How to Get to Know Your Writing Style

Your writing style is unique to you, and is what sets you apart from other writers telling similar stories to you. Legendary writers like Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie, and Franz Kafka all are known for their special writing styles and have inspired writers for decades and more to come.

What are the basic elements of any writing style?

To discover your writing style, you want to look at your voice and tone. Your voice is the personality you take on in your writing, and can change between characters and series, but will always have a bit of similarity because you wrote it.

Tone is the attitude that a piece of writing conveys, like word choice, sentence structure, and grammar. Your age, education, life experience, and writing experience all play a part in the tone of your work.

How can I develop my writing style?

Be original in your work. Your style is your style and no one can replicate it, just as you can’t replicate someone else’s. Find out if your writing is descriptive, lyrical, straight forward. Work on educating yourself in places you’d like to improve.

Use your life experiences. Voice and tone come through most when you’ve experienced the feelings and pain your characters are feeling. This doesn’t mean you have to disconnect yourself from fantasy because you have magic, but everyone has had the feeling of having a lot resting on their shoulders and the stress it causes. Draw your inspiration from your past.

Research, research, research.

Your style will grow and improve with you. You might look back at old works today and see how much you’ve improved. Education can include reading blog posts, looking up word banks, and general research on writing.

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