Style is an expression of a person’s personality and personal values. A person’s style influences the way they dress and the way they speak and interact with others. In addition, a person’s style is also influenced by their experiences and perspective on the world.
A writer’s writing style is the totality of how he or she expresses a particular idea, story, or thought. It includes everything from the way a writer uses language to the way they organize sentences, use literary devices like metaphors and similes, and even their choice of grammar rules.
Authors develop their style through dedication, personal experimentation, and a willingness to explore new ways of conveying ideas and information. This approach creates a unique gestalt of words, sentence structures, and stylistic strategies that are recognizable as the work of one writer.
You can find a variety of examples of writing styles in literature, from classic works by masters to contemporary fiction. Whether you’re reading a short story by Ernest Hemingway or a poem by Emily Dickinson, you can see the same principles of writing style in the way each writer conveys their subject matter.
Hemingway, for example, is known for his sparse style and terse word choices. He wrote about many different subjects in his short stories, from an old man in a boat to a bullfighter in Spain and a soldier during World War I.
In his essay on writing, Hemingway argued that the best writers are “hard workers, diligent scholars and competent stylists.” Their ability to make their words direct and personal is what makes them so renowned.
Another popular definition of style is the overall aesthetic of a piece of writing, such as a novel or article. A writer’s style is a way of expressing their ideas, thoughts, and emotions.
A reader’s experience with a piece of literature depends on how well they interpret the style of the author. That’s why authors often change their writing styles, based on what they think their readers want to know.
While there are various genres of writing, including poetry and fiction, the most popular types of style are expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative. Each of these styles relies on facts and statistics to communicate their message, but the reader must be able to decipher those facts and opinions if they’re going to understand what the author is saying.
The first way that style affects a piece of fiction is through character development. If you’re writing in first person, the character’s worldview will bleed into your style of narrating their story. This is because the person narrating your story will have their own worldview that you’ll be presenting to your readers, and they will most likely want to tell the story in their own way.
This is why it’s so important to change your writing style if you want to adapt your story for a specific audience. For example, if you’re writing a piece about a child’s struggle with memory, you’ll need to use more colorful language and imagery than if you’re writing a romance or historical novel.