and what the intention is. What is your goal and what type of message are you trying to communicate to your readers?

Expository Style Writing:

In this type of writing your goal is to inform your readers about research or data.

When writing expository style pieces, follow these guidelines:

• Avoid using words which have a positive or negative connotation
• Do not insert your opinion or attempt to persuade your audience into thinking, feeling, or doing something based on your beliefs
• Use research and cite your sources
• When writing online, link to additional resources or websites
• Use quotes, illustrations or informative graphics to highlight the information
• Give concise and clear directions

Descriptive Writing Style:

This type of writing has the goal to describe something and bring into your reader’s imaginations

Here are some tips for writing with descriptive writing styles:

• Use literary devices such as metaphors and similes.
• Use well thought out adjectives and adverbs to describe nouns and verbs.
• Bring attention to small details
• Use the 6 senses: sight, touch, taste, smell, sound, and feeling

Narrative Writing Style:

In narrative writing style, your goal is to convey a storyline to your readers.

Here is how to achieve this type of writing style:

• Outline a storyline, plot or timeline sequence of events
• Include detailed descriptions of your characters and scenes
• Give your readers insight into the inner thoughts or behind-the-scenes information to elements of your story
• Answer the 6 W questions in your writing: Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why?
• Make it so your piece of work conveys an important lesson or insight – what is the moral of the story? What was the outcome of this experience?
• Use concrete language which gives readers a specific image to visualize and relate to

Persuasive Writing Style:

When you are writing to persuade, your intention is to convince your readers to side with you. This can be as simple as convincing them to buy your latest new product, or even writing about important social and humanitarian issues.

Here are some tips for writing persuasively:

• Include information, data, and facts to back up your argument
• Cite your sources and give readers access to additional information
• Appeal to your readers on an emotional level – how will siding with your opinion connect with them and make them feel?
• Take into consideration your reader’s needs, wants, and desires and how your message will help your reader achieve these.

Understanding Writing Styles Can Help You Be a Better Writer

No matter what type of writing you enjoy creating – understanding the basic main 4 types of writing styles can help you become a better writer.

If you are writing a how-to article for example, you will be able to understand what types of elements to ensure your piece of work includes. If you’re writing a descriptive poem, knowing what type of language to use can help convey your message for abstract concepts.

Use these different writing styles as a fun writing exercise!

Even if you typically only write for one style, it can be a lot of fun to push yourself to try to write for the different types of styles. For example, try writing a persuasive essay, and then a descriptive essay on the same topic. It can also be fun to write a descriptive poem and then turn it into a narrative essay or short story.

Not sure what to write about using these different writing styles? We have TONS of ideas for you with many different writing prompts! Check out our list of 365 writing prompts ideas which are sure to inspire your creative muse!

Using prompts is a great way to help you start writing in different writing styles and push yourself to a new exciting challenge for your writing skills!

I hope this article about the different writing styles and how you can use them as a writer will be helpful for you in building and developing your written skillset.

What types of writing styles do you enjoy writing the most? Have any tips for writing in expository, descriptive, narrative or persuasive styles of writing? We’d love to hear your ideas and experiences in the comments section below!

Chelle Stein wrote her first embarrassingly bad novel at the age of 14 and hasn't stopped writing since. As the founder of ThinkWritten, she enjoys encouraging writers and creatives of all types.

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Onomatopoeia: Words List & Examples

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To which writing style would a conversational manner apply best?

A writing that talks about the cages people Live can be classified as what type?

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Writing styles may be hard to define, but something separates Hemingway from Steinbeck, Atwood from LeGuin, or Keats from Wordsworth. Though two given writers might dwell on similar themes, every writer expresses a unique writing style, conveyed through elements like word choice, narrative structure, and the author’s own voice.

But what is style in writing? On some level, style is ineffable. It’s also emergent: when you parse the elements of writing styles, you lose something that lives in how you put them together.

This article provides tips for honing style in your own work. We’ll analyze the different types of writing styles, look at examples of different writing styles from famous authors, and suggest different ways to experiment in your own work.

But first, let’s clarify what we mean when we say “writing styles.” What is style in writing?

What is Style in Writing?

Think of writing style as the author’s thumbprint—a unique and indelible mark on the voice and personality of the work. If a writer’s work is a house, style is what adorns that house: the window blinds, the doormat, the freshly painted eaves.

Style is like an author’s thumbprint—a unique and indelible mark on the voice and personality of the work.

Authors doesn’t only hone their style deliberately: writing styles emerge as a result of dedication, the author’s own personality, and a continuous experimentation with language and meaning.

To illustrate what we mean by style, let’s compare two examples of different writing styles from two different works of fiction. Each excerpt talks about the same dilemma—the endurance of memory​​—but approaches that dilemma in uniquely stylish ways.

“Perhaps you have forgotten. That’s one of the great problems of our modern world, you know. Forgetting. The victim never forgets. Ask an Irishman what the English did to him in 1920 and he’ll tell you the day of the month and the time and the name of every man they killed. Ask an Iranian what the English did to him in 1953 and he’ll tell you. His child will tell you. His grandchild will tell you. And when he has one, his great-grandchild will tell you too. But ask an Englishman—” He flung up his hands in mock ignorance. “If he ever knew, he has forgotten. ‘Move on!’ you tell us. ‘Move on! Forget what we’ve done to you. Tomorrow’s another day!’ But it isn’t, Mr. Brue.” He still had Brue’s hand. “Tomorrow was created yesterday, you see. That is the point I was making to you. And by the day before yesterday, too. To ignore history is to ignore the wolf at the door.”

—John le Carré, A Most Wanted Man

Compare this with the following excerpt:

“The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”

—Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

Each quote addresses a similar theme : how the perpetrators forget, but the victims always remember, and how that remembering shapes the world. Yet they approach the topic in different ways. John le Carré illustrates his point by examining historical, world-altering events. He uses dialogue and describes the gestures of his characters to punctuate his ideas, and he ends by suggesting that, if we do not remember, then we are infinitely more vulnerable to the metaphorical “wolf at the door.”

Haruki Murakami, by contrast, uses far fewer words to illustrate the same idea. His sentences are less laden with imagery and description; they are merely vehicles to his conclusion that the world is “an endless battle of contrasting memories.”

Each author takes his own route, and each excerpt will connect with the reader in different ways. Such differences in expression are the essence of style. Writing styles showcase how a writer reaches their point, encompassing the totality of the author’s word choice, sentence structures, use of literary devices, etc. It is the gestalt of every decision, both conscious and unconscious, that the writer makes in the text.

What Authors Say About Writing Style

Before we move on, let’s illustrate this point about authors’ writing styles in another way: different quotes from authors on writing styles themselves.

• “Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage.” —Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield
• “When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man.” —Blaise Pascal
• “The essence of a sound style is that it cannot be reduced to rules–that it is a living and breathing thing with something of the devilish in it–that it fits its proprietor tightly yet ever so loosely, as his skin fits him. It is, in fact, quite as seriously an integral part of him as that skin is. . . . In brief, a style is always the outward and visible symbol of a man, and cannot be anything else.” —H.L. Mencken
• “You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.” —Katherine Anne Porter
• “Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.” —Robert Frost
• “Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It’s not what we say but how we say it that matters.” —Federico Fellini
• “Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of style.” —Jonathan Swift
• “The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style.” —Robert Louis Stevenson
• “Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.” —Cardinal John Henry Newman
• “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” —Stephen King
• “It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.” —P.D. James

Elements of Writing Styles

Every author makes key decisions about their writing, and those decisions build over time into a cohesive writing style. What decisions do they have to make? In other words, what are the elements of writing styles?

Creative writing styles are honed through a combination of the following:

• Word choice
• Economy and concision
• Literary devices
• Context and purpose
• The author’s location, time period, and influences

Let’s explore each element in detail.

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Elements of Writing Styles: Word Choice

Also called diction, word choice  refers to the artistic decisions a writer makes in choosing one word over another, and how those decisions affect the meaning, mood , tone , and ideas conveyed to the reader.

Word choice refers to the artistic decisions a writer makes in choosing one word over another, and how those decisions affect the meaning, mood, tone, and ideas conveyed to the reader.

Take a look at the following two example sentences. Only one word has been changed in each sentence, and those words are synonyms, but the changed word has a huge impact on the way each sentence is read.

• The Union beat The Confederacy during the American Civil War.
• The Union subjugated The Confederacy during the American Civil War.

As you can see, changing “beat” to “subjugated” affects every part of the sentence. The sentence moves from neutral and informative to passionate and descriptive; the idea, once impartial, now comes across as heavily invested in the outcome of the Civil War. A word like “subjugated” transmits to the reader that the Union was extremely powerful, even suggesting that the Confederacy was a victim of the North.

Small details such as word choice can have huge impacts on writing styles. Another important element to consider is syntax.

Elements of Writing Styles: Syntax

Syntax refers to sentence structure—how rearranging the order of words impacts the meaning transmitted to the reader. It is closely related to diction, but where diction is concerned with the choice of words, syntax is concerned with the arrangement of those words, as well as the length and complexity of sentences.

Syntax is concerned with the arrangement of words, as well as the length and complexity of sentences.

Much of syntax is innately learned, especially to native English speakers. For example, an English sentence is typically constructed with the subject first, and then the verb, followed by the object of that verb. See below:

• The quick brown fox (subject) jumped (verb) over the lazy dog (object).

If the daring writer wanted to complicate this syntactical order, they might write “Over the lazy dog, the quick brown fox jumped.” Of course, such experimentations can prove dangerous, as the reader might misinterpret that construction, or read it as shallow or pretentious.

Nonetheless, paying close attention to the structure, length, and word order of sentences can allow writers to develop their writing styles. Here are some other ways one might experiment with syntax:

• Structure (active to passive): The lazy dog was jumped over by the quick brown fox.
• Length : The fox jumped over the dog. OR: The quick, sly, and daring fox jumped right over the lazy and motionless dog.
• Word order : The brown fox jumped quickly over the dog lying lazily.

Notice how each of these syntactical changes affect the rhythm, meaning, and style of the sentences. Some changes certainly worsen the effect of the sentence.

A final element of syntax is punctuation. Commas, colons, semicolons, em-dashes, and periods each have their own specific use in English grammar. How the author decides to use each punctuation mark contributes to the overall style of their sentences.

Elements of Writing Styles: Economy and Concision

All stylish writers know how to use economy and concision. They know how to use fewer words, not more, and they know how to make every word count.

There are certainly rules and guidelines for concise writing. The economic writer knows to:

• Avoid adverbs.
• Use strong, visual verbs.
• Employ prepositions sparingly.
• Only use adjectives when necessary.
• Stay inside the active voice, unless the passive is necessary.
• Provide only the important details.

Later in this article, we dive deeper into concision. Nonetheless, let’s demonstrate this key facet of writing styles.

Here’s a simple, effective sentence:

We careened from California to Maine.

The wordy writer has many reasons to make this sentence more complicated. Perhaps the reader does need more information. But, the writer might also be insecure about their own writing, or else they might think every detail needs to be ornate (a tactic called purple prose ). Here’s the above sentence, written wordier. In parentheses are the rules broken from the list above.

We were driven (5) swiftly (1) and without (3) direction in (3) our little blue Chevy (4, 6), somehow (1) finding (2) our way from California to Maine.

Perhaps the little blue Chevy is important to the story. It does add some personality to the people in the car. Otherwise, this sentence is haphazard, conveying too much to the reader in too many words.

Elements of Writing Styles: Literary Devices

Literary devices are specific writing techniques that forge novel connections and possibilities in language. You are probably familiar with common devices, like metaphors and similes . However, there is a wide range of devices available to creative writers, from the hyperbole to the synecdoche, from the onomatopoeia to the paranomasia .

In any work of creative writing, literary devices are essential to both the author’s meaning and their writing style.

In any work of creative writing, literary devices are essential to both the author’s meaning and their writing style. Sometimes, the device is confined to a single sentence in the text. Other times, various elements of the writing—its plot , characters, and settings—act as metaphors for broader ideas and themes.

Here’s an example of a metaphor that’s daring, stylish, and effective:

“Love is so embarrassing. I bled in your bed. I’m sorry. I have built you a shore with all my best words & still, the waves.”

Out of Bound by Claire Schwartz

This is a striking metaphor, heartbreaking in its imagery. The speaker laments at the imperfectness of love and language: how, no matter how carefully and precisely a lover chooses the words they use to love another, those words are, inevitably, broken down by “the waves.” What do those waves represent? Perhaps the limits of language—the ever-present gap between what is spoken and what is understood. In the same way that love is modified by language, the shore is always modified by the waves.

Many stylistic decisions go into the construction of literary devices, including:

• Which devices are used.
• The images used to convey deeper meanings.
• The word choice and syntax of those devices.

Indeed, the construction of literary devices is closely related to syntax and word choice, but the way that the writer employs those devices and makes connections and comparisons is key to honing an author’s writing style.

