Style is a widely used but not very well defined term. We talk about hairstyles, clothing styles, and lifestyles, but each treats style in a different way. Writing is no different: everyone agrees that every author has a unique style, but find it hard to define exactly what that means. "It's how they sound," is a common statement, but inaccurate: books don't make a sound (unless you drop it on your foot). "It's the author's voice," is also common, but many authors can vary styles depending on the genre or point of view of their writing.
STYLE IS HOW A WRITER WRITES
Okay, that may not be the most helpful sentence in the world, but it's a start. Now let's go further. A writer's style can be broken up into four elements: TONE, IMAGERY, DICTION, and SYNTAX (TIDS for short). Each TIDS element is a way to analyze and build to an overall picture of the author's style. Let's dive in and look at each element:
TONE: author's attitude
Tone is an author's attitude toward the subject. Some describe this as "how the writing sounds" if it were spoken aloud. The same text could have two vastly different tones. For example, listen to this song. Sad and sober, right? Well, that song is a cover of this high energy pop hit. Every word is the same, but the singer's tone (his attitude) makes the song totally different. Tone reveals the author's feelings, and a shift in tone can making even the most insipid and awful writing engaging.
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COMMON TONES:
bitter: anger from pain or grief callous: not caring about others cheerful: happy and full of joy critical/judgmental: finding fault didactic: tone of a teacher formal/objective: unbiased; proper gloomy: sad and depressed indignant: angry from injustice lyrical: very emotional and poetic malicious: purposely hurtful mocking: making fun of a subject pessimistic: seeing the worst reflective: shows inner thoughts reverent: treats subject with respect sarcastic: shows disrespect; caustic sincere: genuine in feeling solemn: deeply serious and grave whimsical: odd, strange, fantastic |
IMAGERY: vivid description
Imagery is the creation of vivid descriptions the reader can easily imagine. The goal of imagery is to engage the senses of the reader so they can relate to what the text says and picture the words of the author clearly and as intended. Here is an example of taking an idea and giving it depth with imagery:
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cat
type: tabby color: tangerine cat age: the arthritic old cat size: the obese cat, plump as a Thanksgiving turkey shape: the narrow, wide hipped cat texture: cat with the tangled wire bristle fur sound: the hissing cat, glowering with contempt taste: the savory cat, tenderized with succulent pineapple and saffron smell: the cat, reeking of tuna and open scabs cleanliness: the fastidiously groomed cat mysterious: the wide-eyed cat that didn't cast a shadow detail: the cat with only half an ear--maimed, perhaps, in an alleyway fight |
DICTION: word choice
Diction is an author's word choice. There are three types of words when it comes to diction: common, advanced, and jargon. Common words are those that are used every day by everyone and that an average elementary schooler knows (e.g., cloud, puppy, building). This is not to say common words are bad--we couldn't have language without them--but they are like rice: it's a good base, but if we want to make it a meal, we have to spice it up.
Good writers go beyond common diction with advanced diction. These are words that educated adults should know that bring a depth to language. For example, the word cut is basic, but the words sliced, eviscerated, dissected, slashed, chopped, stabbed, shredded, sawed, butchered, and vivisected are all both more interesting and depict a specific type of cutting. If you need examples of advanced diction, here are 800 words your could try.
In adding to using an advanced lexicon, it's important to remember to stay away from jargon, which is highly technical language only a professional in the field would use. For example, astronomers talk about sidereal years, retrograde motion, albedo, perigalacton, and syzygy, but the average person, even an educated one, would have no idea what these terms mean. Avoid jargon, and if you absolutely have to use it, make sure to explain the definition of the word.
Also make sure you know how to use the words in your lexicon properly. Notice I said "lexicon" and not "vocabulary:" vocabulary are words you know how to say and use in conversation, while a lexicon consists of words you can spell and use in writing. Our language is full of these words, like jealousy and envy or poisonous and venomous, that have subtle difference that are easily confused. We call these yellow words, as you should use caution when using them.
Good writers go beyond common diction with advanced diction. These are words that educated adults should know that bring a depth to language. For example, the word cut is basic, but the words sliced, eviscerated, dissected, slashed, chopped, stabbed, shredded, sawed, butchered, and vivisected are all both more interesting and depict a specific type of cutting. If you need examples of advanced diction, here are 800 words your could try.
