How to Find Your Individual Writing Style?
There are many people who write, but some do it better than others. And only a few ones can touch the hearts or engage the minds of their readers so much that they will remember the name of the author.
The vast majority of such authors have developed something that makes them stand out from the crowd: an individual writing style.
If you write, too, and keep looking for ways to make your audience wait impatiently for your next gorgeous piece, a personal style is exactly what you need. If you’re ready to work on it, follow our guidelines.
Read a Lot
As a child learns to speak by listening to other people talk, so does a writer learn to write by reading other people’s works. There are many reasons why reading is essential for an aspiring writer. It can:
- Increase your erudition and level of expertise;
- Improve your vocabulary;
- Help you adopt typical writing patterns and structures;
- Make your writing more complex.
Remember that it’ highly important to read pieces written in different genres, both literary and journalistic. Fiction, especially classic, is a must, as it’s the base on which any writer’s expertise is built.
Don’t Neglect Academic Essays
The topics for academic essays are specifically developed for students to find and improve their writing skills https://write-essay-for-me.com/write-my-dissertation. They are matched with the topics students work on in class, which ensures that they have the basic knowledge to build their writing upon.
If you are a student and an aspiring writer, journalist, or blogger, but you don’t want to write academic essays, there can be two reasons for it:
- Your teacher doesn’t choose the topics accurately
- You don’t really want to write at all
In any case, you can seek help with your essays from professional writing services like EssayPro. If you don’t like the topic, just order an essay and forget about it. If the theme is engaging, but you don’t have enough writing skills yet, use professional work as a reference.
Even if you’re no more a student, writing academic essays can be a good practice, too.
Listen to Yourself
Many professional writers and writing tutors share an opinion that an individual writing style can be found solely by listening to yourself. Even Ray Bradbury himself is known to have mentioned that “the intellect is a great danger to creativity”.
If you read a lot and have a high level of expertise in your chosen subject, you are already halfway there because you:
- know what to say
- have the instruments to say it
The rest is practice! Choose interesting topics and write short essays on them. Try not to spend too much time on each subject, just write whatever comes to your mind. Then edit. Read your essay aloud and ask yourself:
- Does this text sound persuasive to you?
- Is it smooth and logical?
- Does it sound like yours? Do you recognize your voice in it?
If you practice regularly enough, your writing style will improve immensely in not so long a time.
Learn by Imitating Your Favorite Writers
There’s nothing bad in imitation, but only if you use it as a means of learning. Even the great writers had nothing against this method.
If you have an intuitive sense of style, imitation will be a very easy task – just read, find the best examples, and try to write something similar.
But even if you’re not that sensitive yet, you can still learn this trick. After you’ve read something really impressive, try to find other examples of this author’s works. Read 3-4 pieces, and then carefully analyze them:
- What do you like about them?
- What do they all have in common?
- Are there any words, structures, literary techniques that are commonly used in most of the author’s works?
After you’ve got the recipe, use it to cook your own creation. Then, analyze it, too. Does your text sound similar to your example? If not – then, why? Practice all over again.
Know Your Reader
No matter if you’re a journalist, a fiction writer, a blogger or a copywriter, you must have an imaginary portrait of your reader before your eyes when you write. Talk to your readers: persuade them, make them laugh or cry, make them feel something!
This point is mandatory for copywriters and professional bloggers because the very essence of their job is to meet the target audience’s expectations.
Fiction writers and journalists can afford to be more creative. But they, too, should better have at least some reference points.
Wrapping Up
Developing an individual writing style is not an easy task at all. It takes a lot of time, patience, study, and practice. But when you will finally do it, it will give you a serious advantage over your competitors – not to mention the joy you’ll get from finding your own, unique voice!