different writing styles in creative writing

What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)

Creative writing begins with a blank page and the courage to fill it with the stories only you can tell.

I face this intimidating blank page daily–and I have for the better part of 20+ years.

In this guide, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of creative writing with tons of examples.

What Is Creative Writing (Long Description)?

Creative Writing is the art of using words to express ideas and emotions in imaginative ways. It encompasses various forms including novels, poetry, and plays, focusing on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes.

Table of Contents

Let’s expand on that definition a bit.

Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries.

It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.

In essence, creative writing lets you express ideas and emotions uniquely and imaginatively.

It’s about the freedom to invent worlds, characters, and stories. These creations evoke a spectrum of emotions in readers.

Creative writing covers fiction, poetry, and everything in between.

It allows writers to express inner thoughts and feelings. Often, it reflects human experiences through a fabricated lens.

Types of Creative Writing

There are many types of creative writing that we need to explain.

Some of the most common types:

• Short stories
• Screenplays
• Flash fiction
• Creative Nonfiction

Short Stories (The Brief Escape)

Short stories are like narrative treasures.

They are compact but impactful, telling a full story within a limited word count. These tales often focus on a single character or a crucial moment.

Short stories are known for their brevity.

They deliver emotion and insight in a concise yet powerful package. This format is ideal for exploring diverse genres, themes, and characters. It leaves a lasting impression on readers.

Example: Emma discovers an old photo of her smiling grandmother. It’s a rarity. Through flashbacks, Emma learns about her grandmother’s wartime love story. She comes to understand her grandmother’s resilience and the value of joy.

Novels (The Long Journey)

Novels are extensive explorations of character, plot, and setting.

They span thousands of words, giving writers the space to create entire worlds. Novels can weave complex stories across various themes and timelines.

The length of a novel allows for deep narrative and character development.

Readers get an immersive experience.

Example: Across the Divide tells of two siblings separated in childhood. They grow up in different cultures. Their reunion highlights the strength of family bonds, despite distance and differences.

Poetry (The Soul’s Language)

Poetry expresses ideas and emotions through rhythm, sound, and word beauty.

It distills emotions and thoughts into verses. Poetry often uses metaphors, similes, and figurative language to reach the reader’s heart and mind.

Poetry ranges from structured forms, like sonnets, to free verse.

The latter breaks away from traditional formats for more expressive thought.

Example: Whispers of Dawn is a poem collection capturing morning’s quiet moments. “First Light” personifies dawn as a painter. It brings colors of hope and renewal to the world.

Plays (The Dramatic Dialogue)

Plays are meant for performance. They bring characters and conflicts to life through dialogue and action.

This format uniquely explores human relationships and societal issues.

Playwrights face the challenge of conveying setting, emotion, and plot through dialogue and directions.

Example: Echoes of Tomorrow is set in a dystopian future. Memories can be bought and sold. It follows siblings on a quest to retrieve their stolen memories. They learn the cost of living in a world where the past has a price.

Screenplays (Cinema’s Blueprint)

Screenplays outline narratives for films and TV shows.

They require an understanding of visual storytelling, pacing, and dialogue. Screenplays must fit film production constraints.

Example: The Last Light is a screenplay for a sci-fi film. Humanity’s survivors on a dying Earth seek a new planet. The story focuses on spacecraft Argo’s crew as they face mission challenges and internal dynamics.

Memoirs (The Personal Journey)

Memoirs provide insight into an author’s life, focusing on personal experiences and emotional journeys.

They differ from autobiographies by concentrating on specific themes or events.

Memoirs invite readers into the author’s world.

They share lessons learned and hardships overcome.

Example: Under the Mango Tree is a memoir by Maria Gomez. It shares her childhood memories in rural Colombia. The mango tree in their yard symbolizes home, growth, and nostalgia. Maria reflects on her journey to a new life in America.

Flash Fiction (The Quick Twist)

Flash fiction tells stories in under 1,000 words.

It’s about crafting compelling narratives concisely. Each word in flash fiction must count, often leading to a twist.

This format captures life’s vivid moments, delivering quick, impactful insights.

Example: The Last Message features an astronaut’s final Earth message as her spacecraft drifts away. In 500 words, it explores isolation, hope, and the desire to connect against all odds.

Creative Nonfiction (The Factual Tale)

Creative nonfiction combines factual accuracy with creative storytelling.

This genre covers real events, people, and places with a twist. It uses descriptive language and narrative arcs to make true stories engaging.

Creative nonfiction includes biographies, essays, and travelogues.

Example: Echoes of Everest follows the author’s Mount Everest climb. It mixes factual details with personal reflections and the history of past climbers. The narrative captures the climb’s beauty and challenges, offering an immersive experience.

Fantasy (The World Beyond)

Fantasy transports readers to magical and mythical worlds.

It explores themes like good vs. evil and heroism in unreal settings. Fantasy requires careful world-building to create believable yet fantastic realms.

Example: The Crystal of Azmar tells of a young girl destined to save her world from darkness. She learns she’s the last sorceress in a forgotten lineage. Her journey involves mastering powers, forming alliances, and uncovering ancient kingdom myths.

Science Fiction (The Future Imagined)

Science fiction delves into futuristic and scientific themes.

It questions the impact of advancements on society and individuals.

Science fiction ranges from speculative to hard sci-fi, focusing on plausible futures.

Example: When the Stars Whisper is set in a future where humanity communicates with distant galaxies. It centers on a scientist who finds an alien message. This discovery prompts a deep look at humanity’s universe role and interstellar communication.

Watch this great video that explores the question, “What is creative writing?” and “How to get started?”:

What Are the 5 Cs of Creative Writing?

The 5 Cs of creative writing are fundamental pillars.

They guide writers to produce compelling and impactful work. These principles—Clarity, Coherence, Conciseness, Creativity, and Consistency—help craft stories that engage and entertain.

They also resonate deeply with readers. Let’s explore each of these critical components.

Clarity makes your writing understandable and accessible.

It involves choosing the right words and constructing clear sentences. Your narrative should be easy to follow.

In creative writing, clarity means conveying complex ideas in a digestible and enjoyable way.

Coherence ensures your writing flows logically.

It’s crucial for maintaining the reader’s interest. Characters should develop believably, and plots should progress logically. This makes the narrative feel cohesive.

Conciseness

Conciseness is about expressing ideas succinctly.

It’s being economical with words and avoiding redundancy. This principle helps maintain pace and tension, engaging readers throughout the story.

Creativity is the heart of creative writing.

It allows writers to invent new worlds and create memorable characters. Creativity involves originality and imagination. It’s seeing the world in unique ways and sharing that vision.

Consistency

Consistency maintains a uniform tone, style, and voice.

It means being faithful to the world you’ve created. Characters should act true to their development. This builds trust with readers, making your story immersive and believable.

Is Creative Writing Easy?

Creative writing is both rewarding and challenging.

Crafting stories from your imagination involves more than just words on a page. It requires discipline and a deep understanding of language and narrative structure.

Exploring complex characters and themes is also key.

Refining and revising your work is crucial for developing your voice.

The ease of creative writing varies. Some find the freedom of expression liberating.

Others struggle with writer’s block or plot development challenges. However, practice and feedback make creative writing more fulfilling.

What Does a Creative Writer Do?

A creative writer weaves narratives that entertain, enlighten, and inspire.

Writers explore both the world they create and the emotions they wish to evoke. Their tasks are diverse, involving more than just writing.

Creative writers develop ideas, research, and plan their stories.

They create characters and outline plots with attention to detail. Drafting and revising their work is a significant part of their process. They strive for the 5 Cs of compelling writing.

Writers engage with the literary community, seeking feedback and participating in workshops.

They may navigate the publishing world with agents and editors.

Creative writers are storytellers, craftsmen, and artists. They bring narratives to life, enriching our lives and expanding our imaginations.

How to Get Started With Creative Writing?

Embarking on a creative writing journey can feel like standing at the edge of a vast and mysterious forest.

The path is not always clear, but the adventure is calling.

Here’s how to take your first steps into the world of creative writing:

• Find a time of day when your mind is most alert and creative.
• Create a comfortable writing space free from distractions.
• Use prompts to spark your imagination. They can be as simple as a word, a phrase, or an image.
• Try writing for 15-20 minutes on a prompt without editing yourself. Let the ideas flow freely.
• Reading is fuel for your writing. Explore various genres and styles.
• Pay attention to how your favorite authors construct their sentences, develop characters, and build their worlds.
• Don’t pressure yourself to write a novel right away. Begin with short stories or poems.
• Small projects can help you hone your skills and boost your confidence.
• Look for writing groups in your area or online. These communities offer support, feedback, and motivation.
• Participating in workshops or classes can also provide valuable insights into your writing.
• Understand that your first draft is just the beginning. Revising your work is where the real magic happens.
• Be open to feedback and willing to rework your pieces.
• Carry a notebook or digital recorder to jot down ideas, observations, and snippets of conversations.
• These notes can be gold mines for future writing projects.

Final Thoughts: What Is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is an invitation to explore the unknown, to give voice to the silenced, and to celebrate the human spirit in all its forms.

Check out these creative writing tools (that I highly recommend):

Read This Next:

• What Is a Prompt in Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 200 Examples)
• What Is A Personal Account In Writing? (47 Examples)
• How To Write A Fantasy Short Story (Ultimate Guide + Examples)
• How To Write A Fantasy Romance Novel [21 Tips + Examples)

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Last updated on Feb 14, 2023

10 Types of Creative Writing (with Examples You’ll Love)

A lot falls under the term ‘creative writing’: poetry, short fiction, plays, novels, personal essays, and songs, to name just a few. By virtue of the creativity that characterizes it, creative writing is an extremely versatile art. So instead of defining what creative writing is , it may be easier to understand what it does by looking at examples that demonstrate the sheer range of styles and genres under its vast umbrella.

To that end, we’ve collected a non-exhaustive list of works across multiple formats that have inspired the writers here at Reedsy. With 20 different works to explore, we hope they will inspire you, too. 

People have been writing creatively for almost as long as we have been able to hold pens. Just think of long-form epic poems like The Odyssey or, later, the Cantar de Mio Cid — some of the earliest recorded writings of their kind. 

Poetry is also a great place to start if you want to dip your own pen into the inkwell of creative writing. It can be as short or long as you want (you don’t have to write an epic of Homeric proportions), encourages you to build your observation skills, and often speaks from a single point of view . 

Here are a few examples:

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

This classic poem by Romantic poet Percy Shelley (also known as Mary Shelley’s husband) is all about legacy. What do we leave behind? How will we be remembered? The great king Ozymandias built himself a massive statue, proclaiming his might, but the irony is that his statue doesn’t survive the ravages of time. By framing this poem as told to him by a “traveller from an antique land,” Shelley effectively turns this into a story. Along with the careful use of juxtaposition to create irony, this poem accomplishes a lot in just a few lines. 

“Trying to Raise the Dead” by Dorianne Laux

 A direction. An object. My love, it needs a place to rest. Say anything. I’m listening. I’m ready to believe. Even lies, I don’t care.

Poetry is cherished for its ability to evoke strong emotions from the reader using very few words which is exactly what Dorianne Laux does in “ Trying to Raise the Dead .” With vivid imagery that underscores the painful yearning of the narrator, she transports us to a private nighttime scene as the narrator sneaks away from a party to pray to someone they’ve lost. We ache for their loss and how badly they want their lost loved one to acknowledge them in some way. It’s truly a masterclass on how writing can be used to portray emotions. 

If you find yourself inspired to try out some poetry — and maybe even get it published — check out these poetry layouts that can elevate your verse!

Song Lyrics

Poetry’s closely related cousin, song lyrics are another great way to flex your creative writing muscles. You not only have to find the perfect rhyme scheme but also match it to the rhythm of the music. This can be a great challenge for an experienced poet or the musically inclined. 

To see how music can add something extra to your poetry, check out these two examples:

“Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen

 You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well, really, what's it to ya? There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah 

Metaphors are commonplace in almost every kind of creative writing, but will often take center stage in shorter works like poetry and songs. At the slightest mention, they invite the listener to bring their emotional or cultural experience to the piece, allowing the writer to express more with fewer words while also giving it a deeper meaning. If a whole song is couched in metaphor, you might even be able to find multiple meanings to it, like in Leonard Cohen’s “ Hallelujah .” While Cohen’s Biblical references create a song that, on the surface, seems like it’s about a struggle with religion, the ambiguity of the lyrics has allowed it to be seen as a song about a complicated romantic relationship. 

“I Will Follow You into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie

 ​​If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark

You can think of song lyrics as poetry set to music. They manage to do many of the same things their literary counterparts do — including tugging on your heartstrings. Death Cab for Cutie’s incredibly popular indie rock ballad is about the singer’s deep devotion to his lover. While some might find the song a bit too dark and macabre, its melancholy tune and poignant lyrics remind us that love can endure beyond death.

Plays and Screenplays

From the short form of poetry, we move into the world of drama — also known as the play. This form is as old as the poem, stretching back to the works of ancient Greek playwrights like Sophocles, who adapted the myths of their day into dramatic form. The stage play (and the more modern screenplay) gives the words on the page a literal human voice, bringing life to a story and its characters entirely through dialogue. 

Interested to see what that looks like? Take a look at these examples:

All My Sons by Arthur Miller

“I know you're no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.” 

Arthur Miller acts as a bridge between the classic and the new, creating 20th century tragedies that take place in living rooms and backyard instead of royal courts, so we had to include his breakout hit on this list. Set in the backyard of an all-American family in the summer of 1946, this tragedy manages to communicate family tensions in an unimaginable scale, building up to an intense climax reminiscent of classical drama. 

💡 Read more about Arthur Miller and classical influences in our breakdown of Freytag’s pyramid . 

“Everything is Fine” by Michael Schur ( The Good Place )

“Well, then this system sucks. What...one in a million gets to live in paradise and everyone else is tortured for eternity? Come on! I mean, I wasn't freaking Gandhi, but I was okay. I was a medium person. I should get to spend eternity in a medium place! Like Cincinnati. Everyone who wasn't perfect but wasn't terrible should get to spend eternity in Cincinnati.” 

A screenplay, especially a TV pilot, is like a mini-play, but with the extra job of convincing an audience that they want to watch a hundred more episodes of the show. Blending moral philosophy with comedy, The Good Place is a fun hang-out show set in the afterlife that asks some big questions about what it means to be good. 

It follows Eleanor Shellstrop, an incredibly imperfect woman from Arizona who wakes up in ‘The Good Place’ and realizes that there’s been a cosmic mixup. Determined not to lose her place in paradise, she recruits her “soulmate,” a former ethics professor, to teach her philosophy with the hope that she can learn to be a good person and keep up her charade of being an upstanding citizen. The pilot does a superb job of setting up the stakes, the story, and the characters, while smuggling in deep philosophical ideas.

Personal essays

Our first foray into nonfiction on this list is the personal essay. As its name suggests, these stories are in some way autobiographical — concerned with the author’s life and experiences. But don’t be fooled by the realistic component. These essays can take any shape or form, from comics to diary entries to recipes and anything else you can imagine. Typically zeroing in on a single issue, they allow you to explore your life and prove that the personal can be universal.

Here are a couple of fantastic examples:

“On Selling Your First Novel After 11 Years” by Min Jin Lee (Literary Hub)

There was so much to learn and practice, but I began to see the prose in verse and the verse in prose. Patterns surfaced in poems, stories, and plays. There was music in sentences and paragraphs. I could hear the silences in a sentence. All this schooling was like getting x-ray vision and animal-like hearing. 

This deeply honest personal essay by Pachinko author Min Jin Lee is an account of her eleven-year struggle to publish her first novel . Like all good writing, it is intensely focused on personal emotional details. While grounded in the specifics of the author's personal journey, it embodies an experience that is absolutely universal: that of difficulty and adversity met by eventual success. 

“A Cyclist on the English Landscape” by Roff Smith (New York Times)

These images, though, aren’t meant to be about me. They’re meant to represent a cyclist on the landscape, anybody — you, perhaps. 

Roff Smith’s gorgeous photo essay for the NYT is a testament to the power of creatively combining visuals with text. Here, photographs of Smith atop a bike are far from simply ornamental. They’re integral to the ruminative mood of the essay, as essential as the writing. Though Smith places his work at the crosscurrents of various aesthetic influences (such as the painter Edward Hopper), what stands out the most in this taciturn, thoughtful piece of writing is his use of the second person to address the reader directly. Suddenly, the writer steps out of the body of the essay and makes eye contact with the reader. The reader is now part of the story as a second character, finally entering the picture.

Short Fiction

The short story is the happy medium of fiction writing. These bite-sized narratives can be devoured in a single sitting and still leave you reeling. Sometimes viewed as a stepping stone to novel writing, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Short story writing is an art all its own. The limited length means every word counts and there’s no better way to see that than with these two examples:

“An MFA Story” by Paul Dalla Rosa (Electric Literature)

At Starbucks, I remembered a reading Zhen had given, a reading organized by the program’s faculty. I had not wanted to go but did. In the bar, he read, "I wrote this in a Starbucks in Shanghai. On the bank of the Huangpu." It wasn’t an aside or introduction. It was two lines of the poem. I was in a Starbucks and I wasn’t writing any poems. I wasn’t writing anything. 

This short story is a delightfully metafictional tale about the struggles of being a writer in New York. From paying the bills to facing criticism in a writing workshop and envying more productive writers, Paul Dalla Rosa’s story is a clever satire of the tribulations involved in the writing profession, and all the contradictions embodied by systemic creativity (as famously laid out in Mark McGurl’s The Program Era ). What’s more, this story is an excellent example of something that often happens in creative writing: a writer casting light on the private thoughts or moments of doubt we don’t admit to or openly talk about. 

“Flowering Walrus” by Scott Skinner (Reedsy)

I tell him they’d been there a month at least, and he looks concerned. He has my tongue on a tissue paper and is gripping its sides with his pointer and thumb. My tongue has never spent much time outside of my mouth, and I imagine it as a walrus basking in the rays of the dental light. My walrus is not well. 

A winner of Reedsy’s weekly Prompts writing contest, ‘ Flowering Walrus ’ is a story that balances the trivial and the serious well. In the pauses between its excellent, natural dialogue , the story manages to scatter the fear and sadness of bad medical news, as the protagonist hides his worries from his wife and daughter. Rich in subtext, these silences grow and resonate with the readers.