To learn more, check out our articles on common literary devices and rhetorical devices .

Elements of Writing Styles: Context and Purpose

While an author’s writing style is the product of their own artistic integrity, some creative writing styles develop in relation to the context and purpose of the writing itself.

Some creative writing styles develop in relation to the context and purpose of the writing itself.

For example, an author might choose to write a murder mystery novel, a middle grade fiction book, and a historical account of the Sino-Japanese War. Each publication would have its own unique writing style, because the writing serves a different purpose in each book, and the author will have to write towards different audiences. We’ll explore this shortly when we look at the different types of writing styles.

In creative writing, the question of audience can matter a great deal. You would not want someone with a hard-boiled writing style to publish a romance novel in the same voice, nor would you expect a law critic to write poetry using the same word choice.

While audience should not define the author’s style and intent, it is a necessary consideration in the editing process before a work is published.

It is also important to note that there are different types of writing styles for different contexts. Let’s review those briefly.

Different Types of Writing Styles

In standard rhetorical analysis, there are four different types of writing styles: narrative, descriptive, persuasive, and expository. We mention a fifth style, the creative style, because certain decisions and elements are available to creative works that are not usually available to other writing styles.

Narrative Writing Styles

At its simplest, narrative is a synonym for storytelling . As such, narrative writing styles employ certain storytelling tactics to communicate a plot with characters, settings , and themes.

Narrative writing styles employ storytelling tactics to communicate a plot with characters, settings, and themes.

Here’s an example of a narrative writing style, which seeks to communicate the essential details for a reader to understand the story:

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.” —Opening lines of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

These two paragraphs give us the essentials. We know that the narrator is a child with an unkind family (character), that they live somewhere bleak and chilly (setting), and that the speaker has been made to feel inferior to her peers (theme).

Narrative writing styles are commonly used in the following:

• Creative nonfiction
• Narrative poetry
• Legal writing
• Marketing and brand development

Descriptive Writing Styles

Descriptive writing seeks to evoke sensory experiences. This type of writing concerns itself with the effective use of imagery , including non-visual forms of imagery like sounds, sights, tastes, smells, and kinesthetic and organic images.

Descriptive writing seeks to evoke sensory experiences.

Here’s an example of a descriptive writing style, which uses imagery and other devices to reconstruct a particular sensory experience through language:

“The flower shop was here and it was my father’s domain, but it was also marvelously other, this place heavy with the drowsy scent of velvet-petaled roses and Provencal freesias in the middle of winter, the damp-earth spring fragrance of just-watered azaleas and cyclamen all mixed up with the headachey smell of bitter chocolate.” —Patricia Hempl, excerpt from The Florist’s Daughter

The writer employs a variety of images, scents, and comparisons to describe the sensual intensity of the flower shop. Details of the shop’s setting, smells, and the narrator’s relationship to the shop itself combine to make this an effective, descriptive passage.

Descriptive writing styles are commonly used in the following:

• Medical writing

Persuasive Writing Styles

Persuasive writing wants to change your mind. By employing logic, argumentation, and various rhetorical strategies, persuasive writers seek to convince you that their argument or interpretation prevails.

Persuasive writing wants to change your mind.

Here’s an example of a persuasive writing style, which uses rhetorical strategies to convince you about a certain worldview:

“Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don’t know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetual recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.” —James Baldwin, excerpt from Giovanni’s Room

In addition to Baldwin’s lyrical prose style, key elements of this passage try to persuade the reader of the narrator’s worldview. “Garden of Eden” and “flaming sword” are strong visual metaphors, and setting up this worldview as a binary (people who remember or forget) encourages the reader to sort people into one of two categories. While persuasive writing styles usually come off as confident, the narrator’s admission that he doesn’t precisely know the answer to this conundrum helps humanize the conflict he’s debating. Certainly, this is a depressing worldview, and one which the reader is free to disagree with, but the strategies Baldwin takes in constructing this paragraph are certainly compelling.

Persuasive writing styles are commonly used in the following:

Expository Writing Styles

Expository writing wants to tell you about something as neutrally as possible. The goal is to be informative: by conveying something with as little bias and interpretation, expository writing styles stick to the facts. Do note that bias is universal: it is nearly impossible for any text to remove itself from bias completely.

Expository writing wants to tell something as neutrally as possible.

Here’s an example of an expository writing style, which conveys facts in a linear and digestible paragraph:

“On June 13, 1910, Arthur James Balfour lectured the House of Commons on ‘the problems with which we have to deal in Egypt.’ These, he said, ‘belong to a wholly different category’ than those ‘affecting the Isle of Wight or the West Riding of Yorkshire.’ He spoke with the authority of a long-time member of Parliament, former private secretary to Lord Salisbury, former chief secretary for Ireland, former secretary for Scotland, former prime minister, veteran of numerous overseas crises, achievements, and changes.” —Edward W. Said, excerpt from Orientalism

This opening passage of Orientalism sets the scene factually: we learn the time period, some geopolitical issues, and a main actor in all of these events. Yes, the passage does play up the significance of Arthur James Balfour and his many accolades, but this, too, is expository description, letting the reader know exactly who and what we are dealing with.

Expository writing styles are commonly used in the following:

Creative Writing Styles

Creative writing styles combine the previous four types: a creative writer can employ narrative, descriptive, persuasive, and expository strategies in their work. You may have noticed that creative genres, like fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, routinely show up under the categories of writing that employ the above four styles. This is because authors must employ a variety of strategies to tell effective stories.

Creative writers can employ narrative, descriptive, persuasive, and expository strategies in their work.

But, in addition to employing the previous four styles, creative writing also seeks to experiment and find new, artistic possibilities in language. Poetry is an obvious example, as the use of stanzas and line breaks affects how the language is read and interpreted. But there are also countless examples of experimentation in prose, from the use of stream of consciousness to the Oulipian n+7 .

Here’s an example:

“I turned out the light and went into my bedroom, out of the gasoline but I could still smell it. I stood at the window the curtains moved slow out of the darkness touching my face like someone breathing asleep, breathing slow into the darkness again, leaving the touch. After they had gone up stairs Mother lay back in her chair, the camphor handker- chief to her mouth. Father hadn’t moved he still sat beside her holding her hand the bellowing hammering away like no place for it in silence When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out of the shadow. You know what I’d do if I were King? she never was a queen or a fairy she was always a king or a giant or a general I’d break that place open and drag them out and I’d whip them good It was torn out, jagged out. I was glad.” —Excerpt from The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

This is, of course, a highly literary and experimental piece of writing, but it demonstrates something distinct to creative writing styles. The italicized portions of text are streams of consciousness—moments where the reader has direct access to the unfiltered thoughts, images, and memories flowing through the character’s mind. Understanding these passages requires close attention to the text, as well as several re-reads. While creative writing styles can be far simpler than this, the point is that a creative writer takes great liberties to experiment with language, in ways distinct to creative writing, which seek to mine the wide varieties of the human experience.

Creative writing styles are commonly used in the following:

• Lyric essays
• Creative journalism

Elements of Writing Styles: The Author’s Location, Time Period, and Influences

Lastly, writers are undeniably influenced by their location, time period, and literary influences. For example, if you’ve ever read a poem or novel from Victorian Era England, you know that the Victorian writers (like the Brontës, Charles Dickens, or Percy Bysshe Shelley) often wrote in elaborate and flowery language. By modern standards, Victorian writing styles might seem overwrought; but, that style was influenced by the era’s appreciation for emotional intensity, as well as the tendency to pay writers per-word.

Writing Styles: Examples and Analyses

Let’s take a look at three writing styles examples. For each writer, we will examine how various stylistic strategies affect the overall mood and interpretation of the text, while also discussing that writer’s influences and likely intent. All examples come from published works of classic literature.

Ernest Hemingway’s Writing Style

Ernest Hemingway once wrote “A writer’s style should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous. The greatest writers have the gift of brilliant brevity, are hard workers, diligent scholars and competent stylists.” Hemingway’s writing style certainly lives up to this quote, as his words are often simple, direct, and unadorned.

Here’s an excerpt from his short story “ A Clean, Well-Lighted Place .”

It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference. The two waiters inside the cafe knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.”Last week he tried to commit suicide,” one waiter said.

“Why?”

“He was in despair.”

“What about?”

“Nothing.”

“How do you know it was nothing?”

“He has plenty of money.”

Hemingway’s writing style seeks to dispense the precise amount of information necessary for the reader, without any garnishment. Notice the details he provides: the exact time does not matter, only that “it was very late.” Notice, also, a similar pattern with the dialogue. People generally don’t speak in such clipped sentences, but the characters of this story speak to give just enough context for the story’s themes.

Additionally, the visual details, such as the dew settling the dust and the shadows of leaves against the electric light, evoke the sensation of a space that’s quiet and comforting, if also a little bit eerie.

Notice, also, the general lengths of the sentences. The first paragraph is built on longer sentences and clauses, which inevitably juxtaposes sensory details (an old man in the shadow of leaves cast by an electric light.) The effect of these sentences is that time feels slower, as the reader’s focus is on the kaleidoscope of details paused in this one moment in a quiet café.

Finally, pay attention to the lack of pretensity in Hemingway’s word choice. While the story itself deals with complex themes, including the question of nihilism, the language itself is simple, direct, and accessible.

Hemingway got his start in writing as a journalist, then as a short story writer, both of which certainly influenced his economic style. He famously coined the “Iceberg Theory,” which describes writing that focuses on surface-level details without explicitly analyzing underlying themes, rather implying those themes for the reader to interpret. Hemingway was also greatly influenced by World Wars I and II, and his writing style may have been a reaction to these wars, eschewing the flowery language of pre-war literature for a hardened, masculine style.

Toni Morrison’s Writing Style

A master of voice and character, Toni Morrison’s writing style borrows heavily from vernacular, from history, and from her own unique relationship to analogies and metaphors. Morrison frequently plays with sentence lengths and imagery, but her writing never fails to be compelling, lyrical, and delicious to read.

Here’s an excerpt from Recitatif , her only published short story:

My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick. That’s why we were taken to St. Bonny’s. People want to put their arms around you when you tell them you were in a shelter, but it really wasn’t bad. No big long room with one hundred beds like Bellevue. There were four to a room, and when Roberta and me came, there was a shortage of state kids, so we were the only ones assigned to 406 and could go from bed to bed if we wanted to. And we wanted to, too. We changed beds every night and for the whole four months we were there we never picked one out as our own permanent bed.It didn’t start out that way. The minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced us, I got sick to my stomach. It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the morning—it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race. And Mary, that’s my mother, she was right. Every now and then she would stop dancing long enough to tell me something important and one of the things she said was that they never washed their hair and they smelled funny. Roberta sure did. Smell funny, I mean. So when the Big Bozo (nobody ever called her Mrs. Itkin, just like nobody ever said St. Bonaventure)—when she said, “Twyla, this is Roberta. Roberta, this is Twyla. Make each other welcome.” I said, “My mother won’t like you putting me in here.”

Both lyrical and conversational, Morrison’s style simply makes you want to read more. Pay attention to two things:

One, the lengths of these sentences. Morrison routinely switches from short sentences to longer ones, partially to emphasize important details in short sentences, and partially to keep the pace of the story engaging. The alternation of short and long sentences mirrors a conversational storytelling style.

Two, the childlike voice behind the narration. It is clear that the narrator is a child. Despite being directly stated, this fact is also obvious when certain elements of word choice are analyzed. Phrases like “smell funny” and “Big Bozo” clue the reader towards a speaker whose words and observations are that of a child.

One thing that’s absent from these paragraphs, but very much present in Morrison’s writing style, is the use of surprising comparisons (similes, metaphors, and analogies). This example comes later in “Recitatif”:

“I used to dream a lot and almost always the orchard was there. Two acres, four maybe, of these little apple trees. Hundreds of them. Empty and crooked like beggar women when I first came to St. Bonny’s but fat with flowers when I left.”

The simile “empty and crooked like beggar women” might be shocking to the reader, but it provides great insight into the personality of the narrator. This sentence is also ripe with foreshadowing , since the trees were “fat with flowers” when the narrator leaves St. Bonny’s.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Writing Style

One of America’s most influential writers, Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry and fiction forged new possibilities in the written word. Poe’s writing is often dark, gothic, and tinged with insanity, and his style reflects the problems that haunt his protagonists. Notice how psychosis influences Poe’s writing style in this excerpt from “ The Tell-Tale Heart :”

Poe adapts his style quite well to write a character who is clearly self-aggrandizing and obsessed with his own genius. The storytelling here has lots of repetition , such as “slowly—very, very slowly” and “cautiously-oh, so cautiously—cautiously” which makes the narrator sound in love with his own voice. And, it takes a while for the reader to understand what the narrator is doing, as his erratic behavior, like poking his head into the door for an hour, goes without a clear explanation.

