Writing style is a writer’s uniqueness. When you build your unique style, you will be known for it. For instance, Ernest Hemingway used to begin his sentences with ‘and’ or ‘but’ that was his particular style; Dickens uses aesthetically complex sentences, and that’s his style. So, each writer has his own style, which is the sum total of all the writing mannerisms, choice of vocabulary, and grammar constructions. In this article we will discuss the importance of building such a writing style and see how we can do it.
1. Read more and analyze what you read as you go on. When you read professional publications and blogs, you will know more of what is in these days. You will know the specialty of a particular writer. This is a first step toward building your style.
Some professional publications I recommend reading include Readers’ Digest, news sites like BBC, The Telegraph, CNN, etc. While reading, give importance to the mannerisms, choice of words, sentence structures, etc., used in the article.
2. Why I say ‘avoid Wikipedia’? Wikipedia is written by the commons, and is not entirely correct. Only their premium articles (which are locked from editing) are error-free. All other articles are edited by people, those who even don’t have an account there, and hence tend to be full of errors, grammatically and factually.
Hence, it is important that you read it only for information, not for building writing style. Always read professional blogs and other publications which give you some great advice on writing.
3. Give importance to your grammar and punctuation. The key feature of a writer is primarily his writing grammar and punctuation. When the writer composes an article full of errors, his credibility goes down instantly. So, it is extremely important for the people trying to get into a writing field to learn grammar and punctuation. Rules of grammar and punctuation are very simple and can be learned from such publications as AskOxford, Merriam Webster, etc.
4. There are disputes galore! Yes there are a lot of disputes as the what is correct and what is wrong in written English. For instance, if you check out Oxford comma (google ‘comma rules oxford comma), you will know many writers recommend using it, while some writers avoid it.
It is dependent on the writer what he chooses to use.
Conclusion
It is popular saying that writing has personality. Indeed. The personality of a writer is dependent on the words he uses, the usage, vocabulary he chooses, and the style.