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Perhaps the thing that first comes to mind when talking about creative writing, novels are a form of fiction that many people know and love but writers sometimes find intimidating. The good news is that novels are nothing but one word put after another, like any other piece of writing, but expanded and put into a flowing narrative. Piece of cake, right?

To get an idea of the format’s breadth of scope, take a look at these two (very different) satirical novels: 

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I wished I was back in the convenience store where I was valued as a working member of staff and things weren’t as complicated as this. Once we donned our uniforms, we were all equals regardless of gender, age, or nationality — all simply store workers. 

Keiko, a thirty-six-year-old convenience store employee, finds comfort and happiness in the strict, uneventful routine of the shop’s daily operations. A funny, satirical, but simultaneously unnerving examination of the social structures we take for granted, Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman is deeply original and lingers with the reader long after they’ve put it down.

Erasure by Percival Everett

The hard, gritty truth of the matter is that I hardly ever think about race. Those times when I did think about it a lot I did so because of my guilt for not thinking about it.  

Erasure is a truly accomplished satire of the publishing industry’s tendency to essentialize African American authors and their writing. Everett’s protagonist is a writer whose work doesn’t fit with what publishers expect from him — work that describes the “African American experience” — so he writes a parody novel about life in the ghetto. The publishers go crazy for it and, to the protagonist’s horror, it becomes the next big thing. This sophisticated novel is both ironic and tender, leaving its readers with much food for thought.

Creative Nonfiction

Creative nonfiction is pretty broad: it applies to anything that does not claim to be fictional (although the rise of autofiction has definitely blurred the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction). It encompasses everything from personal essays and memoirs to humor writing, and they range in length from blog posts to full-length books. The defining characteristic of this massive genre is that it takes the world or the author’s experience and turns it into a narrative that a reader can follow along with.

Here, we want to focus on novel-length works that dig deep into their respective topics. While very different, these two examples truly show the breadth and depth of possibility of creative nonfiction:

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

Men’s bodies litter my family history. The pain of the women they left behind pulls them from the beyond, makes them appear as ghosts. In death, they transcend the circumstances of this place that I love and hate all at once and become supernatural. 

Writer Jesmyn Ward recounts the deaths of five men from her rural Mississippi community in as many years. In her award-winning memoir , she delves into the lives of the friends and family she lost and tries to find some sense among the tragedy. Working backwards across five years, she questions why this had to happen over and over again, and slowly unveils the long history of racism and poverty that rules rural Black communities. Moving and emotionally raw, Men We Reaped is an indictment of a cruel system and the story of a woman's grief and rage as she tries to navigate it.

Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker

He believed that wine could reshape someone’s life. That’s why he preferred buying bottles to splurging on sweaters. Sweaters were things. Bottles of wine, said Morgan, “are ways that my humanity will be changed.” 

In this work of immersive journalism , Bianca Bosker leaves behind her life as a tech journalist to explore the world of wine. Becoming a “cork dork” takes her everywhere from New York’s most refined restaurants to science labs while she learns what it takes to be a sommelier and a true wine obsessive. This funny and entertaining trip through the past and present of wine-making and tasting is sure to leave you better informed and wishing you, too, could leave your life behind for one devoted to wine. 

Illustrated Narratives (Comics, graphic novels)

Once relegated to the “funny pages”, the past forty years of comics history have proven it to be a serious medium. Comics have transformed from the early days of Jack Kirby’s superheroes into a medium where almost every genre is represented. Humorous one-shots in the Sunday papers stand alongside illustrated memoirs, horror, fantasy, and just about anything else you can imagine. This type of visual storytelling lets the writer and artist get creative with perspective, tone, and so much more. For two very different, though equally entertaining, examples, check these out:

Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson

"Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure." 

This beloved comic strip follows Calvin, a rambunctious six-year-old boy, and his stuffed tiger/imaginary friend, Hobbes. They get into all kinds of hijinks at school and at home, and muse on the world in the way only a six-year-old and an anthropomorphic tiger can. As laugh-out-loud funny as it is, Calvin & Hobbes ’ popularity persists as much for its whimsy as its use of humor to comment on life, childhood, adulthood, and everything in between. 

From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

"I shall tell you where we are. We're in the most extreme and utter region of the human mind. A dim, subconscious underworld. A radiant abyss where men meet themselves. Hell, Netley. We're in Hell." 

Comics aren't just the realm of superheroes and one-joke strips, as Alan Moore proves in this serialized graphic novel released between 1989 and 1998. A meticulously researched alternative history of Victorian London’s Ripper killings, this macabre story pulls no punches. Fact and fiction blend into a world where the Royal Family is involved in a dark conspiracy and Freemasons lurk on the sidelines. It’s a surreal mad-cap adventure that’s unsettling in the best way possible. 

Video Games and RPGs

Probably the least expected entry on this list, we thought that video games and RPGs also deserved a mention — and some well-earned recognition for the intricate storytelling that goes into creating them. 

Essentially gamified adventure stories, without attention to plot, characters, and a narrative arc, these games would lose a lot of their charm, so let’s look at two examples where the creative writing really shines through: 

80 Days by inkle studios

"It was a triumph of invention over nature, and will almost certainly disappear into the dust once more in the next fifty years." 

Named Time Magazine ’s game of the year in 2014, this narrative adventure is based on Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. The player is cast as the novel’s narrator, Passpartout, and tasked with circumnavigating the globe in service of their employer, Phileas Fogg. Set in an alternate steampunk Victorian era, the game uses its globe-trotting to comment on the colonialist fantasies inherent in the original novel and its time period. On a storytelling level, the choose-your-own-adventure style means no two players’ journeys will be the same. This innovative approach to a classic novel shows the potential of video games as a storytelling medium, truly making the player part of the story. 

What Remains of Edith Finch by Giant Sparrow

"If we lived forever, maybe we'd have time to understand things. But as it is, I think the best we can do is try to open our eyes, and appreciate how strange and brief all of this is." 

This video game casts the player as 17-year-old Edith Finch. Returning to her family’s home on an island in the Pacific northwest, Edith explores the vast house and tries to figure out why she’s the only one of her family left alive. The story of each family member is revealed as you make your way through the house, slowly unpacking the tragic fate of the Finches. Eerie and immersive, this first-person exploration game uses the medium to tell a series of truly unique tales. 

Fun and breezy on the surface, humor is often recognized as one of the trickiest forms of creative writing. After all, while you can see the artistic value in a piece of prose that you don’t necessarily enjoy, if a joke isn’t funny, you could say that it’s objectively failed.

With that said, it’s far from an impossible task, and many have succeeded in bringing smiles to their readers’ faces through their writing. Here are two examples:

‘How You Hope Your Extended Family Will React When You Explain Your Job to Them’ by Mike Lacher (McSweeney’s Internet Tendency)

“Is it true you don’t have desks?” your grandmother will ask. You will nod again and crack open a can of Country Time Lemonade. “My stars,” she will say, “it must be so wonderful to not have a traditional office and instead share a bistro-esque coworking space.” 

Satire and parody make up a whole subgenre of creative writing, and websites like McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and The Onion consistently hit the mark with their parodies of magazine publishing and news media. This particular example finds humor in the divide between traditional family expectations and contemporary, ‘trendy’ work cultures. Playing on the inherent silliness of today’s tech-forward middle-class jobs, this witty piece imagines a scenario where the writer’s family fully understands what they do — and are enthralled to hear more. “‘Now is it true,’ your uncle will whisper, ‘that you’ve got a potential investment from one of the founders of I Can Haz Cheezburger?’”

‘Not a Foodie’ by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell (Electric Literature)

I’m not a foodie, I never have been, and I know, in my heart, I never will be. 

Highlighting what she sees as an unbearable social obsession with food , in this comic Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell takes a hilarious stand against the importance of food. From the writer’s courageous thesis (“I think there are more exciting things to talk about, and focus on in life, than what’s for dinner”) to the amusing appearance of family members and the narrator’s partner, ‘Not a Foodie’ demonstrates that even a seemingly mundane pet peeve can be approached creatively — and even reveal something profound about life.

We hope this list inspires you with your own writing. If there’s one thing you take away from this post, let it be that there is no limit to what you can write about or how you can write about it. 

In the next part of this guide, we'll drill down into the fascinating world of creative nonfiction.

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14 Types of Creative Writing

by Melissa Donovan | Apr 6, 2021 | Creative Writing | 20 comments

Which types of creative writing have you tried?

When we talk about creative writing, fiction and poetry often take the spotlight, but there are many other types of creative writing that we can explore.

Most writers develop a preference for one form (and genre) above all others. This can be a good thing, because you can specialize in your form and genre and become quite proficient. However, occasionally working with other types of writing is beneficial. It prevents your work from becoming stale and overladen with form- or genre-specific clichés, and it’s a good way to acquire a variety of techniques that are uncommon in your preferred form and genre but that can be used to enhance it.

Types of Creative Writing

Free writing: Open a notebook or an electronic document and just start writing. Allow strange words and images to find their way to the page. Anything goes! Also called stream-of-consciousness writing, free writing is the pinnacle of creative writing.

Journals: A journal is any written log. You could keep a gratitude journal, a memory journal, a dream journal, or a goals journal. Many writers keep idea journals or all-purpose omni-journals that can be used for everything from daily free writes to brainstorming and project planning.

Diaries: A diary is a type of journal in which you write about your daily life. Some diaries are written in letter format (“Dear Diary…”). If you ever want to write a memoir, then it’s a good idea to start keeping a diary.

Letters: Because the ability to communicate effectively is increasingly valuable, letter writing is a useful skill. There is a long tradition of publishing letters, so take extra care with those emails you’re shooting off to friends, family, and business associates. Hot tip: one way to get published if you don’t have a lot of clips and credits is to write letters to the editor of a news publication.

Memoir: A genre of creative nonfiction , memoirs are books that contain personal accounts (or stories) that focus on specific experiences. For example, one might write a travel memoir.

Essays. Essays are often associated with academic writing, but there are many types of essays, including personal essays, descriptive essays, and persuasive essays, all of which can be quite creative (and not especially academic).

Journalism: Some forms of journalism are more creative than others. Traditionally, journalism was objective reporting on facts, people, and events. Today, journalists often infuse their writing with opinion and storytelling to make their pieces more compelling or convincing.

Poetry: Poetry is a popular but under-appreciated type of writing, and it’s easily the most artistic form of writing. You can write form poetry, free-form poetry, and prose poetry.

Song Lyrics: Song lyrics combine the craft of writing with the artistry of music. Composing lyrics is similar to writing poetry, and this is an ideal type of writing for anyone who can play a musical instrument.

Scripts: Hit the screen or the stage by writing scripts for film, television, theater, or video games. Beware: film is a director’s medium, not a writer’s medium, but movies have the potential to reach a non-reading audience.

Storytelling: Storytelling is the most popular form of creative writing and is found in the realms of both fiction and nonfiction writing. Popular forms of fiction include flash fiction, short stories, novellas, and full-length novels; and there are tons of genres to choose from. True stories, which are usually firsthand or secondhand accounts of real people and events, can be found in essays, diaries, memoirs, speeches, and more. Storytelling is a tremendously valuable skill, as it can be found in all other forms of writing, from poetry to speech writing.

Speeches: Whether persuasive, inspirational, or informative, speech writing can lead to interesting career opportunities in almost any field or industry. Also, speech-writing skills will come in handy if you’re ever asked to write and deliver a speech at an important event, such as a graduation, wedding, or award ceremony.

Vignettes: A  vignette is defined as “a brief evocative description, account, or episode.” Vignettes can be poems, stories, descriptions, personal accounts…anything goes really. The key is that a vignette is extremely short — just a quick snippet.

Honorable Mention: Blogs. A blog is not a type of writing; it’s a publishing platform — a piece of technology that displays web-based content on an electronic device. A blog can be used to publish any type of writing. Most blogs feature articles and essays, but you can also find blogs that contain diaries or journals, poetry, fiction, journalism, and more.

Which of these types of creative writing have you tried? Are there any forms of writing on this list that you’d like to experiment with? Can you think of any other types of creative writing to add to this list? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment, and keep writing.

20 Comments

What is “flash” writing or stories.

Flash fiction refers to super short stories, a few hundred words or fewer.

its very helpful especially to those students like me who wasn’t capable or good in doing a creative writing

I’m glad you found this post helpful, Elena.

I also found this to be very helpful, especially because I don’t do very well at writing.

Thanks for letting me know you found this helpful. Like anything else, writing improves with practice.

Thank you Melissa. It’s very helpful!

You’re welcome!

Over all good list. Yes blogs can be publishing platforms but only if something is written first. I read what you wrote on a blog.

Thanks a lot Good job

Are these types of creaitve writing the same or different if I need to teach children’s creative writing? Can you recommend a website to teach these?

Hi Marie. Thanks for your question. I’ve come across many websites for teaching children’s creative writing. I recommend a search on Google, which will lead you to a ton of resources.

these are very helpful when it comes to getting in college or essays or just to improve my writing

Thanks, Donte. I’m glad you found this helpful.

Free writing really helps me get going. For some reason my prose are much better when I am not beholden to an overall plot or narrative with specific defined characters. I like to free writer “excerpts” on theprose.com. It allows me to practice writing and receive feedback at the same time. I am also trying to blog about writing my first novel, both for writing practice and to keep myself accountable. It really helps!

I feel the same way. Free writing is always a fun and creative experience for me.

Was trying to give an inservice on writing skills and the different types of writing.

Your wok here really helped. Thanks.

You’re welcome.

Hi, Melissa can you assist me ? I’m trying to improve my writing skills as quickly as possible. Plz send me some more tips and trick to improve my writing and communication skills.

You are welcome to peruse this website, which is packed with tips for improving your writing. I’d recommend focusing on the categories Better Writing and Writing Tips for writing improvement. You can also subscribe to get new articles send directly to your email. Thanks!

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A piece’s writing style can help you figure out what kind of writing it is, what its purpose is, and how the author’s voice is unique. With so many different types of writing, you may think it’s difficult to figure out the specific writing style of a piece or you'll need to search through a long list of writing styles.

However, there are actually just four main types of writing styles, and together they cover practically all the writing you see, from textbooks to novels, to billboards and more.  Whether you’re studying writing styles for class or trying to develop your own writing style and looking for information, we’ve got you covered.

In this guide, we explain the four styles of writing, provide examples for each one, go over the one thing you need to know to identify writing style, and give tips to help you develop your own unique style of writing.

The 4 Types of Writing

There are four main different styles of writing. We discuss each of them below, list where you’re likely to see them, and include an example so you can see for yourself what each of the writing styles looks like.

Writers who use the narrative style are telling a story with a plot and characters. It’s the most common writing style for fiction, although nonfiction can also be narrative writing as long as its focus is on characters, what they do, and what happens to them.

Common Places You’d See Narrative Writing

• Biography or autobiography
• Short stories
• Journals or diaries

“We had luncheon in the dining-room, darkened too against the heat, and drank down nervous gayety with the cold ale. ‘What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?’ cried Daisy, ‘and the day after that, and the next thirty years?’    ‘Don’t be morbid,’ Jordan said. ‘Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.’ ‘But it’s so hot,’ insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, ‘and everything’s so confused. Let’s all go to town!’ - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

You can quickly tell that this passage from the novel The Great Gatsby is an example of narrative writing because it has the two key traits: characters and a plot. The group is discussing eating and drinking while trying to decide what to do for the rest of the day.

As in this example, narrative writing often has extended dialogue scenes since the dialogue is used to move the plot along and give readers greater insight into the characters.

Writers use the expository style when they are trying to explain a concept. Expository writing is fact-based and doesn’t include the author’s opinions or background. It’s basically giving facts from the writer to the reader.

Common Places You’d See Expository Writing

• Newspaper articles
• Academic journals
• Business memos
• Manuals for electronics
• How-to books and articles

“The 1995/1996 reintroduction of gray wolves (Canis lupus) into Yellowstone National Park after a 70 year absence has allowed for studies of tri-trophic cascades involving wolves, elk (Cervus elaphus), and plant species such as aspen (Populus tremuloides), cottonwoods (Populus spp.), and willows (Salix spp.). To investigate the status of this cascade, in September of 2010 we repeated an earlier survey of aspen and measured browsing and heights of young aspen in 97 stands along four streams in the Lamar River catchment of the park’s northern winter range. We found that browsing on the five tallest young aspen in each stand decreased from 100% of all measured leaders in 1998 to means of <25% in the uplands and <20% in riparian areas by 2010. Correspondingly, aspen recruitment (i.e., growth of seedlings/sprouts above the browse level of ungulates) increased as browsing decreased over time in these same stands.” -”Trophic cascades in Yellowstone: The first 15 years after wolf reintroduction” by William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta

This abstract from an academic journal article is clearly expository because it only focuses on facts. The authors aren’t giving their opinion of wolves of Yellowstone, they’re not telling a story about the wolves, and the only descriptions are number of trees, streams, etc. so readers can understand the study better.

Because expository writing is focused on facts, without any unnecessary details or stories, the writing can sometimes feel dense and dry to read.

Descriptive

Descriptive writing is, as you may guess, when the author describes something. The writer could be describing a place, person, or an object, but descriptive writing will always include lots of details so the reader can get a clear and complete idea of what is being written about.

Common Places You’d See Descriptive Writing

• Fiction passages that describe something

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or eat: it was a hobbit hole and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted...” - The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

This is the opening passage of the novel The Hobbit . While The Hobbit is primarily an example of narrative writing, since it explores the adventures of the hobbit and his companions, this scene is definitely descriptive. There is no plot or action going on in this passage; the point is to explain to readers exactly what the hobbit’s home looks like so they can get a clear picture of it while they read. There are lots of details, including the color of the door and exactly where the doorknob is placed.

You won’t often find long pieces of writing that are purely descriptive writing, since they’d be pretty boring to read (nothing would happen in them), instead many pieces of writing, including The Hobbit , will primarily be one of the other writing styles with some descriptive writing passages scattered throughout.

When you’re trying to persuade the reader to think a certain way or do a certain thing, you’ll use persuasive writing to try to convince them.  Your end goal could be to get the reader to purchase something you’re selling, give you a job, give an acquaintance of yours a job, or simply agree with your opinion on a topic.

