Every writer has a unique writing style. While some are aware of theirs, others are not. If you fall into the latter category, this article is your guide to discovering your writing style.
What is your writing style?
Your writing style is your writing identity. It is your distinct writing voice that makes people recognise your writing at a glance. Having a writing style helps you stay true to your art while conveying your message.
So, how do you discover your writing style?
Here are some practical tips to help you discover yours:
- Let someone review your previous writings
The first step to discovering your writing style is to identify what your style is. To achieve this, you should have a friend, a professional editor, or a more experienced writer review your writing and tell you what they notice.
You can also review your previous writings and notice the things that stand out – your tone, favourite words, and others.
This helps you identify your style.
- Sharpen your writing style
After identifying your writing style, you should hone it.
However, ensure your style doesn’t become so personalised that it no longer fits in the genre you write in. This is because writing professionally also requires that your writing serves the target audience and satisfies the requirements of the genre. And sometimes, your writing style might contradict what is required.
You can achieve a balance by infusing bits of your writing style into your professional writing while avoiding passive words and self-references.
- Trim the fat
Once your writing style is clear, you want to be rid of the bad writing habits that may affect your style and overall writing. This requires that you know general writing rules as well as rules specific to the genres or fields you write in.
Things to avoid in general writing include filler words, typos, grammatical errors, etc. To do this efficiently, you can use free tools like Grammarly to check for spelling and grammar errors. It also has a paid version that does an in-depth review of your writing.
- Keep writing
You don’t want to lose your writing style right after you discover it. So, you should keep writing, but with the awareness of your style.
However, bear in mind that while your writing style is unique to you, you should make it adapt in appropriate situations. For instance, a technical article and a social media post cannot be written in the same tone. The former requires in-depth research and analysis, and has a more serious tone, unlike the latter, which can be fun and casual.
Your writing style shouldn’t be rigid but flexible enough to adapt to relevant scenarios. This also improves your overall writing skills.
Discovering and owning your writing style is a gradual process but with the tips highlighted above, you should master your writing in no time.