Types of Writing Styles

So you’re good at cooking, and your family adores the dishes you produce? It’s high time to share your experience and write a culinary book! But what to start from? Which approach to select to make your writing interesting? Don’t worry – we have a number of valuable tips to make your culinary book a bestseller. Here you will find some valuable advice on choosing the writing style.

The author’s style reflects the individuality, originality, and the manner of approaching the reader. The style of writing will differ among several authors depending on what words they use, how they build their sentences and in general, will depend on their traits of character. It should be mentioned that the style of writing is pretty much individual.

The same stories can be told differently by changing the style of narration. Yet, every work is created for a certain goal. It can be an explanation of the working process of a certain thing or persuasion of the reader to accept the author’s opinion. There exist several main writing styles in which the writer can create his work. Learning their specifications and aspects is vital for any author. Therefore, to become a good writer, you have to learn how to use various styles of writing and pick the one most corresponding one for your story.

Look at these main styles of writing and their descriptions given at Yourwiters.net:

Expository

The main goal of this style is to give an explanation to some event, phenomenon, or connection. Thus, it usually focuses on a particular subject. The author tells his readers about a certain topic without highlighting his viewpoint. Works written in this style require facts and details but should not contain any personal opinion. This style is considered one of the most popular writing approaches; it can be found in manuals and articles describing how to do something, where the writer tells about a certain subject.

Main aspects:

• Is often used for explanation
• Is usually full of data and details
• Works written in this style are usually composed in a logical order.

Descriptive

The main aim of a descriptive writing style lies in the description, as its name suggests. This style is focused on the description of characters, events, or locations. As it is intended more to entertain the reader rather than to inform, it uses adverbs and adjectives, as well as other figures of speech, to include more details that will help the audience imagine the scenery more vividly. This style is common for poetry and fiction.

Main aspects:

• Usually has a poetic nature
• Is used for the description of locales, events, or people with a large number of details
• The writer depicts what he tastes, hears, and sees.

Persuasive

This style is used to persuade. The main difference between this style and the expository one is that persuasive style includes a personal viewpoint of the writer. This writing style requires confirmations and reasons in order to persuade the audience of the writer’s opinion. It should be concise and comprehensible, but it may be a little dramatic to make people agree with your opinion. The writers can sometimes overstate some details to approach the reader on the emotional level. You may find this style in commercials, newspaper articles, or cover letters.

Main aspects:

• Works in this style include arguments, confirmations and reasons
• In this type of writing, the writer holds his own and tries to convince you to accept his opinion
• Usually, it presses the audience to act and change a particular situation.

Narrative

The main aim of this style of writing lies in telling a story. The writer fills his story with characters, dialogues, and actions. He tells about the events which happen to his characters. Sometimes, the story can be told from the viewpoint of the character, which is called the first-person narration. This writing style focuses on the story and not on the facts. It is often used in novels, plays, or legends.

Main aspects:

• The writer relates a story
• The story written in this style is filled with dialogues and personages
• The story is composed logically
• It usually contains actions, polemics or conflicts which solution comes in the end of the story.

Imaginative

This style is obviously familiar to everyone who read fairy tales in their childhood. This category can contain features of all imaginative writing styles – from the reserved and blank to magically realistic ones. As one can see, this style of writing does not necessarily presuppose telling an authentic story. It is supposed to tell a story that probably has or does not have an ideological bias.

This particular style has various aims. For example, it may entertain the audience or make the reader consider serious questions. Besides, it can be intended to scare the readers or calm them down. For example, the writer is going to show his concern about the increasing popularity of social networks among young people. For that, he can make up a story in which the main character will be a young person addicted to a popular network. In such a way, his story will contain the sociological effect of networks.

Main aspects:

• Serves for different purposes
• Does not claim for veracity.

Creative

This style of writing is partially aligned with the previous one. It cannot be called academic or technical, but still, it is intended to attract the audience. Although its specification can seem a bit unrelated, it can be understood as any work that is self-expressive. An article in a newspaper, for instance, does not refer to the creative style, as it is aimed to show the factual information and not to reveal the author’s feelings. The article, of course, can entertain, but its primary goal lies in covering the facts.

Another aim of this style of writing lies in sharing the human experience, whether it is connected with a happy event or with a tragic one. The author tries to tell truly about the mankind, sometimes using the poetic manner of narration. When you are writing a story in this particular style, remember that no matter what feeling you want to reveal, you have to use your imagination.

Inherently, all the styles of writing are just various ways of telling one story, as you may have already understood. Your choice of style will depend on the objective of the narration and the potential readers. Essentially, it all lends itself to the most favorable one.