Common Places You’d See Persuasive Writing

• Advertisements
• Cover letters
• Opinion articles/letters to the editor
• Letters of recommendation
• Reviews of books/movies/restaurants etc.
• Letter to a politician

“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ - “This was their finest hour” by Winston Churchill

In this excerpt from his famous “Their finest hour” speech, Prime Minister Winston Churchill is clearing trying to convince his audience to see his viewpoint, and he lays out the actions he thinks they should take. In this case, Churchill is speaking to the House of Commons (knowing many other British people would also hear the speech), and he’s trying to prepare the British for the coming war and convince them how important it is to fight.

He emphasizes how important the fight will be (“Upon this battle depends the survival of the Christian civilization.” and clearly spells out what he thinks his audience should do (“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties…”).

Common Writing Styles to Know

Each of the four main types of writing styles has multiple subsets of styles within it. Here are nine of the most common and important types of writing you’ll see.

Narrative Writing

Character voice.

Character voice is a common writing style in novels. Instead of having an unknown narrator, the audience knows who is telling the story. This first-person narrator can help the reader relate more both to the narrator and the storyline since knowing who is telling a story can help the reader feel more connected to it. Sometimes the narrator is completely truthful in telling what happens, while other times they are an unreliable narrator and will mislead or outright lie to readers to make themselves look better. 

To Kill a Mockingbird (Scout is the narrator) and The Hunger Games (Katniss is the narrator) are two examples of this writing style.

Stream-of-Consciousness

This writing style attempts to emulate the thought process of the character. Instead of only writing about what the character says or does, stream-of-consciousness will include all or most of the characters thoughts, even if they jump from one topic to another randomly or include incomplete thoughts.

For example, rather than writing “I decided to take a walk to the ice cream shop,” an author using the stream-of-consciousness writing style could write, “It’s pretty hot out, and I feel like I should eat something, but I’m not really that hungry. I wonder if we have leftovers of the burgers Mom made last night? Is Mom staying late at work tonight? I can’t remember if she said. Ice cream would be a good choice, and not too filling. I can’t drive there though because my car is still in for repairs. Why is the repair shop taking so long? I should have listened when David said to check for reviews online before choosing a place. I should text David later to see how he is. He’ll think I’m mad at him if I don’t. I guess I’ll just have to walk to the shop.”

James Joyce and William Faulkner are two of the most well-known writers to have regularly used the  stream-of-consciousness writing style.

Epistolary writing uses a series of documents, such as letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, or even text messages to tell a story. They don’t have a narrator, there’s just whoever purportedly gathered the documents together. This writing style can provide different points of view because a different person can be the author of each document.

Well-known examples of epistolary writing include the novels Dracula  (written as a series of letters, newspaper articles, and diary entries) and Frankenstein (written as a series of letters).

Expository Writing

You’ll find this style in textbooks or academic journal articles. It’ll focus on teaching a topic or discussing an experiment,  be heavy on facts, and include any sources it cited to get the information. Academic writing often assumes some previous knowledge of the topic and is more focused on providing information than being entertaining, which can make it difficult to read and understand at times.

Business writing refers to the writing done in a workplace. It can include reports, memos, and press releases. Business writing typically has a formal tone and standard formatting rules. Because employees are presumably very busy at work, business writing is very concise and to the point, without any additional flourishes intended to make the writing more interesting.

You’ll see this writing style most commonly in newspaper articles. It focuses on giving the facts in a concise, clear, and easy-to-understand way. Journalists often try to balance covering all the key facts, keeping their articles brief, and making the audience interested in the story.

This writing style is used to give information to people in a specific field, such as an explanation of a new computer programming system to people who work in software, a description of how to install pipes within a house for plumbers, or a guide to new gene modifications for microbiologists.

Technical writing is highly specialized for a certain occupational field. It assumes a high level of knowledge on the topic, and it focuses on sharing large amounts of information with the reader. If you’re not in that field, technical writing can be nearly impossible to understand because of the jargon and references to topics and facts you likely don’t know.

Descriptive Writing

Poetry is one of the most challenging styles of writing to define since it can come in many forms. In general, poems use rhythmic language and careful word choice to express an idea. A poem can be an example of descriptive writing or narrative writing, depending on whether it’s describing something or telling a story. Poetry doesn’t need to rhyme, and it often won’t follow standard grammatical or structural rules. Line breaks can, and often do, occur in the middle of sentences.

Persuasive Writing

Copywriting.

Copywriting is writing that is done for advertising or marketing purposes. It’s attempting to get the reader to buy whatever the writer is trying to sell. Examples of copywriting include catalogs, billboards, ads in newspapers or magazines, and social media ads.

In an attempt to get the reader to spend their money, copywriters may use techniques such as descriptive language (“This vanilla was harvested from the lush and exotic island of Madagascar"), exciting language (Stop what you’re doing and learn about this new product that will transform your life!”) and exaggeration (“This is the best cup of coffee you will ever taste!”).

Opinion 

People write opinion pieces for the purpose of stating their beliefs on a certain topic and to try to get readers to agree with them. You can see opinion pieces in newspaper opinion sections, certain blog posts, and some social media posts. The quality of opinion writing can vary widely. Some papers or sites will only publish opinion pieces if all the facts in them can be backed up by evidence, but other opinion pieces, especially those that are self-published online, don't go through any fact-checking process and can include inaccuracies and misinformation.

What If You’re Unsure of a Work’s Writing Style?

If you’re reading a piece of writing and are unsure of its main writing style, how can you figure which style it is? The best method is to think about what the purpose or main idea of the writing is. Each of the four main writing styles has a specific purpose:

• Descriptive: to describe things
• Expository: to give facts
• Narrative: to tell a story
• Persuasive: to convince the reader of something

Here’s an example of a passage with a somewhat ambiguous writing style:

It can be tricky to determine the writing style of many poems since poetry is so varied and can fit many styles. For this poem, you might at first think it has a narrative writing style, since it begins with a narrator mentioning a walk he took after church. Character + plot = narrative writing style, right?

Before you decide, you need to read the entire passage. Once you do, it’ll become clear that there really isn’t much narrative. There’s a narrator, and he’s taking a walk to get a birch from another man, but that’s about all we have for character development and plot. We don’t know anything about the narrator or his friend’s personality, what’s going to happen next, what his motivations are, etc.

The poem doesn’t devote any space to that, instead, the majority of the lines are spent describing the scene. The narrator mentions the heat, scent of sap, the sound of frogs, what the ground is like, etc. It’s clear that, since the majority of the piece is dedicated to describing the scene, this is an example of descriptive writing.

How Can You Develop Your Own Writing Style?

A distinctive writing style is one of the hallmarks of a good writer, but how can you develop your own? Below are four tips to follow.

Read Many Different Styles of Writing

If you don’t read lots of different kinds of writing, you won’t be able to write in those styles, so before you try to get your own writing style, read different writing styles than what you’re used to.  This doesn’t mean that, if you mostly read novels, you suddenly need to shift to reading computer manuals. Instead, you can try to read novels that use unreliable narrators, stream-of-consciousness writing, etc.

The more you read, the more writing styles you’ll be exposed to, and the easier it’ll be able to combine some of those into your own writing style.

Consider Combining Multiple Types of Writing Styles

There’s no rule that you can only use one style for a piece of writing. In fact, many longer works will include multiple styles. A novel may be primarily narrative, but it can also contain highly descriptive passages as well as expository parts when the author wants the readers to understand a new concept.

However, make sure you don’t jump around too much. A paper or book that goes from dense academic text to impassioned plea for a cause to a story about your childhood and back again will confuse readers and make it difficult for them to understand the point you’re trying to make.

Find a Balance Between Comfort and Boundary-Pushing

You should write in a style that feels natural to you, since that will be what comes most easily and what feels most authentic to the reader. An academic who never ventures outside the city trying to write a book from the perspective of a weathered, unschooled cowboy may end up with writing that seems fake and forced.

A great way to change up your writing and see where it can be improved is to rewrite certain parts in a new writing style.  If you’ve been writing a novel with narrative voice, change a few scenes to stream-of-consciousness, then think about how it felt to be using that style and if you think it improved your writing or gave you any new ideas. If you’re worried that some writing you did is dull and lacking depth, add in a few passages that are purely descriptive and see if they help bring the writing to life.

You don’t always need to do this, and you don’t need to keep the new additions in what you wrote, but trying new things will help you get a better idea of what you want your own style to be like.

The best way to develop your own writing style is to expose yourself to numerous types of writing, both through reading and writing. As you come into contact with more writing styles and try them out for yourself, you’ll naturally begin to develop a writing style that you feel comfortable with.

Summary: The 4 Different Styles of Writing

There are four main writing styles, and each has a different purpose:

If you’re struggling to figure out the writing style of a piece, ask yourself what its purpose is and why the author wants you to read it.

To develop your own writing style, you should:

• Read widely
• Consider mixing styles
• Balance writing what you know and trying new things

What's Next?

Literary devices are also an important part of understanding writing styles. Learn the 24 literary devices you must know by reading our guide on literary devices.

Writing a research paper for school but not sure what to write about?   Our guide to research paper topics has over 100 topics in ten categories so you can be sure to find the perfect topic for you. 

Are you reading  The Great Gatsby for class or even just for fun?  Then you'll definitely want to check out our expert guides on the biggest themes in this classic book, from love and relationships to money and materialism .

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Types of Creative Writing: A Detailed Explanantion

Read the blog and discover different Types of Creative Writing offering insights and examples to help you navigate the world of literary creativity. Explore various forms such as poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and scriptwriting. Discover how each style offers unique ways to express creativity, tell stories, and engage audiences.

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Creative Writing is a diverse and exciting art that demands Writers to look into their imagination and express their thoughts in unique ways. From short stories to poetry, different   Types of Creative Writing which cater to different styles and preferences. In this blog, we will delve into the different Types of Creative Writing, offering insights and examples to help you navigate the world of literary creativity.

Table of Contents

1) What are the various Types of Creative Writing?

     a) Fiction writing

     b) Poetry

     c) Song lyrics

     d) Journals and diaries

     e) Drama and playwriting

      f) Screenwriting

      g) Experimental writing

      h) Novels

2) Techniques used in Creative Writing

3) Conclusion

What are the various Types of Creative Writing?

 Let’s discuss the various Types of Creative Writing:

Fiction writing 

Fiction writing is one of the captivating Types of Creative Writing that transports readers into imaginary worlds, introduces them to memorable characters, and explores numerous emotions and themes. Within fiction, there are several distinct forms that Writers can explore to weave intricate tales. These forms include:

Fiction writing is a captivating part of Creative Writing that transports readers into imaginary worlds, introduces them to memorable characters, and explores an array of emotions and themes. Within fiction, there are several distinct forms that Writers can explore to weave intricate tales:

a) Short stories:

Short stories are concise yet potent narratives that distil the essence of a single plot, theme, or character arc. Writers craft short stories to deliver a powerful impact within a limited word count. The brevity of the format challenges Authors to make every word count, focusing on evoking emotions, building tension, and delivering a satisfying resolution in a short span of time.

Novels offer the canvas for Writers to embark on extended journeys of storytelling. With ample space to develop complex characters, intricate plotlines, and detailed settings, novels invite readers to immerse themselves in the fictional world fully. Writers can explore a myriad of themes, emotions, and conflicts, delving deep into the psyche of their characters and creating a lasting impact on the reader.

c) Flash fiction:

Flash fiction is the art of storytelling distilled into its most concise form. Writers embrace the challenge of telling a complete story within just a few hundred words. This form demands precision and creativity, forcing Writers to capture the essence of a narrative in a condensed space.

d) Fan fiction:

Fan fiction is a fascinating genre that allows Writers to extend and reimagine existing fictional universes. Writers create new stories, scenarios, and adventures featuring beloved characters from books, movies, TV shows, or video games. By building upon established foundations, Writers engage in a creative dialogue with the original creators and fellow fans.

d) Historical fiction:

Poetry 

Poetry is the language of emotions, a lyrical form of expression that transcends conventional prose. It's one of the most interesting and beautiful  Types  of Creative Writing that condenses thoughts, feelings, and imagery into evocative verses.

It invites readers to experience the world through a different lens. Within the realm of poetry, various forms and styles allow poets to experiment with rhythm, sound, and language, resulting in a rich tapestry of literary artistry that involves the following:

Haiku, originating from Japan, is a minimalist form of poetry that captures the essence of a moment in just three lines. With a syllable structure of 5-7-5, haikus distil nature's beauty and human experiences into concise verses. They often focus on capturing fleeting moments, seasons, and emotions, inviting readers to pause and reflect on the subtleties of life.

The sonnet is a structured and elegant poetic form dating  back to the Renaissance. Typically composed of 14 lines, sonnets follow specific rhyme schemes, such as the Shakespearean (ABABCDCDEFEFGG) or the Petrarchan (ABBAABBACDCDCD). Sonnets explore themes of love, beauty, mortality, and the complexities of human emotion.

c) Free verse:

Free verse poetry breaks away from traditional rhyme and meter patterns, allowing poets to experiment with line breaks, rhythm, and imagery. This form gives poets the freedom to let their thoughts flow naturally, creating unique and organic rhythms that reflect the pace of modern life.

d) Limerick:

Limericks are playful and humorous five-line poems with a distinct AABBA rhyme scheme. These witty verses often feature light-hearted language and unexpected twists, making them a favourite for conveying amusing anecdotes and quirky observations.

e) Epic poetry:

Epic poems tell grand narratives of heroes, gods, and legendary quests. With their lengthy verses and intricate storytelling, epic poems like Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" have shaped cultures and inspired countless works of literature. These narratives delve into themes of heroism, fate, and the human condition, offering readers an immersive journey through time and imagination.

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Song lyrics

If you like writing poetry or you think that it can be your forte as a Creative Writer, then you can also try your hand at writing song lyrics. Song lyrics are another one of the most popular Types of Creative Writing. 

Practising writing song lyrics is one of the best ways to bring out your creativity, especially if you have a knack for music. Although it sounds interesting and fun, matching the lines in a song lyric can be a challenging task.

You need to think about maintaining not only the intent of the song but also the kind of audience you’ll be approaching. Your song lyrics need to be tangible and understandable, and most importantly, they need to carry out a story and song at the same time.

If you don’t have any proper knowledge of music, then you can try getting help from your friends or peers who have a good knowledge of music and see if your lyrics are going well with the music.

Journals and diaries

Practicing journaling is a good way of regulating someone’s emotions and understand their feelings. If you are unsure what Type of Creative Writing you want to pursue, you can simply start by jotting down the events of your day.

Understanding what you go through every day, not only helps you in your personal development, but also help you to become a good Creative Writer. You can even publish your works as we have seen so many famous people publishing their diary entries. If you want to know where to start, there are several journal entries by famous people, whose works can inspire you to start Writing.

Keeping a journal or diary, is crucial for your mental health, as it helps you to express your feelings in a constructive manner. This also gives you another boost to your writing skills, if you are a budding Writer

Drama and playwriting 

Drama and playwriting are artistic forms of Creative Writing that bring narratives to life through the dynamics of performance. These forms of creative expression explore the intricacies of human interaction, emotion, and conflict within the context of staged productions. Let's delve into the world of drama and playwriting, where characters come alive on the stage:  

a) Tragedy:

Tragedy is a dramatic genre that delves into the darker aspects of human nature and the inevitability of suffering. Tragic plays often revolve around protagonists who face moral dilemmas, internal struggles, and external forces that ultimately lead to their downfall. Tragedies offer audiences a cathartic experience, allowing them to confront and process complex emotions while reflecting on the human condition.

Comedy is the art of entertainment through humour and light-heartedness. Comedic plays explore the absurdities of human behaviour, social conventions, and misunderstandings. These works aim to amuse and uplift audiences, often featuring witty dialogue, situational comedy, and humorous characters. From slapstick to sattire, comedies provide a diverse range of comedic experiences.

c) Monologues:

Monologues are powerful soliloquies delivered by a single character on stage. They offer insight into the character's thoughts, emotions, and motivations, allowing the audience to connect deeply with their inner world. Monologues provide actors with opportunities to showcase their talent and capture the essence of a character's complexity.

d) Dialogues:

Dialogues are the heart of dramatic interaction. They reveal the relationships between characters, advance the plot, and convey emotions and conflicts. Well-crafted dialogues create tension, build connections, and propel the narrative forward, immersing the audience in the unfolding drama.

e) Experimental theatre:

Experimental theatre pushes the boundaries of traditional forms and conventions. This genre encourages innovative approaches to staging, narrative structure, and performance. Playwrights and directors experiment with non-linear narratives, multimedia elements, immersive environments, and audience interaction to challenge perceptions and evoke thought-provoking responses.

Screenwriting 

Screenwriting is the art of crafting stories specifically for the visual medium of film or television. It's a dynamic and collaborative form of writing that serves as the foundation for the creation of compelling on-screen narratives. Here are some key elements of screenwriting:

a) Writing for film:

Film screenwriting involves creating scripts that serve as blueprints for movies. ScreenWriters translate their ideas into a structured format that includes scenes, dialogues, actions, and descriptions. They must balance engaging storytelling with the technical aspects of filmmaking, considering camera angles, pacing, and visual cues.

b) Television scripts:

Television scripts are tailored to episodic formats, such as TV series or miniseries. Writers develop characters, story arcs, and dialogue that span multiple episodes, allowing for character development and plot progression over time. Each episode contributes to the overarching narrative while maintaining its own distinct identity.

c) Adaptation:

Adaptation involves transforming existing source material, such as books, plays, or real-life events, into screenplay format. Writers must distil the essence of the original work while making necessary changes to suit the visual medium and the constraints of time.

d) Dialogue and action:

Effective screenwriting places a strong emphasis on dialogue and action. Dialogue conveys characters' personalities, motivations, and conflicts, while action descriptions provide visual cues for directors, actors, and crew. Both elements work together to create a seamless and engaging on-screen experience.

Unlock your storytelling potential with our Creative Writing Training – embark on a journey of literary discovery today!

Experimental writing 

Experimental writing defies traditional conventions, pushing the boundaries of language and structure to create innovative literary works. It challenges readers to engage with unconventional formats, fragmented narratives, and abstract concepts. 