Nonetheless, this writing is typical of Poe’s Gothic style. The use of words like “madman,” “midnight,” “vulture,” and “Evil Eye” give this story the grim moodiness characteristic of Poe’s writing. Additionally, the frequent use of em dashes and lengthy sentences propels the reader slowly, as we come to understand every minute detail that forms the totality of this character’s psychosis. This methodical, psychological writing style helps define Poe as a master of mystery and suspense.

Tips for Honing Your Own Author’s Writing Style

Writing styles develop with time, and there’s no singular thing any writer can do to hone their style. Rather, an attentiveness to language and a willingness to experiment are the best things you can do for yourself as you hone your author’s writing style. Nonetheless, here’s 7 pieces of advice for anyone who wants to write with style, flare, and confidence.

1. Creative Writing Styles: Experiment with Language and Syntax

Take risks in your writing. Be unconventional, and don’t always go for the expected word or phrase. Style doesn’t develop from playing it safe—it develops from making active decisions in the words you use to express your ideas.

What do we mean by taking risks? Here’s an example of a risky sentence, from poet Eduardo C. Corral: “Moss intensifies up the tree, like applause.”

This is a daring comparison: we don’t often think of moss “intensifying,” and so that verb already seems strange and risky. But then the moss itself is compared to applause, so now the visual cue of intensifying moss is being compared to intensifying sound. The product of this simile is that we see moss blooming and expanding across the tree, which makes this an effective and stylish sentence—but there’s a level of risk, faith, and skill involved in making this simile work .

Taking risks allows you to see what works and what doesn’t in your writing. So make bold comparisons! End your paragraphs with em-dashes! Try using four different languages in a single sentence!

Just be sure to review your work after and assess what does and doesn’t work for the reader. And, when you’re not sure what to do, try doing the complete opposite of what seems intuitive. You might find a short sentence works better than a long one, for example.

2. Creative Writing Styles: Experiment with Writing Forms

Creative writing styles often adapt to the form of the writing itself. For example, genre writing styles vary from genre to genre. You wouldn’t expect a writer of hard-boiled noir to have the same terse, simplistic style when writing romance fiction (although I would love to read that).

As you hone your writing style, experiment reading and writing in different forms. Pay attention to how the form demands you to make different stylistic decisions. The words you choose in a love sonnet will be different from the words you choose in a flash essay about your childhood. And, certainly, your sentence lengths will differ when you’re writing literary fiction versus speculative fiction .

Getting into the habit of making these stylistic decisions, and paying attention to those decisions, will help you create a mental framework for the ways you approach writing. Such is the nature of style development.

3. Creative Writing Styles: Consider Character

Character development is an essential part of fiction writing, and it will naturally affect the style you use to write. If you’re writing in first person or third person limited, then your protagonist’s personality will affect everything, because their worldview tinges the way you tell their story. Key observational details and thought processes from main characters naturally bleed into the style of the writing itself.

You can see this in action in the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned , is written from the third person limited point of view of Anthony Patch, an unambitious libertine whose personality is defined by wry cynicism and a rigid belief in the purposelessness of life. These personality traits often affect the storytelling, as the reader sees the world through Anthony’s eyes, and thus trudges through a lot of Anthony’s ironic commentary and disdain for others.

Fitzgerald’s next novel, The Great Gatsby , is completely different, both tonally and stylistically. Written from the first person point of view of Nick Carraway, an optimistic bond salesman who wants to immerse himself in the high society of New York’s nouveau riche. Much of the style is poetic and introspective, honing in on the creative chaos of the Jazz Age and the tragedy of the American Dream.

For your own writing, alter your style to reflect the traits of your characters. Style reflects personality, and the person narrating your fiction will certainly want to tell their story in their own way.

4. Creative Writing Styles: Omit Needless Words

While style can take many forms, one thing that all good author’s writing styles have in common is an economy of language. In other words, no word in good writing is excessive or unnecessary. To sharpen your own style, you must omit needless words.

What does that look like? There are two ways to omit needless words: striking out redundancies, and rewriting phrases.

Here’s two examples. First, let’s look at redundancy. A redundancy is when you communicate something multiple times without refining the meaning of your words. Here’s a redundant sentence:

“The girl vaulted over the large gray boulder.”

Nothing is explicitly wrong with this sentence, but several words are giving repeat information. You don’t need the word “over,” because to vault means to jump over something. And, you don’t need the word “large,” because a boulder is, by definition, large. Finally, most rocks are gray, and the word “gray” isn’t offering much useful detail.

A much cleaner sentence would simply be “the girl vaulted the boulder.”

Another example is to rewrite phrases. If you don’t think about your words, it’s easy to communicate something in 10 words when 2 will do. Here’s another example sentence:

“She worked many long hours in order to secure a trade deal with the company.”

God, doesn’t that just read like a corporate memo? It’s passively worded and nondescript. Isolate any phrase in this sentence, and it can be truncated into something much more straightforward. Be sure to avoid phrases like “in order to”—simply “to” will always suffice.

Here’s a cleaner sentence: “She hustled to secure the Nike trade deal.”

Lastly, some categories of words are better than others. Nouns and verbs are necessary for understanding the action of a sentence. Adjectives should be used sparingly, and only when that description is necessary for the reader. Adverbs, which modify verbs, should only be used when there isn’t a sharper verb. For example, “breathing heavily” is much better written as “panting.”

For more advice, check out our article on how to omit needless words .

5. Creative Writing Styles: Read Like a Writer

How do published writers write so well? What did they do to craft such artful sentences, effective plots, or in-depth characters? While you can certainly learn these tricks by taking a writing class , you can also learn them by reading like a writer.

Reading like a writer means paying attention to the construction of a piece of literature and thinking about why that writing works. We did a little bit of this when we examined the above writing styles examples. By examining the elements of writing styles—word choice, sentence structure, character and voice, etc.—we paid attention to what makes each excerpt an effective piece of writing.

Employ those same strategies in the work you read. If there’s an author you like or whose style you admire, pay attention to what makes that style effective. And don’t be afraid to emulate that style in your own work: writers often borrow from each other’s styles and strategies to hone their own voice.

6. Creative Writing Styles: Study Poetry

The writing styles tips in this article primarily pertain to prose writers. But, whether you’re writing poetry, prose, or some secret third thing,  reading poetry is essential to honing style.

Poets are masters of language. They know how to build tension, pacing, and rhythm in their sentences. They know how to make that tension correspond with what they’re writing about. They manipulate vowel sounds, constants, tools like rhyme and meter, and a whole other host of poetic devices to move their readers.

Writing poetry is its own separate challenge. Prose writers don’t need to write poetry to master their writing styles. But they absolutely should study poetry. What makes language beautiful? What makes a poem concise? How does the flow of a sentence accentuate its meaning? Asking these questions and listening to the poets will help you experiment in your own pages.

7. Creative Writing Styles: Write Every Day

The key to honing your style is to write every day. A diligent writing practice will train your brain to think about language and make continuous stylistic choices in your work. Even if you can only manage 10 minutes a day on a writing project, or even if you just keep a writing journal, the simple practice of putting thoughts to words and words to pages will naturally sharpen the personality you put into your writing.

Hone Your Own Writing Style at Writers.com

One last piece of advice on writing styles is to read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. You can find a free copy of it online here . Most of the advice in this book has remained true in the many decades since its publication, and while rules are certainly made to be broken, you should understand the rules first before breaking them.

Want clear, direct feedback on your writing styles and the other elements of your work? Take a look at any of the upcoming creative writing classes at Writers.com! Our instructors are masters of the craft and know how to sharpen your words so that they zing across the page.

Sean Glatch

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What Is Writing Style? (Easy Guide for Beginners)

Writing style is essential to great writing but it isn’t always easy to understand.

What is writing style?

A writing style is a distinctive way of using language. There are six main writing styles: expository, descriptive, reflective, persuasive, personal, and narrative. Each writer creates their own style based on voice, personality, tone, language, and grammatical choices.

In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about writing style.

What Is Writing Style? (Detailed Definition)

Table of Contents

In literature, writing style is the purpose and intention of a piece of writing (i.e., to inspire, motivate, change minds, convey information, etc).

It is also the unique way an author communicates their thoughts through their language.

Writing style is:

• How the writer and reader interact with a given text
• The grammar decisions writers make
• Spelling and punctuation
• Sentence structure
• The rules of a certain genre
• The expression of identity in writing
• The specific literary devices an author uses

Therefore, writing style is a term that can refer, simultaneously, to particular aspects of a person’s writing practices and to a certain type of writing.

Types of Writing Styles

There are six major writing styles: expository, persuasive, descriptive, narrative, personal, and reflective.

Each writing style is used for particular purposes and intended for a particular target audience, which dictates how an author structures their work.

A single piece of text could include multiple writing styles.

Expository Writing

Expository writing is a style of writing that is focused on providing clear and detailed information on a particular topic.

Unlike other writing styles, such as narrative or persuasive, expository writing is generally less engaging and more factual and informational in nature.

The goal of an expository piece is to educate the reader by presenting objective facts and details about a given subject.

This type of writing uses formal language and typically involves the reporting of experiments or research findings, the exploration of historical events, or the application of theoretical concepts.

Often, an expository piece will also include scholarly support in the form of citations from external sources such as academic journals or books.

These can help to reinforce key points and ensure accuracy in terms of describing any methods or results.

Uses of Expository Writing

Historically, expository writing was primarily considered an academic type of writing.

However, today you’ll find it everywhere on the internet, including marketing blogs and informational content instructing readers on how to master various kinds of tasks.

For example, you’ll find expository writing used in:

• “How-to” or “explainer” articles
• Help center articles
• News stories
• Work emails
• Writing for business or technical purposes
• Materials for training

Regardless of its use, this style strives for objective representation and relies on technical accuracy in order to effectively convey meaning.

2) Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is a style of writing that is designed to convince readers of a certain point of view or stance.

This type of writing uses facts, data, and logical arguments to support its position, while being careful to avoid overly emotional or subjective language.

The goal of persuasive writing is to compel the reader to change their perspective on a given topic.

A related goal may be for the reader to then take appropriate action as a result of their changed thinking.

There are several key features that characterize persuasive writing. Perhaps most importantly, it focuses on one specific argument or idea that is clearly stated right from the beginning.

This helps readers understand what the writer wants them to believe.

In addition, persuasive writing often includes specific examples or data points that help strengthen the argument and build credibility with readers.

Furthermore, it often includes various rhetorical techniques such as tone shifts and call-to-action statements in order to increase its impact on readers.

In summary, persuasive writing requires careful planning, thoughtful execution, and clear messaging in order to effectively influence readers’ opinions and actions.

Uses of Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is typically used in nonfiction and is nearly not used at all in fiction.

Here are use cases for persuasive writing:

• Presentations, speeches, or debates (speech writing)
• Copywriting designed to convert
• Writing for sales purposes
• Cover letters
• Letters of recommendation

3) Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is typically used in fiction, but you can also use it in nonfiction (blog posts, books, travel guides, or memoirs).

When a writer uses a descriptive style, it is like painting an image in the form of words.

The word painting can feature an individual, place, or object. The writer may employ metaphors or other literary techniques to convey their impressions through the five senses (what they feel, hear, smell, taste, or feel).

However, the writer does not tend to convince the reader of anything or explain the situation.

They merely describe it.

Uses of Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is typically utilized in creative writing and may be combined with narrative writing to create scenes and settings.

Sometimes, it is used in formal writing to convey an idea in greater detail or to help the reader feel emotionally attached to the narrative.

Here are examples of how you could use descriptive writing:

• Songs or poems
• Fictional plays or novels
• Copywriting
• Journal or diary writing
• Product descriptions
• Narrative nonfiction

4) Narrative Writing

Narrative writing is a storytelling form of writing. It often has a plot, conflict, and characters. Narrative writing is written from various points of view.

In the first-person point-of-view (POV), the narrator uses “I” throughout the story.

For example, “I went to the bank” or “I swam the canal.”

The narrator is usually the main character, or protagonist, of the story. The second-person point of view can also be used in narrative writing, but this is less common.

In second-person point of view, the narrator is talking to the reader and using “you” throughout the story.

Third-person point of view can also be used, but this is more common in other forms of writing, such as expository or persuasive writing. In the third-person point of view, the narrator serves as an outside observer of the story.

This means that the narrator uses “he,” “she,” or “it” throughout the story.

Uses of Narrative Writing

Narrative writing is typically employed in creative and fiction writing.

However, you can use it in nonfiction writing to make your content more authentic and appealing to the readers.

For example, you might utilize narrative writing in:

• Novels or novellas
• Short stories
• Creative essays
• Blog posts and articles
• Feature stories
• Biographies
• Speech writing
• YouTube or video scripts

5) Personal Writing

Personal writing is characterized by an intimate, straightforward, personal style.

This writing style communicates the writer’s beliefs, convictions, and ideas in a profoundly intimate fashion. It conveys a unique, significant message from the writer, and usually employs personal stories or experiences.

In personal writing, the text is written in the first person with a casual tone.

