4 Styles of Writing

1. 4 Styles of Writing Ms. Carmack English 9

2. The 4 Styles of Writing • Narrative • Persuasive • Expository • Descriptive

3. The Narrative Writing Style • A type of writing in which the author places himself as the character and narrates you to the story. • Examples: Novels, short stories, novellas, poetry, biographies can all fall in the narrative writing style. • Simply, narrative writing is an art to describe a story. It answers the question: “What happened then?”

4. Narrative Writing: Key Points In narrative writing, a person, being a narrative, tells a story or event. Narrative writing has characters and dialogues in it. Narrative writing has definite and logical beginnings, intervals and endings. Narrative writing often has situations like disputes, conflicts, actions, motivational events, problems and their solutions.

5. Six Elements of a Narrative • Plot:  the sequence of events that take place in a story. • Setting:  the time and place in which the events of a story take place. • Characterization:  the methods used to present the personality of a character in a narrative. • Direct--the author describes the character. Example--She was a large woman with a large purse. • Indirect--the reader judges what the character is like based on what they say or do, or what other characters say about them. Example--We believe the narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is crazy because he talks nervously and frequently repeats himself. • Atmosphere:  the general mood or feeling established in a piece of literature. Atmosphere is created through word choice and pacing. • Word Choice--the author uses words that make the reader feel a certain way. A spooky atmosphere is created in "The Tell-Tale Heart" through the use of words like "hideous," "marrow," "chilled," and "nervous." • Pacing--the author controls the speed at which we read through sentence length, punctuation, repetition of words and other techniques. • Point of View:  who is narrating the story (2 main types: First Person, Third Person)  • First person: the narrator uses "I" to tell the action, and is involved in the story.  • Third person: the story is told from a perspective outside the story. The characters are referred to by name, or as he, she or they. • Conflict: the central problem that drives the action of a story. (two main types)   • Internal: The conflict happens in a character's mind. A character with a guilty conscience is an example of internal conflict.   • External: The conflict happens between characters, or between a character and some outside force, like nature. Sherlock Holmes pursuing a criminal is an example of external conflict.

6. The Persuasive Writing Style • Unlike ‘Expository Writing’, it contains the opinions, biasness and justification of the author. • Is a type of writing which contains reasons to make someone believe on the point the writer is talking about. • Is is for persuading and convincing on your point of view. • It is often used in complain letters, when you provide reasons and justifications for your complaint; other copywriting texts, T.V commercials, affiliate marketing pitches etc. are all different types of persuasive writing, where author is persuading and convincing you on something he wants you to do and/or believe.

7. The Persuasive Writing Style Key Points • Persuasive writing is equipped with reasons, arguments and justifications • In persuasive writing, the author takes a stand and asks you to believe his point of view. • If often asks for a call or an action from the readers.

8. The Expository Writing Style • A subject-oriented writing style, in which the main focus of the author is to tell you about a given topic or subject, and leave out his personal opinions. • He furnishes you with relevant facts and figures and does not include his opinions. • This is one of the most common type of writing styles, which you always see in text books and usually “How – to” articles, in which the author tells you about a given subject, as how to do something.

9. The Expository Writing StyleKey Points • Expository writing usually explains something in a process • Expository writing is often equipped with facts and figures • Expository writing is usually in a logical order and sequence

10. The Descriptive Writing Style • Descriptive writing is a style of writing which focuses on describing a character, an event or a place in great details. It is sometimes poetic in nature in which the author is specifying the details of the event rather than just the information of that event.

11. The Descriptive Writing Style Examples • In descriptive writing, the author will not just say: “The vampire killed his lover” • He will change the sentence, focusing on more details and descriptions, like: “The red-eyed, bloody vampire, flushed his rusty teeth into the soft skin of his lover, and ended her life.”

12. The Descriptive Writing Style Key Points • It is often poetic in nature • It describes places, people, events, situations or locations in a highly-detailed manner. • The author visualizes you what he sees, hears, tastes, smells and feels.