Through a stream of consciousness, collage writing, and visual poetry, experimental writing offers a fresh perspective, inviting readers to explore new realms of thought and emotion. It's a playground of creative freedom where Writers experiment with words as artists do with colours, producing compositions that evoke intrigue, reflection, and a deeper understanding of the limitless possibilities of language.

It is often said that good Writers are voracious readers. Well, if we take that into consideration, then there have many times where you might have loved reading novels. All the novels that you have read, or you know of, are one of the premium examples of Creative Writing.

They may vary in length, depending on the subject or genre that you choose to write on. If you are writing a long form novel, then they are divided into number of chapters. If you have a big idea waiting to be broken down into many chapters, then novels are for you.

Techniques used in Creative Writing

If you are wondering how to begin Creative Writing, you can start by following these techniques:

1) Narrative

Determining the narrative of your story is extremely important. If you control the narrative in your story, you can hold your audience’s attention for a long time, whether you are writing novels, novellas, or even short stories. In general, you should remember that whether you are doing Creative Writing or Non-fiction Writing, deciding on a narrative and then maintaining that throughout is crucial.

2) Characterisation

Characterisation is vital in building your story. If you don’t provide the details of your characters and describe their physical features, background, past, etc., you cannot help your reader imagine the situation. It is a crucial step in Creative Writing, enabling you to drive the plot forward and allow your story to build more layers.

Before you build your story, you need to have a solid plot to make your story upon. It is a blueprint to help you establish your story's theme agenda. It can also be referred to as a series of events that will help you build up the narrative. The plot has five parts: exposition or introduction, complications or rising action, climax, slow revelations and then the conclusion. The more solid your plot will be, the more you can create beautiful stories.

From the whimsical realms of children's literature to the thought-provoking depths of creative non-fiction, this blog about the different Types of Creative Writing has unveiled a world of literary possibilities. As pens meet paper and imaginations take flight, we hope this blog will guide you on your journey to weave tales that leave an indelible mark on hearts and minds.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Incorporating Creative Writing skills will help you in your professional growth. Creative Writing helps in effective communication, improved problem-solving abilities, increased empathy, improved mental health, and enhanced creativity.

The factors which influence the organisational structure in various types of Creative Writing are genre, style, narrative, expectations from the audience, length, point of view, cultural and historical context, character development, and more.

The Knowledge Academy takes global learning to new heights, offering over 30,000 online courses across 490+ locations in 220 countries. This expansive reach ensures accessibility and convenience for learners worldwide.   

Alongside our diverse Online Course Catalogue, encompassing 17 major categories, we go the extra mile by providing a plethora of free educational Online Resources like News updates, Blogs , videos, webinars, and interview questions. Tailoring learning experiences further, professionals can maximise value with customisable Course Bundles of TKA .  

The Knowledge Academy offers various Personal Development courses , including Organisational skills training, Emotional Intelligence Training, and Report Writing Course. These courses cater to different skill levels, providing comprehensive insights into Journalism .

Our Business Skills blogs covers a range of topics related to Sports Journalism, offering valuable resources, best practices, and industry insights. Whether you are a beginner or looking to advance your Creative Writing skills, The Knowledge Academy's diverse courses and informative blogs have you covered.  

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Table of Contents

• Voice vs Writing Style

The 4 Main Types of Writing Styles

Which primary writing style is best for you and your book, the 4 main types of writing styles (& how to choose the one you need).

What writing style should you use for your nonfiction book ?

All of them.

In this post, I’ll explain:

• the difference between voice and writing style
• what the 4 common types of writing styles are
• what each one is for
• how to choose a primary style for your book
• when and how to use them in your writing process

Most importantly, I’ll show you how to use each style to hold your readers’ attention and get your audience talking about your book.

The difference between voice and writing style

Authors connect to their readers through a combination of voice and writing style.

Your voice is about how you speak and think. It’s about the words you use and the patterns in your writing.

Your voice is unique to you.

Your writing style is about how you’re approaching the reader at any given moment:

• persuasive writing persuades the reader
• expository writing explains things to the reader
• narrative writing tells the reader a story
• descriptive writing describes things to the reader

But that isn’t the whole picture.

Sometimes the best way to explain something is to tell a story that illustrates your point.

And sometimes the best way to persuade your readers is to explain the facts.

That’s why nonfiction books often use all 4 writing styles together.

As you read through each of the 4 different writing styles below, remember that the point isn’t to pick just one.

It’s to understand when and how to use each of them to give your readers the most value and make your book the best it can be.

1. Persuasive writing style

Let’s say I wanted to write a book about the value of letting employees bring their dogs to work.

One way to convince business leaders to adopt this idea is to use a persuasive writing style.

Here’s an example:

You’d never believe how much having a few dogs around the office can transform an entire organization. Not until you’ve seen it happen. Sure, sick days drop dramatically. And, yes, turnover plummets to almost nil. But the true benefits of a canine-friendly company are much harder to measure, and much more profound.

Like most examples of persuasive writing, this passage makes a direct appeal to the reader.

It mentions a few benefits but doesn’t offer any hard facts. There are no numbers or percentages. In fact, it suggests that the best benefits are hard to measure.

This style of writing works well for appealing to the reader on an emotional level, especially when you’re writing about intangibles.

It also works well for short segments of introductory writing that are followed up by hard facts.

2. Narrative writing style

People love stories. In fact, we’re hard-wired to pay attention to them.

That’s why they work so well as hooks, even in nonfiction.

Especially in nonfiction.

It’s all too easy to bore a reader with:

• lists of disconnected facts
• more explanation than they need
• examples they can’t relate to

Stories bridge those gaps. They can:

• connect facts
• teach without explaining
• help readers see themselves in your book

The narrative writing style  is great for grabbing a reader’s attention:

In 2007, I met the dog that would save my life.

Even if your book isn’t filled with examples of narrative writing from cover to cover, including a few stories will go a long way toward keeping your readers interested.

3. Descriptive writing style

A descriptive writing style takes narrative writing a step further.

People often associate descriptive writing with flowery, poetic phrases, but strong descriptive writing is just the opposite.

In 2007, I met the dog that would save my life, but you would never have guessed that from looking at it. It was the ugliest dog I had ever seen. Imagine sculpting a small, hairless gargoyle; popping its eyes halfway out of its head; and then smashing its face in. Whatever that looks like in your head, imagine it about 6 times uglier, and you’ll be pretty close. But for every ounce of cute that dog was missing, it had a whole ton of heart.

Descriptive writing is a lot like salt. A little bit goes a long way.

Use descriptive writing to set the scene and add some flavor to your writing, but be careful not to overuse it.

It’s especially good for adding humor or making certain examples stick in readers’ minds.

4. Expository writing style

Compared to the other styles of writing, you might expect expository writing to be limited to scientific journals and instruction manuals—but that’s not true at all.

Expository writing follows up persuasive and narrative writing with hard facts, adding logical power to your stories and examples.

You might hook your reader with a story and then provide a bullet-point list of the key things you learned from that experience.

Or you might start a chapter with an emotional appeal and follow that up with 7 measurable statistics that support your point of view.

Here’s an example of expository writing:

When you’re ready to draft your dog-friendly policy, start by canvassing your employees. Make sure no one has any canine allergies or phobias. If you discover that someone on your staff is dog-averse, see if you can address the issue by separating dog-friendly sections of your workplace from other dog-free zones.

The expository style is a direct, effective way to give your reader important information or instructions.

It doesn’t usually make the best hook, but there are exceptions to every rule.

A shocking statistic, for example, can grab a reader’s attention just as well as any story.

Most nonfiction books use all of these styles in combination.

For example, in a single chapter, you might:

• hook your reader with a story (narrative)
• add sensory details to make the story memorable (descriptive)
• follow up with an emotional appeal (persuasive)
• list 4 bullet-point statistics that support your argument (expository)
• humanize those statistics with another story (narrative)
• end the chapter with steps readers can take (expository)

That’s why it’s important to be familiar with all 4 writing styles.

But how much you use each method will depend on a combination of 2 things:

• what you’re most comfortable with
• what your book needs to be effective in solving your reader’s problem

Start with the one that’s easiest for you to write

It’s extremely unlikely for a new Author to start out equally comfortable with all 4 different types of writing styles.

If you’ve read a lot of academic writing or technical writing, you’re probably most comfortable with an expository style. That’s the one that will feel most familiar.

If you’ve read a lot of creative writing, then you might be more comfortable working with a narrative style.

When you’re writing your first draft, the most important thing you can do is just get it all down.

Your primary, go-to style should be the one that’s most comfortable for you.

Don’t let yourself get bogged down in the details of style choice. Just write your first draft in any way that helps you get all your ideas onto the page.

Start with a solid outline and writing plan so you know what you’re trying to share with your readers, but draft those ideas in whatever way works best for you.

Then edit to make your writing clear and compelling

Every chapter should start with a hook that grabs the reader’s attention.

This can be a compelling story or a surprising fact or statistic. It can be an unexpected idea that makes the reader want to know more.

There are NO rules about which writing style is the best way to do this.

The same book could easily use all 4 styles as hooks in 4 consecutive chapters. Or it might use the same style every time.

Open Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run to just about any page, and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a story.

It might be a story about what he was investigating, or it might be a story about the investigation itself. Either way, he uses the narrative style almost exclusively.

This is fairly common with investigative reporters and books based on investigative reporting.

A how-to book, on the other hand, will depend heavily on expository writing to provide step-by-step instructions.

If your book really breaks the mold of traditional thinking, you might need a combination of narrative, persuasive, and expository writing to convince readers that their old way of thinking is wrong.

• Narrative writing provides concrete examples of your ideas in action
• Persuasive writing asks provocative questions that lead your readers down a new path
• Expository writing follows up with facts, statistics, and instructions to implement your ground-breaking solutions

Once you have all your ideas down in a complete draft, you can start to edit your own work and decide what’s working and what isn’t.

You might add a short story to illustrate a point. Or you might decide a chapter needs more explanation to help readers adapt a solution to their own situation.

Consider each of the 4 styles and decide what each section needs to best serve the reader and hold their interest.

A note on memoirs

Memoirs will naturally gravitate toward narrative and descriptive styles, but that doesn’t mean those are the only styles they’ll need.

Even in the middle of a story, you might want to persuade your readers of certain key truths. Or you might need to explain how something works so they can understand what your team was up against in making a critical decision.

There isn’t always a sharp line between these categories, and there are no hard and fast rules about how and when to use them.

In fact, here’s the only rule when it comes to writing styles:

You should never feel boxed in by writing styles, and they should never limit you or your book.

The ONLY point of these different styles of writing is to help you think more deeply about how to communicate with your readers to solve their problem.

The Scribe Crew

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ThinkWritten

The 4 Main Types of Writing Styles and How to Use Them as a Writer

Understanding the 4 main types of writing styles can help you grow as a writer and attract an audience for your written work. Here’s how to identify each style of writing and tips for using each of the 4 common writing styles to develop your written skills.

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One of the things that can help you grow as a writer is to learn the 4 main types of writing styles and use the characteristics of each to further develop your own personal voice as a writer.

By learning how to use the different writing styles in your work, you will not only improve your skills as writer, but also learn ways to better connect with your audience of readers.

In this post we’ll cover the 4 main types of writing styles and how to use them as a writer to create compelling books, stories, essays, poetry, articles and more.

What are Writing Styles?

Writing styles are basically another way of saying the form or type of written work you are creating. Think of it as a classification for being able to identify what kind of writing you are creating.

For example, if you are writing a cookbook, that is a completely different style of writing than if you were writing a steamy romance novel!

Each writing style has a different purpose – and therefore, different characteristics are present when you are writing each type of different work.

Now that we understand what a writing style is – let’s talk about the 4 main writing styles which are commonly talked about amongst writers and literary educators.

The 4 Main Writing Styles & What They Mean

The four main writing styles which are commonly recognized are expository , descriptive , narrative , and persuasive .

Style #1: Expository

The definition of expository is this: “intended to explain or describe something.”

Most types of written work that fall into this category explain something in more detail, or provide insight and instruction in regards to a particular topic.

What types of writing fall into this category of expository writing style?

While there are many different types of written work which can be categorized as expository style of writing, you can often identify this type of writing by noticing the purpose of the work.

• Does the work intend to explain something in more detail?
• Does the written piece inform?
• Does the written piece answer questions such as “what, how and why?”

Here are some examples of the different types of writing pieces which can fall into the category of expository writing:

• Newspaper and Magazine Articles {not including editorials}
• Non-Fiction Books
• How-To Books
• Self Help Books
• Writing about Hobbies & Interests
• Recipes & Cookbooks
• Instructional Guides
• Scientific Research
• Textbooks & Educational Resources
• Business Articles & Books
• Medical Research, Journals and Articles

When you write expository style pieces, your main goal as a writer is to inform your readers with insight and facts that pertain to the subject of your piece.

For example, if you are writing about the history of ice cream, you would be including a lot of research and fun facts into your piece.

Note that this type of writing style is not intended to persuade or influence your audience. In writing your piece on the history of ice cream, you would NOT be trying to persuade your readers.

You would not want to say things like “Everybody should eat ice cream!” and “These 5 reasons will convince you forever to choose strawberry swirl flavored ice cream as your favorite flavor.”

Sometimes it can be confusing on whether an article is expository or persuasive. For example, an article called “The 5 Unexpected Health Benefits of Ice Cream” – would not fall into expository writing, even though it is providing information.

The word “benefits” has a positive connotation to the title. If you were to be writing an article on possible health benefits on ice cream, it would be very important that you as the writer keep your opinion separated from the facts and information if you plan for it to be an expository style piece. To be expository in nature, you would want to use a title such as “Scientists Research The Health Effects of Ice Cream.”

Books and articles that explain how to do something are also very popular examples of expository writing. Cookbooks are very popular, as they explain to others the tips, techniques, and recipes on how to cook something. How-to books for hobbies and crafts are also a good example of this type of writing.

Style #2: Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing goes deeper than expository writing. While expository writing might have some descriptive details and factual information, descriptive writing will make use of many writing elements and literary devices such as metaphors and similes.

The purpose and goal of descriptive writing is to bring your reader into the written work as if the reader were to be experiencing it first hand.

Most fictional pieces fall under the category of descriptive writing, and even some non-fiction pieces such as memoirs and creative non-fiction can fall under the category of a descriptive writing style.

If you are writing fiction, the more descriptive you can be with your words, the more relatable your story will be to the reader.

For example, we recommend that writers ask their characters questions as one way to really intimately understand the details about a character. Details about the setting, events, and people present in a story will help your readers be able to imagine and understand the piece.

This style also includes poetry. If you browse through some of our poetry writing prompts , you will see there is a lot of attention put on using details to create a scene or feeling in writing a poem!

Here are some examples of types of descriptive writing pieces:

• Poetry & Prose
• Travel Diaries
• Personal Journals
• Lyrics in Music and Songwriting

Most pieces using only a descriptive writing style are not very long. It is uncommon for a fictional novel to be 100% fully descriptive without getting into our next writing style, which is narrative writing.

Style #3: Narrative Writing

Narrative writing is far more complex that simple descriptive writing.

While a poem for example may describe a scene or even events or people – generally you do not get into the deep inner thoughts of the characters or even get a full story with a clear middle, beginning, and end complete with conflict and dialogue.

Nearly all fiction novels fall into the case of narrative writing, as well as longer epic poems and sagas.

In narrative writing, there is a story to be told – a clear plot complete with setting, characters, dialogue, conflict and resolution. A narrative piece often has a timeline or sequence of events which further build to the point of conflict and resolution.

Here are some examples of the works which would be considered to have a narrative writing style:

• Fiction Novels
• Memoirs & Biographies
• Screenplays
• Myths, Legends, and Fables
• Historical accounts
• Essays which talk about a lesson learned or valuable insight from an experience

Narrative writing pieces are generally easy to identify, although sometimes it can be confused with descriptive writing styles. The key difference in determining which one a written work might be is whether or not there is a developed storyline or plot.

If there is a well developed plot and storyline, you are most likely reading narrative writing.

Style #4: Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is a type of writing style where the purpose is to influence someone into believing or doing something. As the word “persuasive” suggests – your goal is to persuade someone’s actions or thoughts to align with your own goals as the writer.

The persuasive writing essay is a popular homework assignment for many kids. For example, a student might be assigned to write an essay to convince their parents of something. “Why We Should Get a Pet Rabbit” and “5 Reasons You Should Not Make Me Clean My Room”.

Persuasive writing is intended to convince someone of something, and so it usually needs to have a good bit of research and logical analysis – but also should attempt to make an emotional connection to the desired audience as well.

A classic piece of writing which serves as an example of persuasive writing is Thomas Paine’s book Common Sense , which was written in the Colonial times of the American Revolutionary War, urging citizens that separating from England was of utmost importance.

Here are some examples of types of writing which are persuasive writing:

• Editorial & Opinion pieces in Newspapers and Magazines
• Essays on a specific belief or “hot button” topic
• Letters written to request an action or file a complaint
• Advertisements {Convincing you to buy something}
• Copywriting {Note, copywriting is different from copyright!}
• Company Brochures
• Business Proposals
• Political speeches

When the intention of the work is to convince the audience of something – this falls into persuasive writing.

How to Use the 4 Main Different Writing Styles as a Writer

Now that we know the different types of writing styles, you may be wondering how do you use each style?

The first thing to do is think about what you are planning to write and what the intention is. What is your goal and what type of message are you trying to communicate to your readers?

Expository Style Writing:

In this type of writing your goal is to inform your readers about research or data.

When writing expository style pieces, follow these guidelines:

• Avoid using words which have a positive or negative connotation
• Do not insert your opinion or attempt to persuade your audience into thinking, feeling, or doing something based on your beliefs
• Use research and cite your sources
• When writing online, link to additional resources or websites
• Use quotes, illustrations or informative graphics to highlight the information
• Give concise and clear directions

Descriptive Writing Style:

This type of writing has the goal to describe something and bring into your reader’s imaginations

Here are some tips for writing with descriptive writing styles:

• Use literary devices such as metaphors and similes.
• Use well thought out adjectives and adverbs to describe nouns and verbs.
• Bring attention to small details
• Use the 6 senses: sight, touch, taste, smell, sound, and feeling

Narrative Writing Style:

In narrative writing style, your goal is to convey a storyline to your readers.