Use of Personal Writing

Autobiographies fall under personal writing as they present the personal feelings and experiences of the writer.

Other uses of personal writing include:

• Assignments
• Email messages
• Text messages
• Social media posts

If you’re interested in writing a memoir or autobiography, we wrote a good article on how to write an autobiography over here.

6) Reflective Writing

Reflective writing is a form of writing that allows us to look back on our lives and experiences in order to gain new insights.

Whether we are reflecting on our past actions, what we have learned from certain events, or how those experiences shaped the person that we have become, reflective writing can be a powerful tool for self-awareness and growth.

There are many different forms or types of reflective writing.

At its core, reflective writing can take the form of journaling or free-writing, in which the writer simply spends time reflecting on the events or experiences that have unfolded in their lives.

This can be done through verbalizing thoughts or ideas as they come up, or through the use of writing prompts that help to guide the writer’s reflections.

Additionally, other forms of reflective writing include response essays, narrative essays based on personal experiences, and more.

Uses of Reflective Writing

You can utilize reflective writing in many areas of study, work, or daily life.

Here are common uses for reflective writing:

• Application for jobs
• Written feedback
• Academic writing
• Shadow writing (very interesting application)

Here is a video that talks about the different writing styles:

Writing Style Examples

To better understand writing styles, I included this section with lots of writing style examples.

I strongly encourage you to read through all of them to really grasp how each style is applied in different scenarios.

Expository Writing Style Examples

Example #1:

Technology and scientific advancements have made the utilization of eco-friendly energy possible.

Where climate conditions allow, it is possible to harness solar power or wind power for energy. The term solar energy refers to the utilization of sunlight to produce electricity and energy. Humans can harness the sun’s power by installing solar panels in their homes or work areas.

Humans have also come up with methods to tap into the energy of wind through wind turbines that harness the energy of wind. Both forms of eco-friendly energy are being utilized more and more.

Example #2:

Every creature has its own unique place in the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) universe, and the D&D Dire Weasel is no exception.

These are usually small, but ferocious predators, with powerful claws and sharp teeth that can easily take down prey much larger than themselves. They are also highly intelligent and cunning, making them dangerous foes for even the most experienced adventurers.

Although they are not typically considered a major threat, Dire Weasels can be a deadly danger if they are encountered in large numbers or in groups with other, more powerful creatures. For this reason, it is always wise to be prepared when venturing into areas where these creatures may be found.

2) Persuasive Writing Style Examples

An excursion to Switzerland is an unforgettable trip that you’ll not forget. It offers beautiful scenery, fun, and sunshine. Make your reservations today for your next vacation.

My education and experience make me an ideal candidate for the position. I am experienced in teaching interpersonal communication lessons, and I also have experience directly teaching this course using your institution’s platform.

3) Descriptive Writing Style Examples

The sunset bathes the sky in deep ruby red.

With cars backed up for miles and drivers angrily tooting their horns, the traffic seemed to be in a constant state of clogged chaos.

Volumes of exhaust fumes wafted into the air along with clouds of smoke from overheated engines, making the atmosphere thick and heavy. Drivers jostled for position, weaving in and out of lanes as they impatiently tried to inch their way forward. As if that wasn’t bad enough, relentless rain poured down, creating treacherous driving conditions that made it nearly impossible to see.

Overall, the scene was one of frustration and disorder, a perfect representation of the term “clogged traffic.”

4) Narrative Writing Style Examples

She hears a raspy voice just before the shadow moves across the balcony. Hesitantly, she takes a step forward.

She looked over her email with a glimmer of hope. Please, please, please be positive news. The message sat in the customary bolded unread, teasing her from within her email inbox. Bad news or good news? She was unsure. She knew only one option. With trepidation and hope, she clicked the link.

5) Personal Writing Style Examples

When I was nine years old, my parents bought a new smart TV.

The new machine’s soft buzzing enthralled me. As they fell asleep the next night, I couldn’t control myself. I watched it all night. Of course, I passed out right in front of the TV. My parents found me sprawled out in the living room the next morning.

It was my first date with John, and I wanted everything to be perfect.

I had spent hours picking out the perfect outfit and agonizing over my hair, but as I looked at my reflection in the mirror, I realized there was one important detail I had overlooked: my nails. I stared at my hands for a moment, trying to decide what color would send the right message.

Red might be too bold, but a nude polish might seem bland.

Are there nail colors guys love ? After a moment of indecision, I decided to go with light pink. It was romantic without being over-the-top, and it complimented my outfit perfectly.

As I finished getting ready, I couldn’t help but feel a little excited.

6) Reflective Writing Style Examples

I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I started college.

It feels like only yesterday that I was moving into my dorm room and meeting my new roommate. But in many ways, it feels like a lifetime ago. I’ve grown so much over the past year, both as a person and as a student.

I’ve made new friends and learned new things, and I’m really starting to feel like an adult. It’s been a lot of hard work, but I’m so proud of how far I’ve come.

The day I lost my father will always haunt me.

It was a beautiful summer day, and we were at the beach having a picnic with some of my dad’s old friends. He seemed happy, smiling as he talked and laughed with everyone around him.

Then it happened–out of nowhere, he collapsed onto the sand.

I rushed to his side, screaming for help as I tried to rouse him from unconsciousness. But it was too late. He had died right there in front of me, leaving me utterly heartbroken.

The pain of that day has never really gone away.

Even now, over 10 years later, I still find myself overcome with grief whenever I think about what happened.

As time has passed, though, other feelings have emerged as well—anger at myself for not doing more to save him, guilt for not realizing how sick he was, even gratitude that he was able to enjoy that last summer with us before his illness took over entirely.

There are days when the grief is so intense that it feels like a physical weight on my chest.

But through it all, there is also a fierce determination to continue living my life and cherishing every moment that I have left with my loved ones.

Final Thoughts: What Is Writing Style?

I highly recommend experimenting with different writing styles—even blending them together into your own personal recipes.

That’s a remarkably good way to find and develop your own writing style.

Read these next:

• What Is Persuasive Writing? (Complete Answer With Examples)
• How To Write An Editorial (Your Expert Cheat Sheet)
• How to Write an Ode (Step-by-Step with Examples)
• How to Become a Writer for SNL (The Insanely Complete Guide)

UNC Writing Center

Table of Contents

• Voice vs Writing Style

The 4 Main Types of Writing Styles

Which primary writing style is best for you and your book, the 4 main types of writing styles (& how to choose the one you need).

What writing style should you use for your nonfiction book ?

All of them.

In this post, I’ll explain:

• the difference between voice and writing style
• what the 4 common types of writing styles are
• what each one is for
• how to choose a primary style for your book
• when and how to use them in your writing process

Most importantly, I’ll show you how to use each style to hold your readers’ attention and get your audience talking about your book.

The difference between voice and writing style

Authors connect to their readers through a combination of voice and writing style.

Your voice is about how you speak and think. It’s about the words you use and the patterns in your writing.

Your voice is unique to you.

Your writing style is about how you’re approaching the reader at any given moment:

• persuasive writing persuades the reader
• expository writing explains things to the reader
• narrative writing tells the reader a story
• descriptive writing describes things to the reader

But that isn’t the whole picture.

Sometimes the best way to explain something is to tell a story that illustrates your point.

And sometimes the best way to persuade your readers is to explain the facts.

That’s why nonfiction books often use all 4 writing styles together.

As you read through each of the 4 different writing styles below, remember that the point isn’t to pick just one.

It’s to understand when and how to use each of them to give your readers the most value and make your book the best it can be.

1. Persuasive writing style

Let’s say I wanted to write a book about the value of letting employees bring their dogs to work.

One way to convince business leaders to adopt this idea is to use a persuasive writing style.

Here’s an example:

You’d never believe how much having a few dogs around the office can transform an entire organization. Not until you’ve seen it happen. Sure, sick days drop dramatically. And, yes, turnover plummets to almost nil. But the true benefits of a canine-friendly company are much harder to measure, and much more profound.

Like most examples of persuasive writing, this passage makes a direct appeal to the reader.

It mentions a few benefits but doesn’t offer any hard facts. There are no numbers or percentages. In fact, it suggests that the best benefits are hard to measure.

This style of writing works well for appealing to the reader on an emotional level, especially when you’re writing about intangibles.

It also works well for short segments of introductory writing that are followed up by hard facts.

2. Narrative writing style

People love stories. In fact, we’re hard-wired to pay attention to them.

That’s why they work so well as hooks, even in nonfiction.

Especially in nonfiction.

It’s all too easy to bore a reader with:

• lists of disconnected facts
• more explanation than they need
• examples they can’t relate to

Stories bridge those gaps. They can:

• connect facts
• teach without explaining
• help readers see themselves in your book

The narrative writing style  is great for grabbing a reader’s attention:

In 2007, I met the dog that would save my life.

Even if your book isn’t filled with examples of narrative writing from cover to cover, including a few stories will go a long way toward keeping your readers interested.

3. Descriptive writing style

A descriptive writing style takes narrative writing a step further.

People often associate descriptive writing with flowery, poetic phrases, but strong descriptive writing is just the opposite.

In 2007, I met the dog that would save my life, but you would never have guessed that from looking at it. It was the ugliest dog I had ever seen. Imagine sculpting a small, hairless gargoyle; popping its eyes halfway out of its head; and then smashing its face in. Whatever that looks like in your head, imagine it about 6 times uglier, and you’ll be pretty close. But for every ounce of cute that dog was missing, it had a whole ton of heart.

Descriptive writing is a lot like salt. A little bit goes a long way.

Use descriptive writing to set the scene and add some flavor to your writing, but be careful not to overuse it.

It’s especially good for adding humor or making certain examples stick in readers’ minds.

4. Expository writing style

Compared to the other styles of writing, you might expect expository writing to be limited to scientific journals and instruction manuals—but that’s not true at all.

Expository writing follows up persuasive and narrative writing with hard facts, adding logical power to your stories and examples.

You might hook your reader with a story and then provide a bullet-point list of the key things you learned from that experience.

Or you might start a chapter with an emotional appeal and follow that up with 7 measurable statistics that support your point of view.

Here’s an example of expository writing:

When you’re ready to draft your dog-friendly policy, start by canvassing your employees. Make sure no one has any canine allergies or phobias. If you discover that someone on your staff is dog-averse, see if you can address the issue by separating dog-friendly sections of your workplace from other dog-free zones.

The expository style is a direct, effective way to give your reader important information or instructions.

It doesn’t usually make the best hook, but there are exceptions to every rule.

A shocking statistic, for example, can grab a reader’s attention just as well as any story.

Most nonfiction books use all of these styles in combination.

For example, in a single chapter, you might:

• hook your reader with a story (narrative)
• add sensory details to make the story memorable (descriptive)
• follow up with an emotional appeal (persuasive)
• list 4 bullet-point statistics that support your argument (expository)
• humanize those statistics with another story (narrative)
• end the chapter with steps readers can take (expository)

That’s why it’s important to be familiar with all 4 writing styles.

But how much you use each method will depend on a combination of 2 things:

• what you’re most comfortable with
• what your book needs to be effective in solving your reader’s problem

Start with the one that’s easiest for you to write

It’s extremely unlikely for a new Author to start out equally comfortable with all 4 different types of writing styles.

If you’ve read a lot of academic writing or technical writing, you’re probably most comfortable with an expository style. That’s the one that will feel most familiar.

If you’ve read a lot of creative writing, then you might be more comfortable working with a narrative style.

When you’re writing your first draft, the most important thing you can do is just get it all down.

Your primary, go-to style should be the one that’s most comfortable for you.

Don’t let yourself get bogged down in the details of style choice. Just write your first draft in any way that helps you get all your ideas onto the page.

Start with a solid outline and writing plan so you know what you’re trying to share with your readers, but draft those ideas in whatever way works best for you.

Then edit to make your writing clear and compelling

Every chapter should start with a hook that grabs the reader’s attention.

This can be a compelling story or a surprising fact or statistic. It can be an unexpected idea that makes the reader want to know more.

There are NO rules about which writing style is the best way to do this.

The same book could easily use all 4 styles as hooks in 4 consecutive chapters. Or it might use the same style every time.

Open Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run to just about any page, and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a story.

It might be a story about what he was investigating, or it might be a story about the investigation itself. Either way, he uses the narrative style almost exclusively.

This is fairly common with investigative reporters and books based on investigative reporting.

A how-to book, on the other hand, will depend heavily on expository writing to provide step-by-step instructions.

If your book really breaks the mold of traditional thinking, you might need a combination of narrative, persuasive, and expository writing to convince readers that their old way of thinking is wrong.

• Narrative writing provides concrete examples of your ideas in action
• Persuasive writing asks provocative questions that lead your readers down a new path
• Expository writing follows up with facts, statistics, and instructions to implement your ground-breaking solutions

Once you have all your ideas down in a complete draft, you can start to edit your own work and decide what’s working and what isn’t.

