There are some writing styles that authors use for communicating information, facts, true stories, ideas, and concepts. Why should you learn these writing styles? Learning to recognise and use these writing styles helps to think critically about the author’s purpose, improves reading comprehension and also equips you with ways to present your writing as per your requirements.

Table of Contents

Which are the Types of Writing Styles?

1. Narrative writing

Most of the time, narrative writing is used in fiction and creative writing, however, you can also use it in nonfiction to make true stories more interesting to your readers. When used in creative writing such as in novels, narrative writing is the most basic way to tell a story. When you tell a story through narrative writing, you use story elements like plot, characters, setting, conflict, emotion, and a central message or theme

Also read: Visual Prompts for Narrative Writing

It can be true or made up because you can use the narrative style of writing in fiction as well as nonfiction. Even though there are many kinds of narrative writing, there is one thing that is always important, you should take the reader on a journey with a beginning, middle, and end.

The narrative nonfiction material is factual information told like a story entertainingly with story elements like characters, setting and drama. This type of nonfiction is also called literary nonfiction or creative nonfiction as it requires research and literary writing skills. The author’s purpose is, to tell the truth, but in a conversational story, to make it interesting for the readers.

Example of narrative writing

Novels, short stories, picture books, memoirs, personal essays, speeches, presentations, and editorial articles.

Also read: What is Fiction and Nonfiction

2. Expository writing

The expository nonfiction writing style is used to explain, describe, or tell facts in a clear, easy-to-understand way. In expository nonfiction style, the author tells ideas and facts in a straightforward style. Nonfiction books written in an expository style can help readers learn something new, like a book on the human body, ancient India, how to make curry or make paper crafts.

In Expository writing style, an author explains a topic or gives information about it to teach something to the readers. The expository content answesr any questions a reader might have about a topic. They require answering questions such as “who, what, why, when, and how” to give a comprehensive explanation of something.

Also read: Difference Between Fact and Opinion.

The language in expository writing is usually simple and easy to understand because any reader must comprehend what’s written. Moreover, personal opinions are not provided in expository writing. Instead, facts are stated clearly without bias. So, any content which provides information in a methodical, clear and straighforward manner, without citing opinions or bias, with an intention to teach and explain facts, qualifies as expository writing style.

Also read: How to Improve Reading Comprehension for Beginner Readers

Example of expository writing

Explanatory articles, scientific reports, academic textbooks, encyclopedias, The Guinness Book of World Records and the Time for Kids Big Book of Why.

3. Persuasive writing

The persuasive nonfiction text is meant to influence and persuade the reader to take action or think in a particular direction. In persuasive writing, the author provides their opinions and gives reasons why they think so.

Persuasive nonfiction is different from narrative nonfiction which tells a true story. It is also different from expository nonfiction which simply explains ideas and facts. The idea of persuasive nonfiction is to convince and influence decision-making by providing a perspective, with reasons and showing well-researched facts.

The author’s purpose in persuasive writing is to persuade the audience to agree to their point of view. The goal is to share opinions in a thoughtful way or, even better, to convince the reader of a point of view or idea.

You can use the persuasive style in your writing to show how strongly you feel about an issue or to get people to take action for a cause. However, you can’t just say your point of view and expect everyone to agree with you. You have to back it up well with statistics, testimonials, or some such proof to get the reader on your side.

Example of writing styles – Persuasive

Magazine articles, advertisements, newspaper and online articles, advertisements, sales pitches, cover letters, restaurant menu cards, banners, brochures, applications letters, statements of purpose, appeals and others.

Also read: How to tell stories to kids.

4. Descriptive writing

Writers use words and phrases to describe things in even more depth than a picture could. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but the text can help us see more than just how things look because the author provides a perspective to look at things. You may not notice something in a picture yet when an author puts it in words, you can’t miss it.

When a piece of fiction is written to describe, you will recognise that the author used a lot of details that appeal to the reader’s senses. Our senses are the way we experience the world, and writers use a lot of vocabulary that relates to these senses.

Also read: Methods of Storytelling.

Most creative writing uses descriptive writing. Narrative writing and descriptive writing can be used together to build a scene and setting. It is sometimes used in formal writing to help explain an idea in more detail.

Example of Writing Styles – Descriptive

There is a lot of descriptive writing in short stories, novels, and other types of fiction. The writer wants to create a picture in the reader’s mind. Additionally, product details or descriptive essays also have a lot of writing that describes something.

Also read: Budding Authors Guide to Write Story

Conclusion

The writing style of the author differs according to the purpose of the writing. Whenever required, an author uses tools like sensory descriptive words for better visualisation in fiction. For convincing readers about something, an author uses a persuasive writing style by giving reasons with extensive research to influence.

In expository nonfiction, the author states the nonfiction facts and explanations directly as we see in encyclopedias. To communicate true experiences in narrative nonfiction, an author writes their experience like a story. They use techniques like characters, setting, problem, and solution with rising/falling action.

Also read: Which Are The 21st Century Skills?

So, knowing about various writing styles helps you to know how to write according to your requirements. It also helps to identify the author’s purpose while consuming content. Things are explained, and described, facts are presented simply, or reasons are presented to convince you using these writing styles. Learning these writing styles aids critical thinking, improves reading comprehension and writing skills necessary in the 21st century.