Here is how to achieve this type of writing style:

• Outline a storyline, plot or timeline sequence of events
• Include detailed descriptions of your characters and scenes
• Give your readers insight into the inner thoughts or behind-the-scenes information to elements of your story
• Answer the 6 W questions in your writing: Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why?
• Make it so your piece of work conveys an important lesson or insight – what is the moral of the story? What was the outcome of this experience?
• Use concrete language which gives readers a specific image to visualize and relate to

Persuasive Writing Style:

When you are writing to persuade, your intention is to convince your readers to side with you. This can be as simple as convincing them to buy your latest new product, or even writing about important social and humanitarian issues.

Here are some tips for writing persuasively:

• Include information, data, and facts to back up your argument
• Cite your sources and give readers access to additional information
• Appeal to your readers on an emotional level – how will siding with your opinion connect with them and make them feel?
• Take into consideration your reader’s needs, wants, and desires and how your message will help your reader achieve these.

Understanding Writing Styles Can Help You Be a Better Writer

No matter what type of writing you enjoy creating – understanding the basic main 4 types of writing styles can help you become a better writer.

If you are writing a how-to article for example, you will be able to understand what types of elements to ensure your piece of work includes. If you’re writing a descriptive poem, knowing what type of language to use can help convey your message for abstract concepts.

Use these different writing styles as a fun writing exercise!

Even if you typically only write for one style, it can be a lot of fun to push yourself to try to write for the different types of styles. For example, try writing a persuasive essay, and then a descriptive essay on the same topic. It can also be fun to write a descriptive poem and then turn it into a narrative essay or short story.

Not sure what to write about using these different writing styles? We have TONS of ideas for you with many different writing prompts! Check out our list of 365 writing prompts ideas which are sure to inspire your creative muse!

Using prompts is a great way to help you start writing in different writing styles and push yourself to a new exciting challenge for your writing skills!

I hope this article about the different writing styles and how you can use them as a writer will be helpful for you in building and developing your written skillset.

What types of writing styles do you enjoy writing the most? Have any tips for writing in expository, descriptive, narrative or persuasive styles of writing? We’d love to hear your ideas and experiences in the comments section below!

Chelle Stein wrote her first embarrassingly bad novel at the age of 14 and hasn't stopped writing since. As the founder of ThinkWritten, she enjoys encouraging writers and creatives of all types.

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15 comments.

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To which writing style would a conversational manner apply best?

A writing that talks about the cages people Live can be classified as what type?

Great work!

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An article one can easily connect with. It brings clarity and understanding to the different writing styles as discussed. Kudos.

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What is Creative Writing? A Key Piece of the Writer’s Toolbox

Not all writing is the same and there’s a type of writing that has the ability to transport, teach, and inspire others like no other.

Creative writing stands out due to its unique approach and focus on imagination. Here’s how to get started and grow as you explore the broad and beautiful world of creative writing!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a form of writing that extends beyond the bounds of regular professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature. It is characterized by its emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or poetic techniques to express ideas in an original and imaginative way.

Creative writing can take on various forms such as:

• short stories
• screenplays

It’s a way for writers to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a creative, often symbolic, way . It’s about using the power of words to transport readers into a world created by the writer.

5 Key Characteristics of Creative Writing

Creative writing is marked by several defining characteristics, each working to create a distinct form of expression:

1. Imagination and Creativity: Creative writing is all about harnessing your creativity and imagination to create an engaging and compelling piece of work. It allows writers to explore different scenarios, characters, and worlds that may not exist in reality.

2. Emotional Engagement: Creative writing often evokes strong emotions in the reader. It aims to make the reader feel something — whether it’s happiness, sorrow, excitement, or fear.

3. Originality: Creative writing values originality. It’s about presenting familiar things in new ways or exploring ideas that are less conventional.

4. Use of Literary Devices: Creative writing frequently employs literary devices such as metaphors, similes, personification, and others to enrich the text and convey meanings in a more subtle, layered manner.

5. Focus on Aesthetics: The beauty of language and the way words flow together is important in creative writing. The aim is to create a piece that’s not just interesting to read, but also beautiful to hear when read aloud.

Remember, creative writing is not just about producing a work of art. It’s also a means of self-expression and a way to share your perspective with the world. Whether you’re considering it as a hobby or contemplating a career in it, understanding the nature and characteristics of creative writing can help you hone your skills and create more engaging pieces .

For more insights into creative writing, check out our articles on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree and is a degree in creative writing worth it .

Styles of Creative Writing

To fully understand creative writing , you must be aware of the various styles involved. Creative writing explores a multitude of genres, each with its own unique characteristics and techniques.

Poetry is a form of creative writing that uses expressive language to evoke emotions and ideas. Poets often employ rhythm, rhyme, and other poetic devices to create pieces that are deeply personal and impactful. Poems can vary greatly in length, style, and subject matter, making this a versatile and dynamic form of creative writing.

Short Stories

Short stories are another common style of creative writing. These are brief narratives that typically revolve around a single event or idea. Despite their length, short stories can provide a powerful punch, using precise language and tight narrative structures to convey a complete story in a limited space.

Novels represent a longer form of narrative creative writing. They usually involve complex plots, multiple characters, and various themes. Writing a novel requires a significant investment of time and effort; however, the result can be a rich and immersive reading experience.

Screenplays

Screenplays are written works intended for the screen, be it television, film, or online platforms. They require a specific format, incorporating dialogue and visual descriptions to guide the production process. Screenwriters must also consider the practical aspects of filmmaking, making this an intricate and specialized form of creative writing.

If you’re interested in this style, understanding creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree can provide useful insights.

Writing for the theater is another specialized form of creative writing. Plays, like screenplays, combine dialogue and action, but they also require an understanding of the unique dynamics of the theatrical stage. Playwrights must think about the live audience and the physical space of the theater when crafting their works.

Each of these styles offers unique opportunities for creativity and expression. Whether you’re drawn to the concise power of poetry, the detailed storytelling of novels, or the visual language of screenplays and plays, there’s a form of creative writing that will suit your artistic voice. The key is to explore, experiment, and find the style that resonates with you.

For those looking to spark their creativity, our article on creative writing prompts offers a wealth of ideas to get you started.

Importance of Creative Writing

Understanding what is creative writing involves recognizing its value and significance. Engaging in creative writing can provide numerous benefits – let’s take a closer look.

Developing Creativity and Imagination

Creative writing serves as a fertile ground for nurturing creativity and imagination. It encourages you to think outside the box, explore different perspectives, and create unique and original content. This leads to improved problem-solving skills and a broader worldview , both of which can be beneficial in various aspects of life.

Through creative writing, one can build entire worlds, create characters, and weave complex narratives, all of which are products of a creative mind and vivid imagination. This can be especially beneficial for those seeking creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Enhancing Communication Skills

Creative writing can also play a crucial role in honing communication skills. It demands clarity, precision, and a strong command of language. This helps to improve your vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, making it easier to express thoughts and ideas effectively .

Moreover, creative writing encourages empathy as you often need to portray a variety of characters from different backgrounds and perspectives. This leads to a better understanding of people and improved interpersonal communication skills.

Exploring Emotions and Ideas

One of the most profound aspects of creative writing is its ability to provide a safe space for exploring emotions and ideas. It serves as an outlet for thoughts and feelings , allowing you to express yourself in ways that might not be possible in everyday conversation.

Writing can be therapeutic, helping you process complex emotions, navigate difficult life events, and gain insight into your own experiences and perceptions. It can also be a means of self-discovery , helping you to understand yourself and the world around you better.

So, whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, the benefits of creative writing are vast and varied. For those interested in developing their creative writing skills, check out our articles on creative writing prompts and how to teach creative writing . If you’re considering a career in this field, you might find our article on is a degree in creative writing worth it helpful.

4 Steps to Start Creative Writing

Creative writing can seem daunting to beginners, but with the right approach, anyone can start their journey into this creative field. Here are some steps to help you start creative writing .

1. Finding Inspiration

The first step in creative writing is finding inspiration . Inspiration can come from anywhere and anything. Observe the world around you, listen to conversations, explore different cultures, and delve into various topics of interest.

Reading widely can also be a significant source of inspiration. Read different types of books, articles, and blogs. Discover what resonates with you and sparks your imagination.

For structured creative prompts, visit our list of creative writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.

Editor’s Note : When something excites or interests you, stop and take note – it could be the inspiration for your next creative writing piece.

2. Planning Your Piece

Once you have an idea, the next step is to plan your piece . Start by outlining:

• the main points

Remember, this can serve as a roadmap to guide your writing process. A plan doesn’t have to be rigid. It’s a flexible guideline that can be adjusted as you delve deeper into your writing. The primary purpose is to provide direction and prevent writer’s block.

3. Writing Your First Draft

After planning your piece, you can start writing your first draft . This is where you give life to your ideas and breathe life into your characters.

Don’t worry about making it perfect in the first go. The first draft is about getting your ideas down on paper . You can always refine and polish your work later. And if you don’t have a great place to write that first draft, consider a journal for writing .

4. Editing and Revising Your Work

The final step in the creative writing process is editing and revising your work . This is where you fine-tune your piece, correct grammatical errors, and improve sentence structure and flow.

Editing is also an opportunity to enhance your storytelling . You can add more descriptive details, develop your characters further, and make sure your plot is engaging and coherent.

Remember, writing is a craft that improves with practice . Don’t be discouraged if your first few pieces don’t meet your expectations. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, enjoy the creative process.

For more insights on creative writing, check out our articles on how to teach creative writing or creative writing activities for kids.

Tips to Improve Creative Writing Skills

Understanding what is creative writing is the first step. But how can one improve their creative writing skills? Here are some tips that can help.

Read Widely

Reading is a vital part of becoming a better writer. By immersing oneself in a variety of genres, styles, and authors, one can gain a richer understanding of language and storytelling techniques . Different authors have unique voices and methods of telling stories, which can serve as inspiration for your own work. So, read widely and frequently!

Practice Regularly

Like any skill, creative writing improves with practice. Consistently writing — whether it be daily, weekly, or monthly — helps develop your writing style and voice . Using creative writing prompts can be a fun way to stimulate your imagination and get the words flowing.

Attend Writing Workshops and Courses

Formal education such as workshops and courses can offer structured learning and expert guidance. These can provide invaluable insights into the world of creative writing, from understanding plot development to character creation. If you’re wondering is a degree in creative writing worth it, these classes can also give you a taste of what studying creative writing at a higher level might look like .

Joining Writing Groups and Communities

Being part of a writing community can provide motivation, constructive feedback, and a sense of camaraderie. These groups often hold regular meetings where members share their work and give each other feedback. Plus, it’s a great way to connect with others who share your passion for writing.

Seeking Feedback on Your Work

Feedback is a crucial part of improving as a writer. It offers a fresh perspective on your work, highlighting areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Whether it’s from a writing group, a mentor, or even friends and family, constructive criticism can help refine your writing .

Start Creative Writing Today!

Remember, becoming a proficient writer takes time and patience. So, don’t be discouraged by initial challenges. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, keep enjoying the process. Who knows, your passion for creative writing might even lead to creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Happy writing!

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer  is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

Here’s my favorite journal for 2024: 

Gratitude Journal Prompts Mindfulness Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Anxiety Reflective Journal Prompts Healing Journal Prompts Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Journal Prompts Mental Health Journal Prompts ASMR Journal Prompts Manifestation Journal Prompts Self-Care Journal Prompts Morning Journal Prompts Evening Journal Prompts Self-Improvement Journal Prompts Creative Writing Journal Prompts Dream Journal Prompts Relationship Journal Prompts "What If" Journal Prompts New Year Journal Prompts Shadow Work Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Overcoming Fear Journal Prompts for Dealing with Loss Journal Prompts for Discerning and Decision Making Travel Journal Prompts Fun Journal Prompts

Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

You may also like, a guide to journaling for healing + 50 healing prompts.

7 Types of Journaling and How to Pick the Best Style for You

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Definitive Guide to Writing Styles

April 26, 2024 by Richard Leave a Comment

This is our Definitive Guide to Writing Styles: Throughout history, writers have employed various styles and techniques to convey their ideas, emotions, and stories effectively. Each writing style has its unique characteristics, purpose, and impact on the reader, making it essential for writers to understand and master these different approaches. Whether you are a novelist, journalist, poet, or simply someone who enjoys expressing yourself through the written word, having a deep understanding of the diverse writing styles can help you improve your craft and communicate your message more effectively.

This comprehensive guide aims to provide a detailed overview of the numerous writing styles that have evolved from the classical to the contemporary, from the artistic to the technical. By exploring these styles, you will understand how writers have used language, structure, and tone to create compelling and impactful works across various genres and mediums.

In this guide, we will delve into the intricacies of each writing style, examining its key features, techniques, and examples from renowned authors who have mastered these approaches. We will also discuss the purposes and contexts in which each style is most effective, helping you choose the appropriate style for your writing projects and target audience.

Whether you seek to inform, persuade, entertain, or provoke thought, this guide will equip you with the knowledge and tools necessary to elevate your writing and leave a lasting impact on your readers. By understanding the nuances of each writing style, you can experiment with different approaches, develop your unique voice, and ultimately become a more versatile and accomplished writer.

So, let us embark on this journey through the fascinating world of writing styles, exploring the power of language to shape our thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. Whether you are a seasoned writer or just starting this definitive guide will be invaluable in your quest to master the art of written expression.

The Importance of Choosing the Right Writing Style

Choosing the appropriate writing style is crucial for effectively communicating your message and engaging your target audience. The right style can make your writing more compelling, persuasive, and memorable, while the wrong style can confuse your readers, disinterested, or even offend. Here are some key reasons why selecting the proper writing style is so important:

• Clarity and Comprehension: Different writing styles are suited to different purposes and audiences. For example, technical writing aims to convey complex information clearly and concisely, while creative writing often employs figurative language and evocative imagery to engage the reader’s imagination. Choosing a style that matches your purpose and audience ensures that your intended readers understand and appreciate your message.
• Credibility and Authority: Your writing style can also impact your credibility and authority on a subject. For instance, academic writing requires a formal, objective tone and rigorous citation of sources to establish the writer’s expertise and trustworthiness. Similarly, journalistic writing must adhere to accuracy, fairness, and impartiality to maintain the reader’s trust. Adopting the appropriate style can demonstrate your knowledge and professionalism in your field.
• Emotional Impact and Resonance: The right writing style can also help you create an emotional connection with your readers. For example, a personal essay or memoir may use a confessional, reflective tone to invite the reader into the writer’s inner world and experiences. A persuasive essay, on the other hand, may employ rhetorical devices and a passionate, urgent tone to convince the reader to take action or adopt a particular viewpoint. You can create a more robust and lasting impact by choosing a style that resonates with your readers’ emotions and values.
• Artistic Expression and Creativity: For creative writers, the choice of writing style is also an opportunity for artistic expression and innovation. Different styles, such as experimental, absurdist, or lyrical writing, allow writers to push the boundaries of language and form, creating unique and thought-provoking works that challenge and inspire readers. You can produce original and memorable pieces that showcase your talents and perspectives by selecting a style that aligns with your creative vision and voice.
• Professional Success and Marketability: Finally, the ability to adapt your writing style to different contexts and audiences can also contribute to your professional success and marketability as a writer. Whether you are crafting a grant proposal, a marketing campaign, or a legal brief, being able to write in the appropriate style can make your work more effective and persuasive. Moreover, demonstrating versatility and skill across multiple styles can open up new opportunities and markets for your writing, increasing your visibility and value as a professional writer.

In conclusion, choosing the right writing style is essential for creating compelling, engaging, and impactful works. By understanding each style’s unique characteristics and purposes and selecting the one that best fits your goals and audience, you can elevate your writing and achieve tremendous success in your personal and professional endeavors. So, take the time to study and practice different writing styles and develop the skills and flexibility to adapt your writing to any context or challenge that comes your way.

The Writing Styles

Academic writing: .

Academic writing follows a formal structure and style for scholarly research and discourse. This writing style is used in various academic disciplines, such as the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, and is characterized by its objectivity, precision, and use of discipline-specific terminology. Academic writing includes research papers, dissertations, conference papers, and scholarly articles, among other forms. Writers must demonstrate their knowledge of the subject matter, engage with existing literature, and contribute original ideas or findings to their field of study. Effective academic writing is well-organized, thoroughly researched, and properly cited, following the conventions and standards of the specific academic discipline.

Absurdist Writing: 

Absurdist writing presents irrational or meaningless situations, often to comment on the human condition. This writing style emphasizes life’s absurdity and pointlessness, using non-sequiturs, contradictions, and illogical plot developments to create a sense of disorientation and existential despair. Absurdist writers often use dark humor and satire to critique societal norms and expectations, exposing the inherent meaninglessness and chaos of the world. Effective absurdist writing requires a willingness to embrace the bizarre and the nonsensical, as well as the ability to use language and storytelling techniques to create a sense of unease and discomfort in the reader.

Analytical Writing:

 Analytical writing examines and interprets a subject, often breaking it down into smaller parts to better understand the whole. This writing style involves critical thinking, research, and the ability to synthesize information from various sources. Analytical writing is commonly used in academic settings, such as research papers, literary analyses, and case studies, as well as in business reports and policy papers. The writer must present a clear thesis or argument, provide evidence to support their claims and draw meaningful conclusions based on their analysis. Effective analytical writing demonstrates the writer’s ability to think logically, interpret data, and communicate complex ideas clearly and concisely.

Apologetic Writing: 

Apologetic writing defends a belief, idea, or action, often in response to criticism. This writing style is used by religious leaders, politicians, and activists to justify and explain their positions on controversial issues. Apologetic writing may involve:

• Addressing counterarguments.
• Providing evidence and examples to support one’s position.
• Appealing to shared values and beliefs.

Effective apologetic writing is well-reasoned and persuasive and demonstrates a deep understanding of the issues at stake.

Argumentative Writing: 

Argumentative writing presents a clear position on an issue and uses evidence to support it. This writing style is used by essayists, journalists, and academics to persuade readers to accept a particular point of view or take a specific action. Argumentative writing involves presenting a thesis statement, providing supporting evidence and examples, and addressing counterarguments. Effective argumentative writing is logical, well-researched, and engages with multiple perspectives.