You might add a short story to illustrate a point. Or you might decide a chapter needs more explanation to help readers adapt a solution to their own situation.

Consider each of the 4 styles and decide what each section needs to best serve the reader and hold their interest.

A note on memoirs

Memoirs will naturally gravitate toward narrative and descriptive styles, but that doesn’t mean those are the only styles they’ll need.

Even in the middle of a story, you might want to persuade your readers of certain key truths. Or you might need to explain how something works so they can understand what your team was up against in making a critical decision.

There isn’t always a sharp line between these categories, and there are no hard and fast rules about how and when to use them.

In fact, here’s the only rule when it comes to writing styles:

You should never feel boxed in by writing styles, and they should never limit you or your book.

The ONLY point of these different styles of writing is to help you think more deeply about how to communicate with your readers to solve their problem.

The Scribe Crew

Read this next.

How to Choose the Best Book Ghostwriting Package for Your Book

How to Choose the Best Ghostwriting Company for Your Nonfiction Book

How to Choose a Financial Book Ghostwriter

Types of Writing Styles

There are four main types of writing: expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative. Each of these writing styles is used for a specific purpose. A single text may include more than one writing style.

Expository writing is one of the most common types of writing. When an author writes in an expository style, all they are trying to do is explain a concept, imparting information from themselves to a wider audience. Expository writing does not include the author’s opinions, but focuses on accepted facts about a topic, including statistics or other evidence.

Examples of Expository Writing

• How-to articles
• News stories (not editorials or Op-Eds)
• Business, technical, or scientific writing

Descriptive

Descriptive writing is often found in fiction, though it can make an appearance in nonfiction as well (for example, memoirs, first-hand accounts of events, or travel guides). When an author writes in a descriptive style, they are painting a picture in words of a person, place, or thing for their audience. The author might employ metaphor or other literary devices in order to describe the author’s impressions via their five senses (what they hear, see, smell, taste, or touch). But the author is not trying to convince the audience of anything or explain the scene – merely describe things as they are.

Examples of Descriptive Writing

• Journal/diary writing
• Descriptions of Nature
• Fictional novels or plays

Persuasive writing is the main style of writing you will use in academic papers. When an author writes in a persuasive style, they are trying to convince the audience of a position or belief. Persuasive writing contains the author’s opinions and biases, as well as justifications and reasons given by the author as evidence of the correctness of their position. Any “argumentative” essay you write in school should be in the persuasive style of writing.

Examples of Persuasive Writing

• Cover letters
• Op-Eds and Editorial newspaper articles
• Reviews of items
• Letters of complaint
• Advertisements
• Letters of recommendation

Narrative writing is used in almost every longer piece of writing, whether fiction or nonfiction. When an author writes in a narrative style, they are not just trying to impart information, they are trying to construct and communicate a story, complete with characters, conflict, and settings.

Examples of Narrative Writing

• Oral histories
• Novels/Novellas
• Poetry (especially epic sagas or poems)
• Short Stories

About Writing: A Guide Copyright © 2015 by Robin Jeffrey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Writing Style

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In this section

Subsections.

What this handout is about

This handout will help you determine and achieve the most effective writing style for the context in which you’re writing.

What do we mean by style?

Have you ever wondered what your instructors mean when they write “wordy” or “awk” in the margins of your paper? Do you sometimes sense that your sentences could be stronger, clearer, shorter, or more effective? Do you often feel that you know what you mean but do not know how to say it? If you sometimes get feedback from your instructors that you need to “tighten your prose” or “look at your word choice,” these can all be reactions to writing style.

Part of the problem with style is that it’s subjective. Different readers have different ideas about what constitutes good writing style, and so do different instructors and different academic departments. For example, passive voice may be used differently in the sciences than in the humanities. You may have an instructor who keeps circling items in your paper and noting “word choice” or “awkward” and another who comments only on content. Confusingly, some of what readers identify as writing problems may technically be grammatically correct. A sentence can be wordy and still pass all the rules in the grammar handbooks. This fact may make it harder for you to see where a reader’s reaction is coming from. Feedback on style can help you avoid distracting from your argument and learn to express your ideas more directly, elegantly, and persuasively in the eyes of an intended audience.

Say what you mean

First, remember that your goal in academic writing is not to sound intelligent, but to get your intelligent point across. You may be reading complicated textbooks and articles, and even when they don’t make sense to you, they all sound smart. So when you have to write a paper, you may try to imitate this type of writing. But sometimes when you imitate a complicated style, you sacrifice communicating and being understood.

Say it in the appropriate tone

You may also receive feedback on style if you write exactly like you speak to your friends over lunch at Lenoir. We’ve written this pamphlet in a chatty, friendly style, hoping that you’ll read it and think, “This isn’t such a painful way to learn about style.” This may not be the appropriate style for every academic paper. Some instructors may invite slang and colloquialisms in their assignments, but most won’t. When in doubt, aim for clear, broadly accessible language, and don’t assume that because a discipline is “artsy” or “out there” that instructors in that discipline want you to write creatively.

These cautions don’t mean you should write all your sentences in a choppy, obvious, “see Jane run” style. It just means that you should make sure that your instructor isn’t distracted from what you are trying to say by how you are saying it.

How to improve

If you learn how to recognize matters of style in your writing, you will have more control over your writing—the way someone reads your paper will be a result of choices you have made. If those choices are deliberate, you’ll have more control over how the reader reacts to your argument. So let’s look at what instructors often perceive as the biggest style “crimes.” You probably don’t have trouble with all of these, so focus your attention on those issues most relevant to your own writing. First we’ll explain some common, style-related writing problems, then we’ll show you some handy tips for finding them, and finally we’ll work on correcting them in your revision process. (That’s right: at first you may have to include a revision devoted entirely to style in your writing process, at least until you get used to recognizing and correcting these issues as you write.)

This term is used to cover a couple of style problems that involve using more words than you absolutely need to say something. Especially when we talk, we use a lot of little “filler” words that don’t actually have anything to add to the meaning of our sentences. (The previous sentence has several examples—see if you can take five words out of it without losing any of its meaning.) In writing, these filler words and phrases become more obvious and act as delays in getting the reader to your point. If you have enough delays in your sentence, your readers might get frustrated. They might even start skimming your paper, which seems a shame after all of your efforts to communicate with them.

Your wordiness may derive from a problem unrelated to your writing style: uncertainty about your topic, lack of a developed argument, or lack of evidence. If you’re not sure what you want or have to say, you may have trouble saying it. As you struggle to find what you mean or play with a vague idea or concept, you may write garbled or rambling sentences. If this happens to you, it doesn’t mean that you are a “bad” writer or that you have a “bad” writing style or “bad” ideas. It simply indicates that you are using writing as a way to think—to discover your point. It’s okay to let yourself think on the page and write to discover precisely what you mean. Taking thirty minutes (or more) to let yourself write and clarify your point for yourself may save you lots of time later. Write to yourself until you can quickly explain to a friend what you are writing about, why you believe it, and what evidence supports your position. Then, sit down to write your paper with your reader in mind. Note: Some writers, in an effort to make a page limit, will be wordy on purpose—this tactic will be obvious to the reader, and most instructors will be less than impressed. If you find yourself struggling to meet length requirements, see our handout on how to read an assignment for some tips. If you are still way off on page length and our handout hasn’t helped you, you may want to talk to your instructor. (If that seems too daunting a task, take a look at our handout about asking for feedback .)

Wordy constructions such as cliches, qualifiers, and redundant pairs are easy to fix once you recognize your tendency to use them. Read several of your old papers and see if you can locate any of these tendencies or consider whether they have become a habit for you in your writing:

• Problem : Clichés Example : France bit off more than it could chew in Vietnam, and America’s intervention was too little, too late. How to correct it : Clichés stand in for more precise descriptions of something. Slow down and write exactly, precisely what you mean. If you get stuck, ask yourself “why? or “how?” Better example : As the French faltered in Vietnam, even American intervention could not save the collapsing regime.
• Problem : Lots of qualifiers (very, often, hopefully, practically, basically, really, mostly) Example : Most people usually think that many puppies are generally pretty cute. How to correct it : Eliminate some of these qualifiers and you will have a stronger, more direct point. Some qualifiers are necessary, but you should use them carefully and thoughtfully. Better example : Most people think that puppies are cute.
• Problem : Using two words that mean the same thing. Example : Adrienne fulfilled all our hopes and dreams when she saved the whole entire planet. How to correct it : Choose the most precise term and delete the extra one. Better example : Adrienne fulfilled all our hopes when she saved the planet.

Some “wordy” constructions take a little more practice locating and correcting:

• Problem : Overuse of prepositional phrases (prepositions are little words such as in, over, of, for, at, etc.) Example : The reason for the failure of the economic system of the island was the inability of Gilligan in finding adequate resources without incurring expenses at the hands of the headhunters on the other side of the island. How to locate and correct this problem : Locate this problem by circling all of the prepositional phrases in your paper. A few are okay, but several in a sentence (as demonstrated here) make the reader struggle to find and follow your subject and point. Correct this problem by reading the sentence, looking away from it, and writing or saying out loud what you meant when you wrote the sentence. Try asking yourself “Who did what to whom?” Replace the first sentence with your new sentence. Better example : Gilligan hurt the economic system of the island because he couldn’t find adequate resources without angering the headhunters.

Verb trouble

Nouns (person, place, thing, or concept) and verbs (words that describe an action or state of being) are the hearts and souls of all sentences. These become the essential elements—what your grammar teacher may have called the “subject” and the “predicate” or the “actor” and “action” of every sentence. The reader should be able to clearly locate the main subject and verb of your sentences and, ideally, the subject and verb should be close together in the sentence. Some style “crimes” are varied symptoms of one problem: the subjects and verbs or the actor and action of your sentence are hiding from the reader.The reader has trouble following who is doing what to whom. Instructors may write comments like “passive voice” or “weak verbs” in your paper’s margins. While using passive voice or weak verbs is grammatically correct, it may make the reader work too hard to decipher your meaning. Use passive voice and weak verbs strategically once you get the hang of them. If you’re still struggling to figure out what they are, you need to aim for “active voice” and “strong verbs” to improve your writing.

• Problem : Passive voice. When you hide the actor by putting it somewhere after the action (not in the usual subject part of the sentence) and add a “to be” verb, you are using passive voice. For more detailed coverage, see our handout on the passive voice . Examples : Here’s a passive sentence with the actor at the end of the sentence (not at the beginning, where you would usually expect the subject): The alien remains were lost by the government. Some passive sentences omit actor entirely : The alien remains were lost. The car was wrecked. Better (active) examples : The government lost the alien remains. I wrecked the car. How to locate and correct this problem : Locate passive voice in your papers by circling every “to be” verb (am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being ) in your paper. Not all of these verbs will indicate a passive construction or one you want to change, but if the “to be” verb is sitting next to another verb, especially one that ends in “ed,” (“was lost”, “was wrecked”) then you may be using passive voice. If you have trouble finding “to be” verbs, try finding the subject, verb, and object in each sentence. Can the reader tell who or what is doing the action in your sentence? Correct passive constructions by putting that actor back in the subject of the sentence and getting rid of the “to be” verb. Note that you may have to add information in the sentence; you have to specify who in your sentence and thereby keep the reader from guessing—that’s good.
• Problem : Nominalization—a fancy term for making verbs and adjectives into nouns. Again, sometimes you want to use nominalization and may do so purposefully. But too much nominalization in a paper can sound abstract and make the reader work to decipher your meaning. (Professional academic writing often has a lot of nominalization—that’s one reason why you may struggle with some of your assigned reading in your courses!) Examples : The discovery of the aliens was made by the government. The car wreck was a result of a lack of visual focus. How to locate and correct the problem: Locate nominalization in your papers by circling all of the nouns. Do you have several in a single sentence? You might be hiding the action (the verb) of your sentence inside of a noun. Correct nominalization by returning the abstract noun to its function as verb or adjective. This will take practice—focus on making the sentence simpler in structure (actor and action): The government discovered the aliens. My sister wrecked the car when she forgot to wear her glasses. Also, look for sentences that begin with the following phrases: there is, there are, this is, that is, it is. Sometimes you need these phrases to refer to an immediately preceding sentence without repeating yourself, but they may be hiding nominalizations. Example : There is a need for further study of aliens. How to locate and correct this problem: Circle these phrases in your paper and try omitting them from the sentence. Who is doing what to whom? Better example: We need to study aliens further.
• Problem: Weak verbs. If you have located and corrected passive voice and nominalization problems in your essay but your sentences still seem to lack meaning or directness, look for “weak” verbs. Verbs such as “to be” verbs and “have” verbs can often be replaced by “strong” verbs, verbs that carry specific meaning. Concentrate on what the subject of your sentence does and make that the verb in the sentence. Example : The aliens have a positive effect on our ecosystem. How to locate and correct this problem: Locate weak verbs by circling all of the “to be” and “have” verbs in your paper. Correct weak verbs by omitting them and replacing them with a more meaningful verb. Notice that you will need to add information as you specify the nature of the action. Answer the question: “What does the subject really do ?” Better example: The aliens improve our ecosystem.

