In Literature, style refers to the way in which an author uses language to convey their ideas and create a unique voice and tone. It encompasses elements such as word choice, sentence structure, tone, and figurative language, among others. An author's style can be characterized as formal or informal, simple or complex, direct or indirect, and can vary greatly depending on the genre, audience, and intended effect of the writing.
Narrative style goes unnoticed when reading a novel or text, but greatly impacts the tone of the story and the effect it has on readers. Just like a person has a specific clothing/fashion ‘style,’ a writer has their own ‘style’ of writing.
Definition of style in Literature
Let's first take a look at what style is.
In literature, style is how something is written by the writer. Each writer has a narrative style that differs in tone and voice, which influences how the reader views the writing.
A writer's style is defined by how the writer forms sentences, arranges the sentences and uses figurative language and word choice to create a specific meaning and tone to the text.
Let’s take, for example, the following sentences that mean the same thing:
He kicked the bucket.
He was sleeping in the heavens.
He was gone.
While the meaning is the same (he died), each line evokes a different mood or feeling. So even if two writers write on the same topic, their writing styles can be completely different (and, therefore, the emotion portrayed).
Try to imagine which character would say each line. How does the word choice and style impact this?
This doesn’t mean a writer’s style can’t change; they may write differently depending on the genre or their target reader.
A contemporary example of writing style would be Rupi Kaur. Her poems are so recognisable due to the lack of capitalisation of letters, the simple and straightforward language and the topic. You would know it’s her poem even if you didn’t know who wrote it:
you were not wrong for leaving
you were wrong for coming back
and thinking
you could have me
when it was convenient
and leave when it was not
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey, 2014, page 120
Another writer known for their writing style is Ernest Hemingway. He writes in plain and clear language (as a result of his time as a reporter and his aversion to glamorised language). As a result, writing styles can distinguish different writers from each other too.
But man is not made for defeat… A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and The Sea, (1952), page 93
Elements of style in Literature
A writer’s writing style includes the way they use tone, diction and voice. The way they are combined portrays a writer's unique and different personality.
Diction refers to word choice and words in writing or speech.
Tone is the attitude of the writing. Namely, the tone could be objective, subjective, emotional, distant, intimate, serious etc. It can include long, complex sentences or short ones to present a specific mood.
Voice is also important in writing style as it is the personality present in the writing. It is based on the author’s beliefs, experiences, and background.
The use of punctuation also indicates writing style. For example, in Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Because I could not stop for Death,’ (1890), the use of dashes at the end of all the lines is symbolic of the theme of mortality. Particularly in poems, punctuation is extensively used to portray a specific meaning.
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
(...)
Emily Dickinson, 'Because I could not stop for Death,' 1890
Fig. 1 - The speaker's voice in poetry is important to consider with style.
Different types of writing styles in Literature
Let us take a look at the types of writing styles in Literature.
| Types of writing styles | Key characteristics |
| Persuasive | Uses logical arguments and emotional appeals to convince the reader to take a particular action or adopt a particular viewpoint |
| Narrative | Tells a story or recounts a sequence of events, often with a focus on character development and plot |
| Descriptive | Uses vivid sensory language to create a picture in the reader's mind, often focusing on the physical details of a person, place, or thing |
| Expository | Provides information or explanation about a topic, often in a clear, concise, and straightforward manner |
| Analytical | Examines a topic or text in detail, breaking it down into its component parts and analyzing its meaning, significance, and implications |
Each writing style serves a different purpose and requires a different approach to writing. By understanding the key characteristics of each style, writers can choose the most appropriate style for their purpose and effectively communicate their message to their audience.
Persuasive writing
Persuasive writing is all about persuading the reader to understand your views. It includes the writer’s opinions and beliefs and logical reasons and evidence to explain why their opinion is correct.
This writing style is used when someone is trying to inspire others to take action to do something or when they have a strong belief about an issue and want others to know.
There are various types of evidence used in the persuasive writing style, but the main ones are anecdotal evidence (interviews, anecdotes, personal experiences), statistical evidence (facts and findings), textual evidence (passages and excerpts from primary sources and books) and testimonial evidence (expert quotes and opinions).
There are two parts of persuasive writing: emotional appeal and logical appeal. Logic is most important in persuasive writing as the argument put forward must be backed up by logical reasons. Emotional appeal is essential to persuade someone to change their opinion as they need to be affected emotionally too. Overall, the writing needs to make sense and make the readers emotionally invested. Below are some examples:
I have come before you today with a heavy heart.