Biographical Writing: 

Based on extensive research and factual information, biographical writing tells the story of a natural person’s life. Biographers must gather data from various sources, such as interviews, letters, diaries, and historical records, to create a comprehensive and accurate portrayal of their subject’s life. This writing style requires a balance between presenting factual information and crafting a compelling narrative that captures the subject’s personality, achievements, and struggles. Effective biographical writing is well-researched, objective, and engaging, giving readers a deeper understanding of the subject’s life and legacy.

Blogging is a form of online writing that involves creating regularly updated content, usually conversational or personal. Bloggers write about various topics, from personal experiences and opinions to niche interests and professional expertise. This writing style often aims to inform, entertain, or persuade readers while fostering community and engagement through comments and social media sharing. Effective blogging requires a consistent voice, a clear focus, and the ability to connect with the target audience. Successful bloggers often develop a strong personal brand, cultivate a loyal following, and use their platform to influence, educate, or inspire their readers.

Business Writing: 

Business writing involves communicating professionally in business, such as through emails, reports, proposals, or presentations. This writing style aims to convey information, make requests, or persuade colleagues, clients, or stakeholders concisely and effectively. Business writers must adapt their tone and style to suit the specific purpose and audience while maintaining a professional and courteous approach. Effective business writing is well-organized, error-free, and achieves the desired outcome, whether securing a contract, resolving a conflict, or sharing important updates.

Children’s Writing: 

Children’s writing creates content suitable for young readers, often with educational or moral messages. This writing style may include picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade novels, each with unique conventions and age-appropriate themes. Children’s writers use simple language, imaginative storytelling, and engaging illustrations to capture the attention and hearts of young readers. Effective children’s writing requires a deep understanding of child development and learning and the ability to create fun and memorable characters and stories that inspire a lifelong love of reading. You might also want to check out 100 Children’s Story Ideas to Inspire.

Comic Book Writing: 

Comic book writing involves creating stories and narratives through sequential art and text. This writing style is used by comic book writers, graphic novelists, and storyboard artists to craft engaging and visually compelling stories across various genres, such as superhero, fantasy, science  fict ion, and horror. Comic book writing requires a deep understanding of visual storytelling techniques, character development, and world-building. Compelling comic book writing seamlessly integrates text and images, using dialogue, captions, and sound effects to guide the reader through the story. Check out our 100 Superhero writing prompts to inspire your writing.

Comedy Writing:

Comedy writing involves creating humorous content, such as jokes, sketches, or satirical pieces. This writing style aims to entertain and amuse audiences using various techniques, such as irony, sarcasm, exaggeration, and absurdity. Comedy writers often draw inspiration from everyday life, current events, and social norms, using humor to comment on or critique these subjects. Effective comedy writing requires a keen understanding of timing, delivery, and audience preferences and the ability to craft memorable punchlines and characters.

Confessional Poetry: 

Confessional poetry expresses the poet’s experiences, often with intense emotions and vulnerability. This writing style emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, with poets such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell using their own lives as subject matter for their work. Confessional poets often explore themes of mental illness, trauma, sexuality, and family dysfunction, using vivid and sometimes shocking imagery to convey their innermost thoughts and feelings. Compelling confessional poetry requires a willingness to be honest and open about one’s experiences and the ability to use language and poetic techniques to create a sense of intimacy and emotional resonance with the reader.

Cosmic Horror 

Writing Cosmic horror writing evokes fear of the unknown and humanity’s insignificance in the universe. This writing style, popularized by H.P. Lovecraft and other writers in the early 20th century, often features ancient, otherworldly entities that defy human comprehension and threaten to destroy or corrupt everything we know. Cosmic horror writers use vivid descriptions of alien landscapes, eldritch abominations, and sanity-shattering revelations to create a sense of existential dread and helplessness in the face of an uncaring cosmos. Effective cosmic horror writing requires a mastery of atmosphere and tone and the ability to use language and storytelling techniques to create a sense of mounting terror and despair.

Cyberpunk Writing 

Cyberpunk writing explores the relationship between technology and society in a dystopian future. This style of writing, which emerged in the 1980s with works such as William Gibson’s “Neuromancer,” often features a world where corporations have replaced governments, virtual reality has blurred the line between the real and the digital, and cybernetic enhancements have created new forms of social inequality. Cyberpunk writers use vivid descriptions of neon-lit cities, high-tech gadgets, and gritty, street-level characters to create a sense of a futuristic and troubled world. Effective cyberpunk writing requires a deep understanding of science fiction tropes and themes and the ability to use language and storytelling techniques to create a sense of immediacy and social commentary. If you love cyberpunk writing, you will love our 50 Cyberpunk writing prompts .

Diaspora Writing 

Diaspora writing reflects the experiences and identities of people displaced from their homeland. This style of writing often explores themes of exile, cultural identity, and the search for belonging, using the perspectives of immigrants, refugees, and other displaced people to create a sense of the complexity and diversity of the modern world. Diaspora writers may write in various genres, such as fiction, poetry, or memoir, using their experiences and communities to create deeply personal and broadly resonant works. Effective diaspora writing requires a deep understanding of the social, cultural, and historical contexts of displacement and the ability to use language and storytelling techniques to create a sense of empathy and connection with the reader.

Dialectical Writing: 

Dialectical writing presents opposing viewpoints or arguments for a synthesis or resolution. This style of writing, which has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy, involves dialogue, debate, and logical reasoning to explore complex ideas and arrive at a deeper understanding of the truth. Dialectical writers often present two or more characters with conflicting viewpoints, using their arguments and counterarguments to gradually build towards a new perspective that incorporates elements of both sides. Effective dialectical writing requires a deep understanding of the subject matter and the ability to use language and rhetorical techniques to create a sense of intellectual engagement and discovery.

Dramatic Writing: 

Dramatic writing involves creating scripts for the stage, often exploring severe themes and human emotions. Playwrights use this style of writing to craft powerful and thought-provoking stories that actors can perform in front of a live audience. Dramatic writing often delves into complex characters, relationships, and conflicts, using dialogue, action, and symbolism to convey meaning and evoke emotional responses from the audience. Effective dramatic writing requires a deep understanding of human nature and the ability to create compelling and believable characters and story lines.

Dystopian Writing: 

Dystopian writing imagines a bleak future society characterized by totalitarianism or environmental collapse. This style of writing, which has its roots in works such as George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” often features a world where individual freedom has been sacrificed for the sake of social stability, where technology has been used to control and oppress rather than liberate, and where the natural world has been destroyed or depleted. Dystopian writers use vivid descriptions of oppressive regimes, conformist societies, and environmental devastation to create a sense of warning and critique about the dangers of unchecked power and human hubris. Effective dystopian writing requires a deep understanding of social and political issues and the ability to use language and storytelling techniques to create a sense of urgency and cautionary tale. If your story lines lean into the end of the world, you might want to check out our 100 Dystopian writing prompts .

Copywriting: 

Copywriting creates persuasive content for advertising and marketing purposes. This writing style promotes products, services, and ideas, primarily convincing the target audience to take a specific action, such as purchasing, signing up for a service, or supporting a cause. Copywriters must deeply understand the target audience’s needs, desires, and pain points and use this knowledge to craft compelling messages that resonate with them. Effective copywriting is creative, concise, and emotionally engaging, using persuasive techniques such as storytelling, humor, and social proof to capture the audience’s attention and motivate them to act.

Creative Writing: 

Creative writing encompasses imaginative and original writing, often in a literary context. This writing style includes various genres, such as fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction, and allows the writer to express their unique voice, style, and perspective. Creative writing often explores themes, emotions, and the human experience, using literary devices and techniques to create engaging and thought-provoking works. The primary goal of creative writing is to entertain, inspire, or provoke the reader while showcasing the writer’s artistic skills and imagination. Creative writing can be found in novels, short stories, poems, plays, and screenplays, among other forms. We have over 1000 Creative Writing prompts on our site!

Descriptive Writing: 

Descriptive writing uses vivid language to describe people, places, objects, or experiences in great detail, creating a transparent and evocative picture in the reader’s mind. This writing style often employs sensory details, figurative language, and precise word choice to capture the essence of the subject being described. Descriptive writing can be found in various forms of literature, such as poetry, prose, and creative nonfiction, as well as in travel writing, nature writing, and product descriptions. The primary goal of descriptive writing is to help the reader visualize and experience the subject as if they were there, evoking emotions and creating a lasting impression.

Editorial Writing:

 Editorial writing presents a publication’s or editorial board’s opinion on a current issue or topic of public interest. It aims to inform, persuade, or call readers to action, often taking a solid stance on a particular subject. This writing style requires a deep understanding of the issue and the ability to present a well-reasoned and compelling argument. Effective editorial writing is clear, concise, and thought-provoking, offering a unique perspective or solution to the problem being addressed.

Environmental Writing: 

Environmental writing addresses ecological issues, nature, and the relationship between humans and the environment. This writing style is used by environmental journalists, activists, and nature writers to raise awareness about ecological problems, explore the beauty and complexity of the natural world, and advocate for conservation and sustainability. Environmental writing may include investigative reporting on issues such as climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, as well as personal essays and nature writing that celebrate the wonder and fragility of the earth. Effective environmental writing is informative and persuasive and inspires readers to take action to protect the planet.

Epistolary Writing: 

Epistolary writing tells a story or conveys information through letters, emails, or other forms of correspondence. This writing style allows the reader to experience the story through the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and interactions. Epistolary novels, such as “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker and “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, are famous examples of this style. Effective epistolary writing creates a sense of intimacy and authenticity as the reader becomes privy to the characters’ private lives and relationships.If you enjoy writing through letters you may enjoy 100 Epistolary Writing Prompts for Telling Stories Through Letters

Erotica Writing: 

Erotica’s writing depicts sexual experiences and desires in a literary or artistic manner. This style aims to arouse and engage readers by exploring sensuality, intimacy, and fantasy themes. Erotica writers often use descriptive language and imagery to create vivid and immersive scenes while developing compelling and relatable characters and relationships. Effective erotica writing requires a balance of explicitness and subtlety, as well as a deep understanding of human sexuality and desire.

Experimental Writing: 

Experimental writing pushes the boundaries of traditional forms and styles, often in an avant-garde manner. This writing style, which emerged in the early 20th century with movements such as Dadaism and Surrealism, usually uses unconventional or fragmented narrative structures, stream-of-consciousness techniques, and linguistic experimentation to create a sense of artistic innovation and challenge to the status quo. Experimental writers may write in various genres, such as poetry, fiction, or drama, using their creative vision and technical skills to create intellectually stimulating and emotionally provocative works. Effective experimental writing requires a willingness to take risks and break rules and the ability to use language and form in surprising and inventive ways.

Existential Writing

Existential writing grapples with questions of existence, meaning, and the human condition. This style of writing, which emerged in the 20th century with writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir, often explores themes of freedom, responsibility, and the absurdity of life, using fiction, philosophy, and personal reflection to create a sense of the individual’s struggle to find purpose and authenticity in a seemingly meaningless world. Existential writers may write in various genres, such as novels, plays, or essays, using their experiences and insights to create deeply introspective and broadly relevant works. Effective existential writing requires a willingness to confront the big questions of life head-on and the ability to use language and storytelling techniques to create a sense of intellectual and emotional engagement with the reader.

Expository Writing: 

Expository writing is a type of writing that aims to explain, inform, or describe a topic, idea, or process to the reader. The primary goal of expository writing is to convey information clearly and concisely without expressing personal opinions or biases. This writing style is commonly used in academic settings, such as textbooks, research papers, and essays, as well as in journalism, technical writing, and instructional materials. Expository writing often follows a logical structure, presenting information in a systematic and organized manner and using facts, examples, and definitions to support the main ideas.

Fanfiction Writing: 

Fanfiction writing involves creating new stories based on existing characters or settings from popular media, such as books, movies, TV shows, or video games. This writing style allows fans to explore alternative storylines, relationships, and possibilities not addressed in the source material. Fanfiction writers often use their knowledge of the original work to create stories that are both faithful to the established canon and innovative in their own right. Effective fanfiction writing requires a deep understanding of the source material and the ability to capture the voices and personalities of the characters.

Fantasy Writing:

 Fantasy writing involves creating stories set in imaginary worlds that often include magic, mythical creatures, and heroic quests. This writing style allows authors to explore themes and ideas that may not be possible in realistic settings, using world-building and character development to create immersive and compelling narratives. Fantasy writers often draw inspiration from mythology, folklore, and history, using these elements to create rich and detailed worlds that feel both familiar and new. Effective fantasy writing requires a strong imagination and the ability to create believable and consistent magic systems and world-building elements. If you enjoy fantasy writing we have many fantasy writing prompts on our sites, 50 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Prompts , 100 dark fantasy writing prompts , 100 fantasy romance writing prompts , 100 fantasy romance writing prompts , 50 Fantasy Writing Prompts: Wizards and Dragons , and 50 fantasy writing prompts to inspire .

Fashion Writing: 

Fashion writing covers fashion trends, designers, and the fashion industry. This writing style is used by fashion journalists, bloggers, and critics to report on fashion shows, designer collections, and street style trends. Fashion writing may also include:

• Profiles of fashion icons.
• Opinion pieces on the cultural and social impact of fashion.
• Guides on personal style and fashion advice.

Effective fashion writing is engaging, visually descriptive, and captures the creativity and dynamism of the fashion world.

Flash Fiction: 

Flash fiction is a concise form of storytelling, often under 1,000 words, that still manages to convey a complete narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. This writing style requires concision, precision, and a strong understanding of story structure and character development. Flash fiction writers must be able to create a compelling story, evoke emotions, and leave a lasting impact on the reader in a limited amount of space. Compelling flash fiction is often surprising, thought-provoking, and emotionally resonant, demonstrating the power of brevity in storytelling.

Food Writing: 

Food writing describes and critiques culinary experiences, recipes, and food culture. Food critics, bloggers, and culinary enthusiasts use this style of writing to explore the art and science of cooking, the history and cultural significance of various cuisines, and the personal and social aspects of food and dining. Food writing may include restaurant reviews, recipe guides, and essays on food-related topics such as sustainability, nutrition, and the food industry. Effective food writing is sensory and informative and conveys the joy and passion of culinary exploration.

Ghostwriting: 

Ghostwriting involves writing content officially credited to another person, often a public figure, celebrity, or expert in a particular field. Ghostwriters collaborate with their clients to capture their voices, ideas, and experiences and create written works that align with the client’s goals and intended audience. This writing style requires strong communication skills, adaptability, and maintaining confidentiality. Ghostwriters may work on various projects, such as memoirs, novels, articles, speeches, and social media content. Effective ghostwriting seamlessly blends the client’s vision with the writer’s skills, creating a final product that accurately represents the credited author.

Gothic Writing: 

Gothic writing is a style that evokes mystery, fear, and the supernatural in a dark, atmospheric setting. This type of writing often features eerie or haunted locations, dark family secrets, and characters grappling with internal conflicts or external threats. Gothic writers use descriptive language and imagery to create a sense of unease and foreboding, often exploring themes of death, decay, and the unknown. Effective Gothic writing requires a mastery of atmosphere and tone and the ability to create complex and psychologically compelling characters. If you like Gothic writing you might like our 100 gothic fiction writing prompts .

Grant Writing: 

Grant writing involves preparing proposals to secure funding for projects, programs, or organizations from government agencies, foundations, or other funding bodies. This writing style requires a clear understanding of the funding organization’s goals, priorities, and application requirements. Grant writers must effectively communicate the need for the proposed project, outline specific objectives and activities, and provide a compelling case for why the funding should be awarded. Effective grant writing is persuasive, well-organized, and strongly aligns with the proposed project and the funding organization’s mission.

Haiku is a Japanese poetic form consisting of three lines with a 5-7-5 syllable structure. This style of writing, which originated in the 17th century, often focuses on nature, seasons, and moments of epiphany or insight, using simple, concise language to create a sense of beauty, transience, and spiritual depth. Haiku writers use vivid sensory details and juxtaposition to create a sense of immediacy and connection with the natural world, often leaving room for the reader’s interpretation and reflection. Effective haiku requires a mastery of the form’s technical constraints and the ability to use language and imagery to create a sense of emotional resonance and universality.

Hard-Boiled Writing

Hard-boiled writing features tough, cynical characters in a gritty, crime-ridden setting. This style of writing, which emerged in the 1920s and 1930s with writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, often features a world where corruption and violence are the norm, where the line between right and wrong is blurred, and where the protagonist must navigate a treacherous landscape of double-crosses and moral ambiguity. Hard-boiled writers use vivid descriptions of seedy underworlds, fast-paced action, and snappy dialogue to create a sense of danger and excitement, often using the detective story as a vehicle for social commentary and critique. Effective hard-boiled writing requires a deep understanding of the genre’s conventions and themes and the ability to use language and storytelling techniques to create a sense of authenticity and raw, street-level realism.

Historical Writing: 

Historical writing investigates and interprets past events based on primary and secondary sources. Historians, scholars, and researchers use this writing style to analyze and explain the causes, consequences, and significance of historical events, figures, and movements. Historical writing may also involve exploring the social, cultural, and political contexts that shaped the past. Effective historical writing is well-researched, objective, and provides a compelling narrative that sheds new light on our understanding of history. If you like writing about history, you might find our 50 historical fiction writing prompts helpful.

Horror Writing: 

Horror writing aims to frighten and unsettle readers through suspenseful and disturbing content. This writing style often explores themes of fear, violence, and the supernatural, using vivid descriptions and plot twists to create a sense of dread and terror. Horror writers may draw inspiration from real-life fears and phobias and classic horror tropes and archetypes. Effective horror writing requires a deep understanding of what scares people and the ability to create believable and terrifying scenarios that linger in the reader’s mind long after the story ends. If you like horror you are in the right place, we have 100s of horror writing prompts to spark your creativity like: Daily horror writing prompts, 50 Lovecraftian horror writing prompts , 50 Horror Writing Prompts from Different Points of View , 365 Horrifying Horror Writing Prompts , 100 Vampire, Werewolf, Witch and Ghost Writing Prompts , 100 survival horror writing prompts, and 10 Horrifying Horror Story Prompts . We have many more articles and lists dealing with horror on our site.