Ostentatious erudition

You may be inclined to improve your style by sounding more “collegiate” or by using multi-syllabic words. Don’t ever do so without looking up those words to make sure you know exactly what they mean. And don’t blindly accept the recommendations of your word processing program’s thesaurus—these tools may be dangerous unless you double-check the meaning of the words in a dictionary. Many times, an inappropriate synonym will make you sound like you don’t know what you are talking about or, worse yet, give the impression that you are plagiarizing from a source you don’t understand. Never use a word you can’t clearly define. It’s okay to use big words if you know them well and they fit your overall tone—just make sure your tone is consistent. In other words, don’t say “That miscreant has a superlative aesthetic sense, but he’s dopey.”

You may use overly “erudite” words because you think it is wrong to use the same words over and over again in an essay. In fact, it’s often okay to repeat the same word(s) in your paper, particularly when they are significant or central terms. For example, if your paper discusses the significance of memory represented by the scent of wisteria in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, you are going to write the words “memory” and “wisteria” a lot. Don’t start saying “recollection,” “reminiscence,” “summoning up of past events,” and “climbing woody vine” just to get a little variation in there. A thesaurus might even lead you to say that the significance of nostalgia is represented by the odiferous output of parasitic flowering vegetation. Such sentences may cloud rather than clarify your point.

Now you are ready to edit

You are probably not guilty of every style “crime” in this handout. If you consistently struggle with one of these issues, focus your attention on that one. If you struggle with two or more, work on one at a time. If you try to fix all of them at once, you may find your approach too scattered or the task just plain overwhelming. You may also find that you use different styles for different assignments, with different responses from instructors. Whatever the case, the next time you finish a paper, take the issue you want to address and isolate it. Edit your paper using our “locate and correct” suggestions for that one issue. Ignore everything else (spelling, punctuation, content) and look for only that one issue. This strategy may sound time-consuming, but by isolating your style problems, you will find them easier to fix. As you become more proficient, you will include fewer and fewer style problems in your initial draft, and therefore your draft will need less editing. In the end, you will be a better writer—so what are a few minutes now?

If, after reading this handout and looking at your own writing, you are still struggling to understand style problems, bring a few of your old papers to an appointment at the Writing Center. Using already finished papers will help your tutor show you where your chronic style problems occur, why they occur, and how you can fix them.

By the way, a lot of students who come to the Writing Center almost immediately locate their own problem sentences when they read them aloud. Try this technique yourself, before you hand in your paper. Check out our handout on proofreading techniques for more tips.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Lanham, Richard A. 2007. Revising Prose , 7th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.

Strunk, William, and E. B. White. 2000. The Elements of Style , 4th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Williams, Joseph, and Joseph Bizup. 2017. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace , 12th ed. Boston: Pearson.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Definition of Style

The style in writing can be defined as the way a writer writes. It is the technique that an individual author uses in his writing. It varies from author to author and depends upon one’s syntax , word choice, and tone . It can also be described as a “ voice ” that readers listen to when they read the work of a writer.

Types of Style

There are four basic literary styles used in writing. These styles distinguish the works of different authors, one from others. Here are four styles of writing:

Expository or Argumentative Style

Expository writing style is a subject -oriented style. The focus of the writer in this type of writing style is to tell the readers about a specific subject or topic, and in the end, the author leaves out his own opinion about that topic.

Descriptive Style

In descriptive writing style, the author focuses on describing an event, a character , or a place in detail. Sometimes, the descriptive writing style is poetic in nature, where the author specifies an event, an object , or a thing rather than merely giving information about an event that has happened. Usually, the description incorporates sensory details.

Persuasive Style

Persuasive style of writing is a category of writing in which the writer tries to give reasons and justification to make the readers believe his point of view . The persuasive style aims to persuade and convince the readers.

Narrative Style

Narrative writing style is a type of writing wherein the writer narrates a story . It includes short stories , novels , novellas , biographies , and poetry.

Short Examples of Style in Sentences

• If it sounds like I’m writing, then I prefer to rewrite it. (Conversational)
• “I think it’s a good ide,.” said Jenny. “You can imagine the outcomes!” retorted Emma, pushing the door open. Reluctantly, Jenny followed. ( Narrative )
• The sunset fills the entire sky with the lovely deep color of rubies, setting the clouds ablaze. (Descriptive)
• The waves waltz along the seashore, going up and down in a gentle and graceful rhythm , like dancing. (Descriptive)
• A trip to Switzerland is an excellent experience that you will never forget, offering beautiful nature, fun, and sun. Book your vacation trip today. (Persuasive)
• She hears a hoarse voice, and sees a shadow moving around the balcony. As it moves closer to her, she screams to see a gigantic wolf standing before her. (Narrative)
• From the garden , the child plucks a delicate rose, touching and cradling it gently as if it is a precious jewel. (Descriptive)
• What if you vote for me? I ensure you that your taxes will be very low, the government will provide free education, and there will be equality and justice for all citizens. Cast your vote for me today. (Persuasive)
• The deep blue color of the cat’s eyes is like ocean water on the clearest day you could ever imagine. (Descriptive)
• The soft hair of my cat feels silky, and her black color sparkles as it reflects sunlight. (Descriptive)
• This painting has blooming flowers, rich and deep blues on vibrant green stems, begging me to pick them. (Descriptive)
• Our criminal investigators are famous for recovering clients’ assets, as we not only take your cases but represent truly your interests. (Persuasive)
• Our headache medicines will give you relief for ten hours, with only one pill – and without any side effects. Try it today. (Persuasive)
• Tax raising strategy is wrong because it will cripple businesses. We should reduce taxes to boost growth. (Persuasive)

Parts/Elements of Style in Literature

• Diction : It means the choice and selection of words, phrases , and clauses to use in writing.
• Sentence Structure: It means the syntactic structure of sentences used in writing.
• Tone : It is an author’s attitude toward his writing, his characters, and his audience .
• Narrator : It means the narrator of the narrative who could be a first-person, third-person, second-person, or even an omniscient narrator.
• Grammar: It means the use of grammatical construction in the writing.
• Punctuation : It means the use of mechanics including capitalization.
• Use of Literary Devices : It means the use of figurative language and other literary or poetic devices.

Examples of Style in Literature

Here are some examples of different writing styles from literature:

Example #1: The Pleasures of Imagination By Joseph Addison

“The pleasures of the imagination, taken in their full extent, are not so gross as those of sense. … A man of polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures … A man should endeavour, therefore, to make the sphere of his innocent pleasures as wide as possible, that he may retire into them with safety … Delightful scenes, whether in nature, painting, or poetry, have a kindly influence on the body, as well as the mind, and not only serve to clear and brighten the imagination, but are able to disperse grief and melancholy …”

This is an example of an expository writing style, in which the author describes the advantages of imagination with facts and logical sequence, and tells his delight in imagination. Then, he discusses its benefits and finally gives opinions in its favor.

Example #2: Summer Shower By Emily Dickinson

“ A drop fell on the apple tree , Another on the roof, And made the gables laugh, The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; And signed the fete away.”

This poem gives an example of a descriptive style. Ms. Dickinson describes a summer rainstorm in detail, with beautiful images, so that the readers can visualize this storm in their own minds as if it is actually happening.

Example #3: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three.’ By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, … The guests are met, the feast is set: Mayst hear the merry din.”

In this poem, Coleridge uses narrative style, as he tells a story about the ancient mariner. He uses dialogues , disputes, actions, and events in a sequence, thus providing a perfect example of the narrative style of writing.

Example #4: Dorian Gray By Oscar Wilde

“The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden… The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through… or circling with monotonous insistence…”

This is a good example of descriptive writing style since the author gives visualizations, feelings, descriptions of a location, and details about bees that could be seen and heard.

Example #5: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain

“Pretty soon it darkened up and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was right about it … and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves …”

Here, Twain has demonstrated a narrative style, as well as used colloquial words in presenting this passage, as expressed through the voice of a young Southern-American boy.

Example #6: The Raven By Edgar Allen Poe

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary… And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted – nevermore!”

Here, the poet crafts a story of longing and desolation. The poem reads like a tale, containing a proper beginning, middle, and end. It has narrative elements like characterization , symbols , plot elements, and resolution that make it dramatic.

Example #7: Smoke By Henry David Thoreau

“Light-winged Smoke! Icarian bird, Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight; Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, Circling above the hamlets as thy nest; Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; By night star-veiling, and by day Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; Go thou, my incense, upward from this hearth, And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.”

Thoreau describes the intensity of the smoke that helps form a colorful image in the minds of the readers. He uses metaphor to compare smoke to “incense,” or an “Icarian bird.” He also describes “star-veiling” and “shadowy” and lets the readers imagine smoke.

Function of Style

A unique literary style can have a great impact on the piece in which it is used, and on the readers. When authors write and put their ideas into words, they have many choices to make, which include: words, sounds, logic, and sentence structures. However, different authors use different literary styles that depend on their distinct expressions, and their utilization of these choices. And their choices create their niche.

Synonyms of Style

There are several words used as synonyms for style such as manner, method, approach, system, mode, form, practice, methodology, manner, way, procedure, modus operandi, design , and pattern. Each has its own connotations and can be considered as close synonyms instead of direct meaning.

Related posts:

• Literary Writing Style of Dr. Seuss
• Literary Writing Style of Ray Bradbury
• Literary Writing Style of J. K. Rowling
• Literary Writing Style of Charles Dickens
• Literary Writing Style of Anne Bradstreet
• Literary Writing Style of George Orwell
• Literary Writing Style of Ernest Hemingway
• Literary Writing Style of Edgar Allan Poe
• Literary Writing Style of Jane Austen
• Literary Writing Style of John Steinbeck
• Literary Writing Style of Kurt Vonnegut
• Literary Writing Style of Maya Angelou
• Literary Writing Style of William Faulkner
• Literary Writing Style of James Joyce
• Literary Writing Style of Mark Twain
• Literary Writing Style of Stephen King

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What is Style? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples

Style definition.

Style  (stEYEhl) is defined as the way something is done. In literature, it applies to how something is written. It distinguishes one author from another based on the  tone  and  voice  of their writing.

The Elements of Style

Everyone has their own unique style based on their personality, how they write, and their storytelling techniques. But essentially, someone’s writing style is the sum of the following elements: voice, tone, diction, and punctuation.

Voice is the personality that comes through the writing based on the author’s background,  perspective , and experiences. The story the author is telling will be a culmination of their opinions and culture, which shape the style of the piece.

Tone is the attitude the writer has toward the subject of their writing, which can affect the style. If someone is writing a persuasive essay and they passionately disagree with the topic, their tone may come across as angry, which informs their style.

Diction is central to a writer’s style, as word choice is a key factor in how readers interpret the text. Whether writers use words with a negative connotation,  metaphors , or abstract or literal language, it all makes a difference and contributes to that author’s style.

Punctuation

Though there are rules that govern the use of punctuation in literature, there is some wiggle room where writers can play around to make a statement or impact the way a reader understands a point. This is especially true in  poetry , where word breaks, dashes, periods, and commas are used to help get the meaning of the  poem  across. For example, in Emily Dickinson’s poem “ Because I Could Not Stop for Death ,” she uses dashes at the end of each line, which aren’t technically necessary, to parallel the theme of immortality.

The Types of Style

Different styles can be influenced by an author’s skill set or by the medium of writing—whether it’s a book or a newspaper, for example. The most common types of styles are expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative.

Expository Writing

This kind of writing does not include the author’s opinion. Its purpose is to provide non-biased information to an audience using accepted facts and statistics. This fact-based style is common in textbooks and informational websites. In fact, this very article is an example of expository writing.

Descriptive Writing

Writers use descriptive style to create a visual, and it usually includes sensory words to evoke a well-rounded picture of what is being described. Rather than state facts about a person or event, this style uses poetic images to get the point across, often using metaphors and similar devices to paint the picture. This style of writing is often seen in poetry and novels.

Persuasive Writing

In  persuasive  style, you know the author’s opinion because they’re trying to sway you into thinking a certain way. The point of this kind of writing is to convince the reader to believe what the author believes. This is often used in persuasive essays, advertisements, media articles, speeches, and cover letters.

Narrative Writing

This style of writing consists of a  plot  with characters and a story. Rather than simply convey information,  narrative  writers create a full story to communicate a message. It is commonly found in fiction novels and occasionally nonfiction writing.

Purple Prose

Typically, writers don’t want to draw attention to their style; it should be natural and appropriate for the subject or genre. When the style overpowers the plot or subject matter, it’s known as purple prose. It’s when an author draws unneeded attention to their writing style using excessive adjectives, formal phrasing, or too many words, or when it’s too flowery or unnecessarily poetic. However, this only refers to writing that detracts from the story and doesn’t serve a purpose; this doesn’t apply to the characteristically flowery writing in classic novels or poetry.