All of your know how hard we have tried. But it is a matter of sadness that the streets of Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rangpur and Rajshahi are today being spattered with the blood of my brothers, and the cry we hear from the Bengali people is a cry for freedom a cry for survival, a cry for our rights. (...)
– Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's '7 March Speech of Bangabandhu,' (1971)
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
– Martin Luther King, 'I Have a Dream,' (1963)
Can you find either emotional appeal or logical appeal in the above examples?
Narrative writing
Narrative writing is to do with storytelling, often through the structure of a beginning, middle and end. It can be a fiction text or non-fiction and written in any form of literature (such as a short story, memoir or novel).
Narrative writing uses the key elements present in all story structures like character, setting, plot and conflict. They are also often written following a specific narrative structure such as the Hero’s journey, the Fichtean Curve or Freytag’s Pyramid.
Hero's Journey
A narrative structure with twelve stages: ordinary world, protagonist's call to adventure, refusal of the call, meets the mentor, crosses the first threshold, series of tests and face enemies, journey to inmost cave, ordeal, reward, the road back, resurrection and return with the elixir.
The Fichtean Curve
A narrative structure with three stages: rising action, climax and falling action.
Freytag's Pyramid
A narrative structure with five stages: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
Descriptive writing
Descriptive writing is a style of writing in which the setting, characters and scenes are explained in great detail.
This type of writing style places readers directly into the story, thus pushing them forward through the story. It accentuates the tone of the story and allows the reader to feel the internal emotions of the protagonist.
The author uses various literary devices to describe their five senses to the readers to give as much description as possible. However, they are not trying to persuade the readers to feel anything, nor are they trying to explain the scene. Instead, all they are doing is describing what is happening.
Descriptive writing can be used in conjunction with narrative writing to build the setting and scene.
In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves
– Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, (1929), Chapter 1.
The flowers were unnecessary, for two o’clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby’s, with innumerable receptacles to contain it. An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie, hurried in. He was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, (1925), Chapter 5.
Expository writing
The goal of those who use the expository writing style is to teach their readers about something. It is used to explain a concept or inform about a certain topic. It tries to answer the reader's questions about a given topic. Topics explored in expository writing can range from inventions to hobbies to any area of human life.
Expository writing uses facts, statistics and evidence to present ideas. Examples include articles and reports. This explanation here is an example of expository writing.
Analytical writing
Analytical writing involves analysing a text through critical thinking and writing an argument about its meaning and the key concepts discussed. The writer needs to provide proof of their argument and end with a summary wrapping up the argument. To get the best marks, examiners prefer this type of writing. Have a look at the example excerpt from an essay on Christa Wolf's Kassandra (1983) below:
The revision of the myth in Wolf's Kassandra is crucial for the survival of an authentic female identity that has not been warped and twisted by male visions. Wolf’s act of looking back allows her to enter the old text through fresh female eyes: to develop, flesh out and rewrite female characters that have been previously solely filtered through male perspectives.
Fig. 2 - Consider the writing style next time you pick up a book.
Form and style in Literature
The way that the writer uses form can contribute to their style.
The form of a piece of text is the structure in which it was written; for example, it could be written in the form of a short story, sonnet, play or dramatic monologue. In the case of a novel, the form allows an author to divide the novel into specific themes and structurally, into chapters or parts. For plays, the form is divided into Acts, Scenes and Parts.
Depending on a writer's style, the writer may choose to use the form in their writing in a certain way; for example, writers who write action scenes may use shorter chapters and scenes to display the story's events. They could even do away with the idea of chapters altogether.
For instance, E. Lockhart's We Were Liars (2014) has chapters, but they are not divided with page breaks. Instead, they continue on the same page, which presents the author's writing style and creates the desired effect on the readers.
Examples of style in Literature
Some examples of significant styles in Literature include Emily Dickinson and Mark Twain.
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.
Emily Dickinson, 'Summer Shower,' (1890)
This poem by Emily Dickinson's 'Summer Shower' (1890) is written in a descriptive writing style; the readers are given specific images and descriptive details through metaphorical language that they can imagine.
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…
Mark Twain, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn (1884) chapter 9.
In The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Mark Twain uses the narrative writing style in his book and colloquial language to create the voice of a Southern-American boy. The simplistic language also makes it easier for young readers.
Other examples include:
- Ernest Hemingway's style is known for its short, simple sentences and direct, straightforward language
- William Faulkner's style is more complex and experimental, with long, intricate sentences and unconventional structures. Tennessee Williams is noted for his dramatic dialogue and powerful characterizations.
An author's style can greatly impact the reader's experience of a work of Literature, and can be an essential part of the author's voice and artistic vision.
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