Hypertext Writing

Hypertext writing uses hyperlinks to create non-linear, interactive narratives. This writing style, which emerged in the late 20th century with the rise of digital media, allows readers to navigate through a story or informational text non-sequentially, following links and pathways that reflect their interests and choices. Hypertext writers use branching storylines, multimedia elements, and user interactivity to create a sense of immersion and agency for the reader, often blurring the line between author and audience. Effective hypertext writing requires a deep understanding of digital storytelling techniques, user experience design, and creating compelling and coherent narratives that can be explored in multiple ways.

Invective Writing

Invective writing expresses strong criticism or verbal abuse towards a person or group. This style of writing, which has its roots in ancient Greek and Roman oratory, often uses harsh language, personal attacks, and rhetorical flourishes to denounce or discredit an opponent, often in a political or social context. Invective writers may use sarcasm, irony, and hyperbole to create a sense of moral outrage or righteous anger, usually appealing to the reader’s emotions and sense of justice. Effective invective writing requires a mastery of rhetorical techniques, a keen understanding of the audience’s values and beliefs, and the ability to use language and argument to create a sense of urgency and call to action.

Inspirational Writing: 

Inspirational writing aims to uplift, encourage, and motivate readers. This writing style is used by motivational speakers, religious leaders, and self-help authors to provide guidance and support for personal and spiritual growth. Inspirational writing may include stories of overcoming adversity, quotes and affirmations, and practical advice for living a more fulfilling life. Effective, inspirational writing is empowering and compassionate and helps readers find meaning and purpose.

Journalistic Writing: 

Journalistic writing reports on news, events, and issues objectively and truthfully. This writing style is used in newspapers, magazines, and online media outlets to inform the public about current affairs, politics, entertainment, sports, and other topics of interest. Journalistic writing follows a specific structure, often using the inverted pyramid format, which presents the most critical information first and gradually provides more details and background information. Journalists must adhere to ethical standards, such as accuracy, fairness, and impartiality, and verify their sources and facts before publishing their work. Effective journalistic writing is clear, concise, and engaging, capturing the reader’s attention and conveying the essential information quickly and efficiently.

Legal Writing: 

Legal writing involves drafting legal documents, such as contracts, briefs, or opinions, and presenting arguments precisely and persuasively. This writing style requires a deep understanding of legal principles, case law, and statutory requirements and the ability to analyze complex legal issues and communicate them effectively to legal professionals and lay audiences. Effective legal writing is well-structured, thoroughly researched, and adheres to the legal field’s conventions and formatting requirements.

Lyrical Writing: 

Lyrical writing employs poetic and melodic language to evoke emotions and imagery. This style of writing, which is often associated with poetry and songwriting, uses techniques such as rhyme, meter, and figurative language to create a sense of musicality and rhythm in the text. Lyrical writers often focus on themes of love, nature, and the human experience, using sensory details and symbolic imagery to create a sense of beauty, intimacy, and emotional depth. Effective lyrical writing requires a mastery of poetic techniques, a keen ear for language, and the ability to use words and phrases to create a sense of melody and harmony on the page.

Magical Realism Writing: 

Magical realism writing incorporates fantastical elements into an otherwise realistic setting. This style of writing, which emerged in Latin American literature in the mid-20th century, often features supernatural or mythical events and characters that are treated as a natural part of the everyday world, frequently used to explore themes of cultural identity, political oppression, and the blurring of boundaries between the real and the imaginary. Magical realist writers use vivid descriptions of the natural and the supernatural to create a sense of wonder and enchantment, often leaving the reader questioning the nature of reality. Effective magical realism writing requires a deep understanding of the genre’s conventions and themes and the ability to use language and storytelling techniques to integrate the mundane and the miraculous seamlessly. If you like magical realism you might want to check out our Spellbinding 100 Magical Realism Prompts .

Medical Writing: 

Medical writing involves communicating medical and health-related information to various audiences, such as healthcare professionals, patients, or the general public. This writing style covers multiple topics, from clinical research and drug development to patient education and health journalism. Medical writers must have a strong understanding of medical terminology, human anatomy and physiology, and the latest advancements in healthcare. Effective medical writing is accurate, precise, and tailored to the target audience’s specific needs and knowledge level, ensuring that complex medical information is conveyed in an accessible and engaging manner.

Memoir Writing: 

Memoir writing is a form of autobiographical writing that recounts specific experiences, events, or periods in the author’s life. Unlike an autobiography, which typically covers the author’s life, a memoir focuses on a particular theme, relationship, or period of personal growth. Memoirists often reflect on their experiences, share lessons learned, and explore the broader implications of their individual stories. Effective memoir writing is honest, reflective, and emotionally engaging, allowing the reader to connect with the author’s experiences and gain new insights into the human condition.

Metafiction Writing: 

Metafiction writing self-consciously addresses the conventions and artificiality of storytelling. This writing style often breaks the fourth wall, directly acknowledging the reader and the fictional nature of the narrative. Metafictional works may include self-referential elements, such as characters who are aware they are in a story or plot devices that are openly discussed and manipulated. Metafiction challenges traditional narrative structures by exposing storytelling mechanics and encourages readers to reflect on the relationship between fiction and reality. Effective metafiction writing requires a deep understanding of literary conventions, a willingness to subvert them, and the ability to create engaging stories that operate on multiple levels of meaning.

Minimalist Writing: 

Minimalist writing uses simple, sparse language and focuses on the essential elements of the story. This writing style, which emerged in the mid-20th century with writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver, often features short sentences, limited descriptions, and a focus on action and dialogue rather than introspection or exposition. Minimalist writers aim to convey the most meaning with the fewest words possible, trusting the reader to fill in the gaps and interpret the subtext. Effective minimalist writing requires a mastery of concision and precision and the ability to create compelling characters and storylines using only the most essential details.

Motivational Writing: 

Motivational writing encourages readers to take action and pursue their goals. Life coaches, business leaders, and success experts use this writing style to provide strategies and techniques for overcoming obstacles, building confidence, and achieving success. Motivational writing may include case studies, personal anecdotes, and practical exercises for setting and achieving goals. Effective motivational writing is energizing and action-oriented and helps readers develop the mindset and skills needed to succeed.

Mystery Writing: 

Mystery writing revolves around a crime or puzzle that the protagonist must solve. This writing style often features a detective or amateur sleuth who uses observation and deduction skills to uncover clues and piece together the truth. Mystery writers use suspense, red herrings, and plot twists to keep readers guessing until the final reveal. Effective mystery writing requires careful plotting and pacing and creating complex, believable characters with hidden motives and secrets.We have lots of support for mystery writing on our site including 50 mystery whodunit writing prompts.

Narrative Writing: 

Narrative writing tells a story, usually with a clear beginning, middle, and end. This writing style often involves a plot, characters, and a setting and may be based on real-life events or entirely fictional. Narrative writing aims to engage the reader by creating an immersive experience, using descriptive language, dialogue, and sensory details to bring the story to life. Common examples of narrative writing include novels, short stories, memoirs, and personal essays. A well-crafted narrative often consists of a conflict or challenge the main character must overcome, leading to a resolution or change in the character’s life.

Noir Writing: 

Noir writing depicts a dark, morally ambiguous world, often in a detective or crime story. This writing style, which emerged in the mid-20th century with writers such as Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, usually features cynical, world-weary protagonists who navigate a shadowy underworld of corruption, deceit, and violence. Noir writers use vivid descriptions of urban decay, complex plotlines, and snappy, often sarcastic dialogue to create a sense of atmosphere and moral ambiguity. Effective noir writing requires a deep understanding of the genre’s conventions and themes and the ability to create complex, flawed characters and intricate, suspenseful storylines. Noir is such a great writing style/genre, check out our 150 tech noir writing prompts .

Op-Ed Writing: 

Op-ed writing, short for “opposite the editorial page,” expresses a personal opinion on a current issue, often in a newspaper or magazine. Unlike editorials representing a publication’s official stance, op-eds are authored by individual writers, experts, or public figures. This writing style allows for diverse perspectives and often sparks public debate or discussion on important topics. Effective op-ed writing is persuasive, well-informed, and offers a fresh or provocative take.

Paranormal Writing:

 Paranormal writing features supernatural or inexplicable phenomena in a realistic setting. This writing style often explores themes of ghosts, psychic abilities, and otherworldly creatures, using a blend of horror, mystery, and fantasy elements to create eerie and atmospheric stories. Paranormal writers often use their stories to explore deeper themes of life, death, and the nature of reality. Effective paranormal writing requires a balance of realism and the supernatural and the ability to create compelling characters grappling with extraordinary circumstances.  We love the paranormal around here, and you might like our 50 paranormal romance story starters or 100 Paranormal Fantasy Writing Prompts .

Pastoral Writing: 

Pastoral writing celebrates rural life and landscapes, often in an idealized or nostalgic manner. This style of writing, which has its roots in ancient Greek and Roman literature, usually features descriptions of rural settings, such as rolling hills, babbling brooks, and peaceful meadows, as well as characters who live in harmony with nature. Pastoral writers often use their works to contrast the simplicity and beauty of rural life with the corruption and complexity of urban society, sometimes as a form of social commentary or critique. Effective pastoral writing requires a deep appreciation for the natural world and an ability to evoke a sense of place and atmosphere through vivid, sensory descriptions.

Persuasive Writing: 

Persuasive writing aims to convince the reader to adopt a particular viewpoint or take a specific action. This writing style presents arguments, evidence, and reasoning to support a position or claim while addressing and refuting potential counterarguments. Persuasive writing is commonly used in opinion pieces, editorials, advertisements, and political speeches. Effective, compelling writing must be well-researched, logically structured, and emotionally appealing to the target audience. The writer may use rhetorical devices, such as ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic), to strengthen their arguments and persuade the reader.

Philosophical Writing: 

Philosophical writing examines fundamental questions and ideas about knowledge, reality, and existence. Philosophers and thinkers use this writing style to explore abstract concepts, challenge assumptions, and propose new ways of understanding the world. Philosophical writing often involves constructing logical arguments, analyzing existing theories, and engaging in critical thinking. Effective philosophical writing is clear, precise, rigorous, and open to multiple perspectives and interpretations.

Picaresque Writing: 

Picaresque’s writing follows a mischievous hero’s adventures in an episodic, often satirical narrative. This style of writing, which originated in 16th-century Spain with works such as “Lazarillo de Tormes,” usually features a low-born, morally ambiguous protagonist who moves from one adventure to another, often as a means of social critique or commentary. Picaresque writers use humor, irony, and a sense of the absurd to create an understanding of the protagonist’s outsider status and the inherent flaws and defects of the society they move through. Effective picaresque writing requires a mastery of episodic storytelling, a keen eye for social satire, and the ability to create a compelling if not always likable, central character.

Poetry is a form of creative writing that uses language artistically to evoke emotions, ideas, or experiences. Poets employ various literary devices, such as metaphor, simile, alliteration, and rhyme, to create vivid imagery, convey deeper meanings, and explore universal themes. Poetry can take many forms, from traditional structures like sonnets and haikus to free verse and experimental styles. The primary goal of poetry is to express the poet’s unique perspective and evoke an emotional response from the reader. Compelling poetry is often concise yet powerful, using carefully chosen words and phrases to create a lasting impact. Please also see our 50 Poetry Writing Prompts Every Writer should try .

Political Writing: 

Political writing discusses political issues, policies, and events from various perspectives. Journalists, commentators, and political analysts use this writing style to report on elections, legislation, and international relations and provide opinions and analysis on political topics. Political writing may include speeches, manifestos, and policy papers by politicians and advocacy groups. Effective political writing is well-informed and objective and engages with the complexities and controversies of the political landscape.

Review Writing: 

Review writing involves evaluating and critically assessing a product, service, or work of art, such as a book, movie, restaurant, or consumer item. Reviewers provide their informed opinions, highlighting the subject’s strengths and weaknesses. This style of writing requires a deep understanding of the relevant industry or field and the ability to analyze and articulate the key aspects that contribute to the overall quality or value of the subject. Effective review writing is objective, well-reasoned, and provides valuable insights to help readers make informed decisions.

Romance Writing: 

Romance writing focuses on the development of a romantic relationship between characters. This writing style often explores themes of love, desire, and commitment, using obstacles and conflicts to test the strength of the central relationship. Romance writers may write in various subgenres, such as historical romance, contemporary romance, or paranormal romance, each with unique conventions and tropes. Effective romance writing requires a deep understanding of human relationships and emotions and the ability to create compelling and likable characters for which readers can root.

Satirical Writing: 

Satirical writing uses humor, irony, or exaggeration to criticize or comment on society, individuals, or institutions. This writing style aims to expose and ridicule human vices, follies, and absurdities, often to promote social or political change. Satirical writing can take many forms, such as essays, novels, plays, and cartoons, and usually requires a deep understanding of the subject matter being satirized. Effective satirical writing is witty, clever, and thought-provoking, using humor to highlight serious issues and encourage the audience to question the status quo.

Script writing: 

Script writing involves creating scripts for various forms of visual media, such as films, television shows, plays, and video games. This writing style requires a unique format that includes scene descriptions, character dialogues, and stage directions. Scriptwriters must have a strong understanding of storytelling techniques, character development, and visual storytelling. They collaborate with directors, producers, and other creative professionals to bring their scripts to life on screen or stage. Effective scriptwriting creates engaging and memorable stories, compelling characters, and vivid scenes that captivate the audience.

Science Fiction Writing: 

Science fiction writing speculates about future technologies, societies, and scientific discoveries. This writing style often explores themes of space exploration, time travel, artificial intelligence, and dystopian futures, using imaginative world-building and technical detail to create believable and thought-provoking stories. Science fiction writers may draw inspiration from current scientific research and theories and classic science fiction tropes and archetypes. Effective science fiction writing requires a balance of creativity and scientific plausibility and the ability to create compelling characters and storylines that explore the human condition in a futuristic setting.

Scientific Writing: 

Scientific writing presents research findings, hypotheses, and scientific information in a structured, technical style. This writing style is used in academic journals, research papers, and grant proposals and requires a clear understanding of the scientific method, data analysis, and the relevant field of study. Scientific writers must effectively communicate complex ideas, methods, and results, using precise language and visual aids, such as graphs and charts, to support their findings. Effective scientific writing is objective, well-organized, and contributes to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Self-Help Writing: 

Self-help writing provides advice and guidance for personal growth and improvement. This writing style is used by self-help authors, life coaches, and mental health professionals to offer strategies and techniques for overcoming challenges, achieving goals, and improving overall well-being. Self-help writing may cover many topics, such as relationships, career development, stress management, and spiritual growth. Effective self-help writing is practical and empowering, offering readers concrete tools and insights for creating positive change in their lives.

Social Commentary Writing: 

Social commentary writing offers observations and opinions on social issues and cultural phenomena. Essayists, columnists, and cultural critics use this style of writing to analyze and critique various aspects of society, such as race, gender, class, and popular culture. Social commentary writing may include personal reflections and stories illuminating more significant social issues. Effective social commentary writing is insightful and thought-provoking, challenging readers to examine their beliefs and assumptions about the world.

Speech writing: 

Speech writing involves crafting speeches for public figures, such as politicians, business leaders, or activists, tailored to the specific speaker and audience. This writing style requires a deep understanding of the speaker’s voice, style, objectives, and the audience’s expectations and concerns. Speechwriters must effectively convey the speaker’s message, using rhetorical devices, storytelling, and persuasive arguments to engage and influence the audience. Effective speech writing is clear, concise, and memorable, leaving a lasting impact on the listeners.

Sports Writing: 

Sports writing reports on and analyzes sports events, athletes, and related issues. Journalists, bloggers, and commentators use this style of writing to cover a wide range of sports, from amateur leagues to professional competitions. Sports writing may include game recaps, player profiles, opinion pieces, and investigative reporting on doping, corruption, and social justice in sports. Effective sports writing is engaging and informative and captures the excitement and drama of athletic competition.

Stream of Consciousness Writing: 

Stream-of-consciousness writing presents a character’s continuous flow of thoughts, impressions, and experiences without traditional narrative structure or punctuation constraints. This writing style aims to capture the inner workings of a character’s mind, often in a non-linear or fragmented manner. Famous examples of stream-of-consciousness writing include James Joyce’s “Ulysses” and Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” Effective stream-of-consciousness writing creates a sense of immediacy and psychological depth, allowing the reader to experience the character’s thoughts and emotions raw and unfiltered.

Technical Writing:

 Technical writing communicates complex information clearly and concisely to a specific audience. This writing style is used in various industries, such as engineering, computer science, and healthcare, to create user manuals, product specifications, software documentation, and other instructional materials. Technical writers must have a deep understanding of the subject matter and be able to explain complex concepts and processes in a way that is accessible to the intended audience. Effective technical writing is well-structured, uses precise language and terminology, and often includes visual aids, such as diagrams, charts, and images, to support the text and enhance understanding.

Theological Writing: 

Theological writing explores religious beliefs, practices, and spiritual ideas in a scholarly or reflective manner. Theologians, religious scholars, and spiritual leaders often use this writing style to analyze and interpret religious texts, doctrines, and traditions. Theological writing may also include personal reflections on faith, spirituality, and the human experience. Effective theological writing is well-researched and thoughtful and engages with the complexities and nuances of religious thought while remaining accessible to the intended audience.

Travel Writing: 

Travel writing describes a traveler’s experiences, observations, and recommendations for visiting a particular destination or embarking on a journey. This writing style aims to transport the reader to the described location, providing vivid details about the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations encountered along the way. Travel writers often share their insights, historical and cultural context, and practical advice for other travelers. Effective travel writing is engaging, informative, and evocative, inspiring readers to explore new places and gain a deeper appreciation for the world around them.

Thriller Writing: 

Thriller writing creates intense suspense and excitement, often in a high-stakes plot. This writing style usually features a race against time, a dangerous villain, and a protagonist who must use their skills and cunning to survive. Thriller writers use fast pacing, plot twists, and cliffhangers to keep readers in their seats. Effective thriller writing requires a mastery of suspense and tension and the ability to create complex and morally ambiguous characters.

Western Writing: 

Western writing is set in the American Old West, often featuring cowboys, outlaws, and frontier life. This writing style frequently explores themes of honor, justice, and the struggle between civilization and wilderness. Western writers use vivid descriptions of the rugged landscape and colorful characters to create a sense of place and time. Effective Western writing requires a deep understanding of the historical and cultural context of the American West, as well as the ability to create compelling and archetypal characters.