The Function of Style

Every author has a writing style that individualizes their work. It’s what makes their writing interesting and what determines whether readers enjoy their pieces. Without a writing style, their work would be boring and monotone. Every choice the writer makes, including  pacing , word choice, and  tone  determines how the reader will take in the message of their writing. It’s what makes you read all the books written by your favorite author; you know that no matter the plot, you’ll enjoy the way the story is told.

Examples of Style in Literature

1. Walt Whitman, “Thoughts”

Whitman uses a persuasive style of writing in the third  stanza  of this  poem :

OF persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies,

wealth, scholarships, and the like;

To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks

away from them, except as it results to their

Bodies and Souls,

So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked;

And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and

mocks himself or herself,

And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness,

is full of the rotten excrement of maggots,

And often, to me, those men and women pass unwit-

tingly the true realities of life, and go toward

false realities,

And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has

served them, but nothing more,

And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked son-

nambules, walking the dusk.

Here, he’s telling readers that seeking wealth and status does more harm than good to the human soul. He describes what their bodies are reduced to after leading such a meaningless life, using phrases such as “rotten excrement” and “walking the dusk” to make his point.

2. F. Scott Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby

Nick is having dinner with his cousin Daisy, her husband, and a friend, and he begins to describe her countenance:

I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget […]

Fitzgerald uses descriptive language here to paint a picture of Nick’s cousin, describing auditory and visual senses to place the reader in the room as if they were one of her admirers.

3. Agatha Christie,  The A.B.C. Murders

Detective Hercule Poirot awakens Captain Hastings to share that another murder had taken place:

Poirot was standing by my bedside gently shaking me by the shoulder. One glance at his face brought me from semi-consciousness into full possession of my faculties […] As I sprang from bed and made a rapid toilet, he recounted briefly what he had just learnt over the telephone.

This example of  narrative  style, as the scene describes the interaction between two characters at a crucial plot point.

Further Resources on Style

William Shrunk Jr. and E.B. White’s  The Elements of Style  is a classic book on how to make a large impact with your writing style.

Writer’s Edit wrote  ten tips  for developing your own unique writing style.

Related Terms

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Research Guides

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APA Style 7th Edition Tutorials for Students in Psychology and Social Work

What is apa style.

• The Importance of Citing

Why is APA Style needed?

How do i get started with apa style, let us practice what we have learned, attribution and acknowledgement.

• Basics of APA Style Tutorial
• Reference Entry Elements
• Reference Examples
• Reference List
• In-Text Citations
• Student Paper Format
• Managing References - Zotero

Origination of APA Style

• Where did APA Style come from?

Commonly Used APA Related Terms

Abstract : Abstract is a brief synopses of article. It provides a brief but comprehensive summary of the article. 

Citing : In the context of academic writing, citing is the act of acknowledging the sources of information you have used when writing your work.

Citation:  A citation gives credit to a source, and contains publication information such as author(s), title and date.

DOI (digital object identifier): It is a unique alphanumeric string assigned to a digital object, mainly a scholarly article, to provide a persistent link to its location on the internet. 

In-Text Citation : It is a brief note that appears within the body of the paper and briefly identifies the cited work by its author and date of publication. An in-text citation should always match the corresponding entry in the reference list at the end of paper.

Paraphrasing : A paraphrase restates another’s idea (or your own previously published idea) in your own words. 

Plagiarism : It is the act of presenting the words, ideas, or images of another as your own; it denies creators of content the credit they are due. 

Quoting : It is the act of reproducing the exact wording used by the original author. Direct quotations appear within quotation marks and end with a citation.

Reference : It contains details about one cited work, generally including four elements:  author, date, title, and source.  

Reference List : It identifies all the sources you cited in the text of your paper. It generally is at the end of the paper and definitely on a new page after the text of your paper. 

APA Style is the most common writing style used in college and career. Its purpose is to promote excellence in communication by helping writers create clear, precise, and inclusive sentences with a straightforward scholarly tone. It addresses areas of writing such as how to

• format a paper so it looks professional;
• credit other people’s words and ideas via citations and references to avoid plagiarism; and
• describe other people with dignity and respect using inclusive, bias-free language.

APA Style is primarily used in the behavioral sciences, which are subjects related to people, such as psychology, education, and nursing. It is also used by students in business, engineering, communications, and other classes. Students use it to write academic essays and research papers in college, and professionals use it to conduct, report, and publish scientific research.

In addition, APA Style provides you with a powerful tool that will hep you avoid deliberate or unintentional plagiarism. Please review the Avoiding Plagiarism Guide created by the APA experts to understand what two common types of plagiarism are and how to avoid them. 

Why is learning citations important? Citations help readers understand where the information used in your paper comes from, enabling them to trace the path of that information. When readers wish to explore a specific point or reference cited in the text, citations make it easier by providing information about your sources in a standardized format.

Besides showing readers where you obtained information, using citations also has a strong ethical purpose. In academic writing, it is important to credit ideas that are not your own. Citations allow you to integrate the ideas of others with your own thoughts in a fair and honest way.

The reference formats for APA Style manuals are as follows:

APA Style provides a foundation for effective scholarly communication because it helps authors present their ideas in a clear and concise, and organized manner.  Uniformity and consistency enable readers to (a) focus on the ideas being presented rather than formatting and (b) scan works quickly for key points, findings, and sources. When style works best, ideas flow logically, sources are credited appropriately, and papers are organized predictably and consistently. 

Students are encouraged to first learn about APA Style by reading works written in APA Style. A couple of guides created by APA experts from the American Psychological Association can help you with that:

Anatomy of a Journal Article   https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/anatomy-journal-article.pdf

Scholarly journal articles share a common anatomy or structure. Each part of an article serves a specific purpose. The handout of  Anatomy of a Journal Article explains how journal articles are structured and how to become more efficient at reading and understanding them. Understanding the structure of a scholarly article and the purpose of each part helps you grasp a strategy called targeted reading. Targeted reading means to read specific sections of research articles first to determine if the article seems useful for your research topic. This way you will save time, find useful article faster, and choose which articles to read in full.

Reading and Understanding Abstracts https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reading-abstracts.pdf

Abstracts are short summaries of scientific research articles. The handout of Reading & Understanding Abstracts explains the definition and purpose of abstracts and the benefits of reading them, including analysis of a sample abstract. The skill of reading and understanding abstracts of scholarly articles not only saves time but also helps you conduct better research and write more effectively.

APA Style Writing Principles https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/writing-principles.pdf

The poster created by APA experts shows the three main principles of APA Style: clarity, precision, and inclusion and lists steps on how to achieve them. As a student writer, you always should write your academic paper with clarity, precision, and inclusion. 

Research Article Activity https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/apa-style-research-activity.pdf

Reading research articles is not an easy task for you as a student. The Research Article Activity designed by APA Style experts aims to make it easy to read and understand a scholarly article. This activity worksheet helps you find, cite, analyze, and summarize a research article. Completing this activity breaks down a lengthy research article into easily understandable chunks. This way helps you better understand the study in the article before you write about it. 

The information in this Guide   is courtesy of   the official APA Style website by the American Psychological Association.

Source Credit: Information on this LibGuide comes from APA Style website https://apastyle.apa.org/ This website has a wealth of free and authoritative resources designed to help anyone new to APA Style.

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Griff Explains Why Her Songwriting Style Is 'Weirdly' the Opposite of Taylor Swift's (Exclusive)

The British rising star tells PEOPLE about her new 'Ver2igo Vol. 2' EP, switching up her signature hairstyle and overcoming writer's block on tour

Courtesy of Warner Records

Griff is balancing hardships with career heights.

Fresh off a headlining world tour that followed her 2023 stint opening for Coldplay , the British singer-songwriter released her new EP, Ver2igo Vol. 2, on Friday, April 5, marking the next chapter of her current era — eventually set to culminate in her debut full-length album.

Since breaking through with her One Foot in Front of the Other mixtape in 2021, the 23-year-old rising star has earned a BRIT Award as well as Taylor Swift 's stamp of approval and songwriting advice from Chris Martin .

While experiencing such highs in her professional life, however, Griff's also faced personal lows, from soul-crushing heartbreak to periods of writer's block — all of which inspired the four tracks on Ver2igo Vol. 2 .

Griff (born Sarah Faith Griffiths) recently sat down with PEOPLE to discuss her latest project, why her songwriting style differs from Swift's and the recent decision to switch up her signature "bubble braid" hairstyle.

You previously said Vert1go Vol. 1 was "fragile and heartbroken and insular" installment of this project. How would you describe Vol. 2 ?

I would say it's still desperately heartbroken, but I think sonically, there's something uplifting and driven about it, and I'd say there's a new layer of euphoria in this one.

Is that reflective of the stages of heartbreak you've personally experienced?

I think so. It's a natural cycle of life, I think, whether it's heartbreak or just growing up. There are really low moments at the start, and then at some point you have to figure out your confidence and your place in all of it. That's probably what's happened over the last couple of years, and that's why the music goes in this arc.

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

When did you go through the heartbreak that inspired these tracks?

I don't really write songs about a specific — well, actually sometimes I do… I always try to write in a sense that I can listen and think about family, friendships, or romance. I don't think I've ever been one to specifically write about the actual detail, date, shade, taste and smell. To me, it's an overall feeling of, I don't know... there's something in growing up where you just go through a real rediscovery of yourself, and there's a lot of life blocks that happen. I think that's more what these songs are about.

Your approach is almost the opposite of Taylor Swift's ultra-specific songwriting.

Weirdly, yeah. I don't know why. I guess growing up, I never got used to writing those songs, because I would listen to Taylor, but I was too young to have really experienced some of those things. I think I developed a style of writing that was more, I guess, open for people to be able to interpret.

This series of EPs will eventually culminate in a full-length project. Were all the songs written in the same wave of songwriting, or did you write each volume separately?

No, it wasn't as tidy a process as that. In between all of my touring, I'd get back to the U.K., and I'm a bedroom producer, I guess, so I'd pack up all of my equipment, put it in my car and then go to a random Airbnb that had a piano in it and try to write. I did that maybe eight times, and I had about 100 songs in a Dropbox folder. It’s only in hindsight that I've now been trying to pick the ones I want to finish and hearing that they sit in different worlds slightly. They all have this common theme, but the feelings are all slightly different. And so that's what I've been figuring out. But the process has been almost upside down and a bit sporadic.

You've been on tour almost constantly since releasing your breakthrough mixtape, One Foot in Front of the Other , in 2021. It doesn't seem easy for you to write on the road.

I found it really difficult, to be honest. I realized that I don't write well under pressure. The mixtape was written in COVID, and I just had a lot of time with my own thoughts, and then suddenly being on tour, you're almost never alone, and you're not in any creative head space. You see those videos of Ed Sheeran , where he writes “Shape of You” in 15 minutes on a tour bus, and I'm like, "This is going to be me on tour. It's going to be amazing." It wasn't the case.

I actually had really, really bad writer's block. That's why I had to be so drastic when I came back to the U.K., where it's like, I need to almost trick my brain into a low-pressure environment. There wasn't any point of the label hiring out big, fancy studios where there's a chef and a big mixing desk because I think that would just cripple me. I just needed to be in a really s---ty cottage making myself breakfast, sitting down at the piano and just figuring out these songs. So, I definitely found the touring process hard.

Matthew Baker/Getty

You've said that while on tour with Coldplay, you played 30 songs for Chris Martin. I know you co-wrote "Astronaut" together, but did you get advice from him for any songs on either volume of Vertigo ?

Yeah, I played them pretty much most of it. He was so helpful. He has got such a good ear for things, and it was just nice playing music to someone who just knows exactly what I'm talking about, obviously. Also, fresh ears on something is so valuable with anything. When you're making something or in any creative process, you've either seen, heard or read it a lot of times, and so you lose sight of what makes sense, what chorus is good and what melody should go again. He gave me a lot of advice, like, "That one's great. You should do that bit again. That makes your chorus."

It was a really fun evening to sit with him because I got to a place with all of the songs where I was like, "I don't know if any of this is good" — genuinely. That's not any fake humility or anything, I was genuinely like, "I don't know what I'm doing here." It came at a time where he was suddenly like, "Just stay on the path and keep working on it. It's going to be great."

Since breaking through with singles like "Black Hole," do you feel like you've been able to take in the big moments — touring with massive artists, winning a BRIT Award — as they've come?

I don't think I have, but maybe that's also intentional, again, with the whole pressure thing. The more I think about it, the more crippling it gets. Whereas, if I just let the BRITs and “Black Hole” and everything since then just be another day in the life, it helps me just carry on in a way that I can digest. Otherwise, it all gets a bit too overwhelming for me.

Dave Benett/Getty

One big difference in your approach to the mixtape and these EPs is your hair. The "bubble braid" became your signature look, and now you're sporting a forehead swirl. How did you decide to switch up the hair?