Young Adult Writing: 

Young adult writing targets readers aged 12-18 and often deals with coming-of-age themes. This writing style usually features teenage protagonists grappling with issues of identity, relationships, and the transition from childhood to adulthood. Young adult writers may write in genres such as fantasy, science fiction, or contemporary realism, using relatable characters and engaging storylines to connect with their audience. Effective young adult writing requires a deep understanding of the concerns and experiences of teenagers, as well as the ability to create authentic and compelling characters and story lines.

In conclusion, this comprehensive guide has provided a detailed exploration of the diverse and fascinating world of writing styles. From the classical to the contemporary, from the informative to the imaginative, each style represents a unique approach to the art of written expression, with its purpose, techniques, and impact on the reader.

Throughout this guide, we have examined the key characteristics and examples of dozens of writing styles, ranging from the concise and precise methods of technical and journalistic writing to the evocative and experimental forms of poetry and absurdist writing. We have also discussed the importance of choosing the appropriate style for your purpose and audience and how the right choice can enhance your work’s clarity, credibility, emotional resonance, and artistic merit.

However, it is essential to remember that mastering these writing styles is not simply memorizing rules and formulas. Instead, it is an ongoing exploration, experimentation, and growth process as you develop your unique voice and perspective as a writer. By studying the works of great authors and practitioners of each style and constantly challenging yourself to try new approaches and techniques, you can continue expanding your writing skills and creativity.

Moreover, in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, the ability to adapt and innovate with different writing styles has become more critical than ever. With the proliferation of new media platforms and technologies, writers must be able to craft compelling content across a wide range of formats and channels, from social media posts and blog articles to interactive narratives and immersive storytelling experiences. By deeply understanding the various writing styles and their potential applications, you can position yourself at the forefront of this exciting and transformative era in written communication.

As we conclude this definitive guide to writing styles, we encourage you to embrace the richness and diversity of the written word and continue exploring and experimenting with different approaches and techniques in your writing. Whether you are a seasoned professional or a passionate amateur, a poet or a programmer, a journalist or a novelist, the power to express yourself effectively and creatively through writing is one of our greatest gifts and responsibilities as communicators and storytellers. By mastering the art of writing styles, you can enhance your skills and impact as a writer and contribute to the ongoing evolution and vitality of the written word as a medium for human understanding, imagination, and connection.

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About Richard

Richard Everywriter (pen name) has worked for literary magazines and literary websites for the last 25 years. He holds degrees in Writing, Journalism, Technology and Education. Richard has headed many writing workshops and courses, and he has taught writing and literature for the last 20 years.  

In writing and publishing he has worked with independent, small, medium and large publishers for years connecting publishers to authors. He has also worked as a journalist and editor in both magazine, newspaper and trade publications as well as in the medical publishing industry.   Follow him on Twitter, and check out our Submissions page .

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16 Types Of Writing Every Writer Should Master

Discover our guide with types of writing you can use in your next writing assignment; there are many different forms of writing to explore today!

As someone who makes a living writing for other people’s websites, I often adapt my writing style for different audiences and situations. The way I write conveys meaning beyond the words I use or what I say. Some forms of writing paint a picture, convince readers to act, or communicate facts using reliable sources. Choosing from the different types of writing and adapting to the requirements of a professor, business, or client is crucial to writing success.

Below, I’ll share the different types of writing you can practice and learn how to become a better writer .

1. Expository Writing

2. narrative writing, 3. persuasive writing, 4. descriptive writing, 5. technical writing, 6. diary writing, 7. business writing, 8. copywriting, 9. content writing, 11. critical writing, 12. scientific writing, 13. travel writing, 14. blogging, 15. technical writing, 16. academic writing, the final word on types of writing, how do i choose the right writing style for a piece, how can i learn to write in various styles.

Expository writing focuses on providing facts and research about a given topic. With some forms of writing like this, you’ll explore an idea in detail and expand on that idea using factual statements. 

When writing an expository essay, you don’t seek to prove a point, persuade, or evoke emotions. Your goal is to explain something in an objective and balanced way. Read our guide to the best essay writing topics . Here are some examples of expository writing you’re probably familiar with, whether you’ve written them or read them:

• Journalistic articles
• How-to manuals
• Assembly instructions

Stories are everywhere around you and provide ample opportunity to express your imagination.

In forms of writing like narrative writing, you tell a story that’s 100 percent truthful, primarily factual but embellished for reader enjoyment or fiction. Stories are everywhere around you and provide ample opportunity to express your imagination.

Examples of the narrative style include:

• Biographies and autobiographies
• Short stories
• Narrative journalism

The journalist Hunter S. Thompson popularized this type of writing in his articles and essays, whereby his journalism often reads like a novel. If you’d like to learn more about this style, read our guide to narrative essays .

In a persuasive essay, your goal is to convince the reader to agree with you through strategic argumentation. To accomplish this, you employ various argumentation techniques like presenting supporting evidence for your argument, laying out points logically that slowly generate buy-in from the reader, and telling a story that evokes emotion to make the case. Politicians and leaders use persuasive writing to popularize ideas like Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope . If you’d like to learn more, read our guide to persuasive essays .

Examples of persuasive writing include:

• Advertisements and marketing campaigns
• Cover letters
• Letters of recommendation
• Business proposals
• Persuasive essays
• Persuasive social media posts
• Persuasive journalism

Descriptive writing is a type of writing style that overlaps with others in this list. It’s one of the most common types of writing, as students often write descriptive essays in school. One of the essential concepts in descriptive writing is to “show, not tell.” Rather than simply saying what happened, explain the how and the why behind it to paint a picture. If you’d like to learn more, read our guide to descriptive essays . You’ll use numerous literary devices to accomplish this, such as:

• Foreshadowing

For this writing style, you’ll choose a point of view to relate to readers. The POV can change the tone of the piece, with the third-person often sounding more formal and objective, while the first and second can seem informal. You may need a combination of more than one POV for the piece to work. Examples of POV usage:

• First-person – I, We 
• Second person – You, Understood You 
• Third-person – He, She, It, They

Technical writing involves communicating something complex in a way the audience can understand. To accomplish this, the technical writer must have in-depth knowledge of the topic they’re explaining and an understanding of the audience’s experience level. Technical writing is devoid of personal opinions. Instead, it explains a topic or concept step-by-step or logically. If you’d like to learn more, read our guide explaining how to become a technical writer . Examples of technical writing include:

• Research papers
• Legal documents
• Some textbooks
• White papers
• Academic writing
• Medical journals
• Technical documentation for products and software

 Diary writing is a more personal form intended to log events in a person’s life and often their emotions. If you think you might be famous someday, keeping diaries could one day be resource materials for your auto-biography! Read our guide explaining the differences between a diary and a journal .

That point aside, many people use diaries as an external way to process how they’re feeling to deal with anger, regret, grief, fear, jealousy, and sadness. It’s cheaper than therapy. Diary writing can be a positive experience. People often write about what they’re grateful for, express their joy around fortuitous events, or set life goals and celebrate accomplishments.

Examples of diary writing include:

• The Diary of Anne Frank
• Leonardo Da Vinci’s diaries
• Charles Darwin’s diaries
• Marie Curie’s notebooks

Business writing is a commonly misunderstood type of writing. Many consider business writing stuffy and formal, but it’s a stimulating and well-paying field. A business writer follows a company style guide to convey an idea or concept for internal and, sometimes, external use.

For example, a business writer could take notes from an executive and turn them into a compelling business case for the wider team. They could also articulate the values of a business in everyday concise language for a presentation, pitch deck or company manifesto.

Copywriting describes using words to sell products and services to a target audience. A copywriter produces copy for websites, sales pages and email funnels. They aim to convince readers to act, for example, opting in for a lead magnet with their email address, taking out a trial or buying a product. A copywriter can also branch into social media and content writing. Copywriters can earn high-five and even six figures annually by providing this service to companies or clients.

The art of copywriting involves holding the attention of readers. For this reason, it’s a valuable skill for those writing online. A good copywriting formula can help a writer finish an article or blog post quickly. Learn how to become a copywriter .

Content writing is similar to copywriting. A content writer produces blog posts, articles, ebooks and guides for companies or online businesses. They may also write YouTube video scripts and social media posts.

A content writer typically charges clients a per-word rate, usually between four and ten cents, depending on the complexity of the topic. Content writing has become more popular for freelancers because most online businesses thrive on content.

A well-run niche website, for example, publishes a set number of SEO-optimized articles each month to increase traffic and revenue. The owner of this site depends on a team of knowledgeable content writers to achieve their publication and revenue goals. If you’d like to try this discipline, read our guide explaining what does a content writer do ?

Poetry is something most writers try for fun. It’s a surprisingly rewarding discipline as a writer can play around with words, imagery and sensory language. Usually, an aspiring poet isn’t trying their hand at this type of writing to supplement their income. Instead, it’s a creative challenge .

Perhaps the most accessible type of poetry to start with is Haiku. It’s a type of Japanese poetry whereby the first line contains five syllables, the second 7 and the third 5. Haiku is only one form of poetry to explore. Read our guide to the most common types of poetry . For example, consider this ancient Haiku by Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō:

An old silent pond A frog jumps into the pond— Splash! Silence again. – Matsuo Bashō

A critic considers a piece of popular media and analyzes it for a general audience. The most obvious example is a film critic who watches a film and then explains whether readers should watch it in newspaper articles or online.

Critical writing is often subjective rather than objective because it’s written from the reviewer’s point of view. After all, one person’s art is another’s trash! However, writing reviews requires deep knowledge and understanding of the topic or medium in question… or at least an ability to entertain readers with your point of view. Popular forms of critical writing include:

• Film reviews
• Game reviews
• Music reviews

Scientific writing involves writing literature reviews, peer-reviewed journal papers, and grant proposals. They read the prevailing literature about a topic, review current thinking and then provide a synopsis and evaluation. A scientific writer backs up their argument or points with evidence and citations. Ideally, a scientific writer demonstrates precision, clarity and objectivity.

However, they’re usually writing for an expert audience who understands the topic, prevailing literature or works in the field. Therefore, a scientific writer doesn’t always have to explain basic concepts and ideas as they can assume their audience knows the basics.

Travel writing describes writing about your experiences while visiting a country, city or location. It sounds like a glamorous profession because you get paid to go on holiday! However, professional travel writers are often under strict deadlines and must see and do as much as possible quickly. That often cuts out any socializing. Travel writers also face competition from locals who can write about a location with more expertise than a visitor. Travel writers can earn a nice side income by blogging and writing about their trips online. For more, read our guide explaining how to become a travel writer .

Blogging is an immensely rewarding form of writing that started in 1997. If you’re going to start a blog today, expect competition. Reportedly, over 600 million blogs exist worldwide.

However, a writer can find success more easily if they write within a specific niche about topics readers are searching for, rather than their day or personal lives. The best blogs are self-hosted on WordPress and monetized through display advertising, affiliate promotions, and digital products. To learn more, read our guide to blogging for writers .

Technical writing is a specialized skill where writers take complex information and display it in a way that’s easy for readers to understand. Often, technical writing involves creating diagrams, graphs, charts and visuals to help explain the topic. Various sectors like finance, technology, IT, healthcare and STEM utilize technical writers to create articles and guides on specific topics. For more, learn how to get paid to write reviews .

Academic writing is used for all scholarly contexts, like school essays or college dissertations. It will almost always follow a structure and usually follows formatting guidelines like MLA or APA. Writing for academic purposes will involve research and narrative in a passive or third-person voice to maintain objectivity. Many resources are available to help with academic writing; check out our guide with the best essay-writing apps to get started.

Writers can explore many different styles, from creative to commercial. Selecting the right one depends on the reader, editor, publication, and writing goals . If you’re bored with one style, you can always try another for fun or to flex your creative muscles. 

FAQs About Types Of Writing

Consider your audience and the style guide for the publication in question. Identify what type of writing the editor expects for this topic, publication, situation, or brand. Consider how your piece can inform, educate, inspire or entertain readers.

Reading their examples is one of the best ways to learn writing styles. Notice how the writer grabs your attention, unfolds their main points, and communicates with you. Then practice, and ask someone–preferably a writer–to give you some feedback.

Meet Rachael, the editor at Become a Writer Today. With years of experience in the field, she is passionate about language and dedicated to producing high-quality content that engages and informs readers. When she's not editing or writing, you can find her exploring the great outdoors, finding inspiration for her next project.

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11 Creative Writing Techniques

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The articles below show you how to use creative writing tools in fiction or non-fiction. Each article features a series of examples so it becomes easier to apply the technique.

List of creative writing techniques

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Personification

Show don’t tell

Repetition in writing

Contrast in writing

The rule of three in writing

Parallelism

1. Metaphors

Learn how to use metaphors and get inspired by these examples …

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Get inspired by over 10 simile examples by various authors …

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Get inspired by these imagery examples …

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5. Personification

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6. Show don’t tell

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7. Repetition in writing

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8. Contrast in writing

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9. The rule of 3 in writing

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The rule of 3 in writing >>

10. Parallelism in writing

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11. Switch the point of view (POV)

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In this section

Subsections.

Table of Contents

Ai, ethics & human agency, collaboration, information literacy, writing process, cultivating critical ai literacy: a framework for analyzing research, scholarship, and media.

Note: This assignment is adapted from Professor Whitney Gregg-Harrison’s (University of Rochester) Critical Media Analysis Project. It is used with permission

This creative challenge is a departure from the last two challenges. Rather than experimenting with AI tools, this challenges presents a critical framework to critique research, scholarship, and “hype” on AI. You’ll collaborate in groups to practice this critical framework, and then you’ll use it to access a text of your choosing. You may use AI tools to complete this challenge, yet your work should not reflect a simple “copy/paste” from the tool(s) but instead an extended dialog wherein you engage critically with the AI tools you deploy. That said, I ask that you archive all chat logs with the tools you use in case I’m concerned you over relied on the tools and violated academic integrity standards. 

Readings for this Creative Challenge

• The (Neil) Postman Always Rings Twice
• Structured Revision – How to Revise Your Work

Step 1 – Practice at Media Analysis

• Working collaboratively, use the ”Eighteen pitfalls checklist” to critique “ Not quite eye to A.I.: student and teacher perspectives on the use of generative artificial intelligence in the writing process .” Use the template Kapoor and Narayanan use in Eighteen pitfalls (see sample template below)
• Share your group’s analysis with the class. 
• Provide a link to your group’s analysis at the course sandbox. Each group will have 3 minutes to share their analysis. Make sure all group members are identified

Step 2 – Identify a Media Source to Analyze

• Use Google Scholar or a tool such as ChatGPT-4o , Research Rabbi , Semantic Scholar , Elicit , or Consensus to search for and identify a media item to focus on. You want to find a media example that “hypes” AI. Your source can come from anywhere, including edtech and business domains. If you’re using a non-text type of media (e.g., a video or an audio podcast), you can work with the transcript for the color-coded highlights.
• Reread the “18 Pitfalls” framework  
• Use “gdocs highlighting” to annotate the media you’ve chosen to analyze. Your audience consists of regular readers of “AI Snake Oil” and of people who are encountering the site for the very first time via your article. This creates a tricky balance: you don’t want to bore the regular readers by rehashing things they already know in excruciating detail, but you are going to need to provide some context for those readers who are encountering this site for the first time. You also can’t necessarily assume that your readers have read anything from our course readings. Follow the template Kapoor and Narayanan use in Eighteen pitfalls .  For example, see this example from CNN , and this example from the NYT . Identify errors in reasoning, bias, failure to address counterarguments. Your goal in the intro and conclusion is to contextualize your analysis (e.g. relate it to the framework that Kapoor and Narayanan provide, and to other sources we’ve already read) and to offer readers a “take home message” about what your analysis shows us.

Required Template

Title Goes Here

This is where you’ll write your intro. Make sure to contextualize what you’re doing here! To do that, cite, using APA 7, from “18 Pitfalls.”   

Legend:  ⧫ Flawed human-AI comparison

                  ⧫ Hyperbolic, incorrect, non-falsifiable claims about AI

                  ⧫ Uncritically platforming those with self-interest     

⧫ Limitations not addressed

Here is where you will copy and paste the title/text/images from your chosen article. (If annotating a video or podcast, you’ll paste the transcript below instead.)

You’ll annotate it using colored highlights corresponding[*] to the key, along with comments. 

Please put an asterisk in brackets following each highlight[*] and attach your comment to that asterisk[*] (this will ensure that the reader[*] can see the colored highlights accurately).

This is where you’ll write your conclusion. Make sure to give us a clear “take-home message” and help us understand what your analysis shows.

References:

(At the end of your outro, make sure you have a reference list that provides full reference information for each source you’ve cited, using whatever citation style you’ve chosen.)

Requirements:

• Length: Aim for 500 to 750 words across your annotations, introduction, and conclusion
• Format: Use a readable font and a reasonable font size – otherwise, formatting choices are yours to make!
• Design Messages for Maximum Impact
• Employ a Professional Writing Style . 
• Citation style: APA 7 or hyperlinked URLS – just make sure that you are consistent!
• Sources: You must engage with at least 3 sources in this paper: the Kapoor & Narayanan “18 Pitfalls” piece, your chosen media example, and at least one other source from our course readings.

Assessment Criteria

Argument & analysis:.

Engagement with Sources and Evidence:

Organization & Coherence:

Presentation & Style:

Step 3 – Peer Evaluation

Working collaboratively in small groups, with the entire group’s focus on one peer’s text at a time, engage in Structured Revision – How to Revise Your Work . Use the following organization to focus your group critique

• Inspect the Document @ the Global Level
• Inspect the Document @ the Section Level
• Inspect the Document at the Paragraph Level
• Inspect the Document at the Sentence Level + Sentence-level Perspective

Step 4 – Submission Instructions – Deliverables

• Upload to Canvas the gDoc link for your group’s analysis of “ Not quite eye to A.I.: student and teacher perspectives on the use of generative artificial intelligence in the writing process
• Upload to Canvas a .pdf version of your individually-authored Media Analysis. Be sure your link enables edit-view privileges. If you used a GAI tool to author your reflection, keep the chat log archived in case I need to review it. 

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KS3 creative writing lesson AQA Paper1 style

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

1 June 2024

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An AQA style Paper 1 section B lesson on creative writing to engage students in using picture prompts. Ideal for KS3 or could be adapted for Y10.

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