I don't know. I haven't said goodbye to the bubble braid forever, to be honest. I think the bubble braid became a really useful thing, just firstly, for people to be able to recognize me, and also to turn up to set and know exactly what my hair's going to look like. It's just one less thing to think about. And especially with having Afro hair, it was just a protective hairstyle that worked. With this season, the spiral has been a real symbol for this whole era. So, it's just fun to incorporate it into different things — that's the thinking behind all of the different hair choices. But I enjoy playing with all of it.

Does the spiral hold significance in this era?

Definitely, yeah. I feel like it sums up the feeling of the whole project. And even starting with “Vertigo,” the idea of things spinning and being out of balance. I think “Vertigo,” to me, resonates in an emotional sense and the idea of heartbreak feeling like emotional vertigo, this spiraling feeling. I think it encapsulates what the album is about, for sure.

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Are you rich and ridiculous? TikTok comedian Shabaz Ali has you in his sights

By day he is a chemistry teacher, by night he is a TikTok star who posts hilarious takedowns of the pretentiously wealthy. He talks about poverty, dwindling attention spans and writing his first book

S habaz Ali is a 30-year-old chemistry teacher from Blackburn. He adores his job. After only five minutes in his company, you get a sense of how he might be in front of a classroom – funny, playful, engaged. But after he’s turned off the Bunsen burners, Ali goes home and steps into his other “office”: his bed. Here, with the hood of his onesie pulled up, he clocks in for his other vocation as a social media personality. His TikTok channel, Shabaz Says , has an audience of millions.

Ali is known for his scathing reaction videos to pretentious displays of wealth and bizarre social media trends. They proliferate fast in this world. When influencers post about going to “gourmet water bars”, making “designer ice”, or step-by-step guides to “fridge curation” (organising your fridge to be as minimalistic as possible), Ali has something withering to say.

All of Ali’s videos are made in bed. His roasting method is simple: he chooses a viral video that one of his followers has tagged him in; sets up TikTok’s “duet” function; says his tagline (“In today’s episode of I’m rich, you’re poor… ”), then ad-libs a pithy piss-take and watches the cry-laughing emojis roll in. He started posting during the first lockdown. Like many of us, Ali spent a lot of time lying on his side, scrolling. “It was around that time that the 60-second video became popular. I guess they knew people were sitting at home and not going out, so they didn’t want to watch long videos. We were incentivised to just scroll, scroll and scroll.”

But the idea of his pupils doing the same thing weighed heavily on his mind. In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis that was affecting so many of them, he felt queasy about the content that was flooding TikTok timelines: cartoonishly flashy trips to Dubai; private jet lounges; £615 Balenciaga silver lunchboxes . The endless veneration of stuff . He worried about his pupils seeing the same things. So he decided to wield his quick humour and offer an antidote. He positioned himself as the “povvo” who could offer a reality check; a little tap on the shoulder while people were scrolling, to say, “Hey, you know this is nuts, don’t you?”

Many people who grew up in financial difficulty will have muscle memory of the impact of the word “povvo” (myself included). His reappropriation of it struck a chord. Very quickly, his community began using it to describe themselves. His online moniker is now King of the #Povvogang. Today, it’s less of a gang than a movement, with his 1.9m followers on TikTok and 1.6m on Instagram.

I’m meeting Ali at a hotel in London’s Soho to talk about his new book, I’m Rich, You’re Poor: How to Give Social Media a Reality Check . It’s packaged as a deep dive into social media’s ridiculously rich and promises to help the reader love their own “extraordinarily ordinary” life. It’s clear he feels a little out of place in our lunchtime habitat. He travelled to London by train from Blackburn this morning and tells me he will be heading back after our interview. His publishers offered him a night in a hotel, but: “It isn’t for me,” he says. He surveys the room, full of people with heavy-framed glasses having intense conversations over their laptops. “Like, this is not me,” he says, smirking.

But here we are. Ali is fizzing with excitement about his book. To write tens of thousands of words must be tricky for someone used to creating 60-second video clips, I suggest. I’m wrong. “Nooooo,” he says, in his warm Blackburn lilt. “I worked with a co-writer, who helped me structure my ideas and say what I wanted to say. But once I started, it all just came out.” His favourite thing about university was the written assignments, he says. Pardon? “Yeah, I had the best time ever writing my dissertation. It was 20,000 words long. People never believe that, but it’s true.” I believe him. Ali needs little prompting to talk (and talk). But it’s not overbearing: he’s gentle, attentive and holds eye contact as strongly as he does his convictions.

Each chapter of I’m Rich, You’re Poor takes on a different concept (food, beauty, health and cleanliness) with clear socio-political underpinnings. For each, he juxtaposes the online fantasy world with his own sarcastic, surreal commentary, as well as real “hacks” that have been shared within his “pound-shop hive mind” community – such as turning an Aldi candle backwards to look like one from Jo Malone.

The book is defiantly left wing and very funny in places, with some crystalline nuggets of wisdom about our modern lives. “In reality, we are all ill from a loss of community, a loss of social safety nets and the general psychological erosion that comes from spending too much time online,” he writes in one passage. Overall, however, I couldn’t help feeling that an already-successful online formula had lost its way in the medium of the printed page. It’s very possible this says more about me – my biases – than anything else. Ali hopes that the book might get “the TikTok generation” reading more. If his humour can draw people in, the important political messages might be digested with more concentration than scrolling through short clips requires.

Ali is adamant that social media can still be a force for good. Particularly for connecting people who find it hard to connect offscreen. He was on Facebook from university onwards, but he also used social platforms, such as MSN and Bebo. “Good for a kid who had a difficult time growing up,” he says. “My parents are working class. My mum was a housewife, Dad was a taxi driver. He worked his back off for us. We had a nice lifestyle for a while, but then, at some point, they lost it all. We went through a real financial struggle. I missed out on a lot of things other kids had. I was bullied. Yeah…” He pauses. “It was definitely tough. But I started working at McDonald’s when I was 17. I absolutely loved it. I was proud as punch to have some of my own money.”

Ali remembers being obsessed with buying things from service stations. “My parents never got us anything when we drove places because it was just too expensive. So, when I had my own money, well… you can imagine,” he laughs. “I still stop at pretty much every service station to get myself something.” It feels “weirdly liberating” for him to now have thousands of people commenting under his videos about how they’re proud to be povvo. “I’ve had people shouting, ‘All right, povvo?’ at me in the supermarket and I’m, like, ‘Oh, hiya!’ It’s like a badge of honour now.”

About 60% of the world’s population is engaged with social media. Young people spend hours every day scrolling through 60-second videos. The content is designed to be quickly liked and shared, inspiring more videos to be made and fed into the never-ending algorithm. In the space of less than a decade, the phenomenon has galloped into our lives and wreaked havoc with our attention spans.

I’ve never been pulled into the TikTok world, the reaction video trend and the people who become internet famous for, well, reacting, slightlybypassed me. What I am keenly aware of, as a psychotherapist, is the disparity between most people’s realities and what they absorb through their phone screens – and the distress this can cause. In the therapy room, I hear how upsetting all those me-and-them comparisons can become. I hear about how the romanticising of a different life – informed by cosmetic portrayals showing a minuscule slice of someone’s reality – can contribute to a shrinking self-esteem. We can be aware that social media is a highlight reel of people’s material lives, or a sea of manufactured bids for praise, and still feel low when we finally put our phones down. As Ali writes, when consumerism and social media met, they created “a monster”.

The real-world impact of excessive social media use does worry him. At secondary school, he would escape the bullies by sitting on his own in a nearby woodland area to read glossy magazines. “I loved them. The glamour and beauty was so exciting to me, but I knew everything had been retouched and edited. I didn’t compare myself to anything, because I knew the images were manufactured. It was pure escapism,” he says. “But the way kids now are using social media is very different. I’m not sure how much they know what is manufactured and what isn’t.”

He talks about the tiny attention span of his pupils. “Since the lockdowns, I’ve found that I can only engage a classroom on one thing for 15 minutes max, before needing to change the activity. They can’t actually listen for longer than five minutes.” His own ability to focus has changed, too.

“I watch everything at double speed, because I just don’t have the patience. Anything tense I’ll watch at two-and-a-half speed, so I can get through the emotional discomfort more quickly. When I was in the cinema recently, I kept doing the hand motion to skip the screen five seconds along like I do with Netflix.”

Imagining how many young bodies are now loaded with the physical impulse to speed up the passing of time makes me shudder slightly. It is a curious position to be in, I say, making a living from pointing out where social media has gone cuckoo, through social media itself. He laughs. “Yeah, it is. I totally get why people might think it’s ironic. But social media isn’t going away, is it? Not a chance. And I’m not trying to cure it,” he says. “I don’t feel a pressure to change anything. I just feel like it’s important to keep injecting some awareness and humour for ordinary people.”

He does feel a pressure to maintain the strong sense of community that people have found on his channel. “When I post a video about someone’s ridiculous Dubai lifestyle and loads of people in the comments are saying, ‘Oh my God, I can’t even pay my rent this month,’ and they find connection with one another, that feels important,” he says. “They don’t feel as alone. Bringing the ‘social’ back to social media is important to me. It makes people feel like they’re still involved with the world. There were times when I didn’t feel like that and having an online platform helped.”

Now, Ali has diversified his content. He posts fashion critiques (“My only qualification is that I have eyes”); makes behind-the-scenes content of film premieres he’s invited to; is asked to interview people like Dune 2 ’s director Denis Villeneuve. Talking about these things makes him palpably excited. “But I always want to bring the povvogang along with me. My perspective is always: ‘How ridiculous is this?’”

But has his own success changed his perspective? “The book, and my content, is a commentary on how people behave online and how it makes others feel. It’s not just about money; you could be posting about your weight loss, your beauty, your holidays, your parenting. Having money and being rich isn’t a problem, but it’s what you do with that wealth and how it impacts others that I want readers to consider. The opportunities I’ve had do not change who I am – my upbringing, my community, the fact I am a teacher. You can always stand up for the disadvantaged.”

There is something very genuine about him. He says he’s “not morally corruptible” and it’s hard not to believe it. “As a person of colour, we’re always told that success – whatever that looks like – could be taken away from us at any moment, so that is quite ingrained,” he says. “There’s always a voice in your head that says, ‘You could go right back into poverty,’ but I try not to let it come to the forefront.”

He doesn’t want to give up teaching yet (“It honestly brings me so much joy, teaching kids about science, getting them excited about learning, the banter”), but does have bigger, more overtly political ambitions for using his platform. “I’m working with Save the Children to campaign for kids of parents on universal credit being entitled to free school meals,” he says. “Right now they’re not. Which means so many go hungry.”

This subject pushes him into a higher gear. “When I first started making videos, it was because I was seeing a few kids not being able to have lunch. Then I’d go home and see celebrities on private jets, or people dancing around with £25,000 handbags and just feel ill,” he says. Ali would often pay for children’s lunches himself. “But I got told off for it,” he says. Told off? “Yeah, it can look like favouritism for particular kids, or shame the parents.” It must be extremely hard to not intervene, though. “It is. The problem has got worse and worse. It went from two or three kids to 100.”

Ali remembers one boy in particular. “He would come to my registration on Monday mornings looking so pale he was almost blue. I had campaigned to get a breakfast club in the school, which he started coming to. After he’d had breakfast, the colour would come back to his cheeks. We learned it was because the last proper meal he’d had was on Friday lunchtime in school.” We both take a sharp breath. “So yeah,” he says. “That’s what keeps me committed.”

I’m Rich, You’re Poor: How to Give Social Media a Reality Check by Shabaz Ali is published by DK at £14.99. Buy a copy for £13.19 at guardianbookshop.com

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Queen Camilla's Son Tom Parker Bowles Is Writing a Royal Cookbook

Cooking and the Crown : Royal Recipes From Queen Victoria to Charles III will be released in0 the fall.

Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

Cooking and the Crown: Royal Recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III [A Cookbook]

"As a food history geek, I cannot tell you how exciting it has been to write this book," Parker Bowles said in a statement. "To read original recipes in the royal archive in Windsor, and disappear into the lives and reigns (and eating habits) of sovereigns from Queen Victoria onwards. But this is not about roast cygnet, ortolans and snipe stuffed with foie gras – rather a proper cookbook, filled with recipes that I’ve loved cooking. And hope that you will too."

Parker Bowles has authored numerous books on food, including a Fortnum & Mason cookbook , but this is his first time delving into the royal world in book form. In 2022, he wrote about the role of royal kitchens ahead of Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, and around the publication of his book, Time for Tea , he chatted with Town & Country all about the British history of tea. "There is tea as a drink, tea as a meal, tea as etiquette. It is one of the few meals that you can say is wholly British," he explained.

Cooking and the Crown will be published in the UK on September 26, 2024, and in the U.S. on October 22, 2024. You can preorder here.

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma , a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram .

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