In adding to using an advanced lexicon, it's important to remember to stay away from jargon, which is highly technical language only a professional in the field would use. For example, astronomers talk about sidereal years, retrograde motion, albedo, perigalacton, and syzygy, but the average person, even an educated one, would have no idea what these terms mean. Avoid jargon, and if you absolutely have to use it, make sure to explain the definition of the word.
Also make sure you know how to use the words in your lexicon properly. Notice I said "lexicon" and not "vocabulary:" vocabulary are words you know how to say and use in conversation, while a lexicon consists of words you can spell and use in writing. Our language is full of these words, like jealousy and envy or poisonous and venomous, that have subtle difference that are easily confused. We call these yellow words, as you should use caution when using them.
SYNTAX: sentence construction
Syntax is how an author structures and orders sentences. Look at the following sentences and evaluate how the meaning changes:
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SENTENCE ONE:
Once the funeral is done, we can read the will and find out, once and for all, who Dad really loved more. |
SENTENCE TWO:
We can read the will find out, once and for all, who Dad really loved more after the funeral is done. |
SENTENCE THREE:
We can, once and for all, find out who Dad really loved more after the funeral when we read the will. |
The clauses are all the same (plus or minus some prepositions for proper mechanics), yet each sentence has a different meaning. Sentence one puts emphasis on finding out who Dad loved more once and for all. The second sentence focus on waiting until after the funeral ends. The third sentence focuses on the will's importance. These differences are accomplished through rearranging the clauses, as usually the last clause gets the emphasis in dialogue. Syntax also determines if a sentence is in active or passive voice, and what verbal motifs (like parallelism) run through a work of writing.
Syntax also creates ease of reading in the paper. By varying sentence types and lengths, the reader becomes more subconsciously engaged. Short sentences can punctuate longer ones, simple sentences after a long description can conclude a point, and even judicious and intentional sentence fragments can bring writing to life. Nowhere is the power of syntax more obvious than in poetry, where sentence arrangement is a crucial detail agonized over by an author.
Syntax also creates ease of reading in the paper. By varying sentence types and lengths, the reader becomes more subconsciously engaged. Short sentences can punctuate longer ones, simple sentences after a long description can conclude a point, and even judicious and intentional sentence fragments can bring writing to life. Nowhere is the power of syntax more obvious than in poetry, where sentence arrangement is a crucial detail agonized over by an author.
... and then there's MOOD
"Mood? I thought you said there were only four elements of style."
Mood is not an element of style. It's style + setting.
Mood deserves to be mentioned here because style is integral to how mood works. Mood is the atmosphere of the story, often referred to as "how the author tries to make the reader feel." Yet, unlike the other elements of style, mood is not found in informational writing and not always found in other forms of writing; thus, it is not a true element of style. Even a shopping list has tone, basic imagery, diction, and syntax, yet mood only occurs when a setting is described in detail. When an author uses vivid imagery with rich diction to describe a place, the reader ideally starts to feel what the author wants them to feel based on the tone the author takes. Here is an example:
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The door creaked with the heavy groans of disuse. Dust spun in delicate pirouettes as the door scraped along the cracked wooden floor no one had trod upon in decades. A chilling zephyr rushed through the doorway, as if a ghost had been liberated by the sole human presence in the room. Kyle gulped, the stale air filling his lungs with the acrid taste of loneliness. In the shadowed darkness, he spotted the jagged leer of the shattered window, but his baseball... he would have to venture further inside the once proud Victorian manor to find it. With careful, silent steps, he crossed the threshold.
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This paragraph does not exist for plot: all Kyle does is open a door, look around, and decide to step inside. Rather, this paragraph reveals mood, specifically a dark and creepy atmosphere of an abandoned house. And how does the paragraph do this? Go back and look at each line: every single one has a setting element as an anchor for the rich description (door, floor, doorway, air, window, threshold). This is how setting and style work hand in hand to create mood.
USING STYLE
So how can a writer use the elements of style to their advantage? This is tricky to answer, as every element of style is so entwined with the other three that they have to be considered together. For example, changing the diction of a piece impacts the author's tone, alters the syntax of the sentences, and either improves or harms the imagery of the piece. It's also impossible to give general recommendations for improving style as it is linked to genre, structure, and purpose. A collegiate essay requires a different style than a personal narrative just as a horror story requires a different style than one would find in a romance novel.
This doesn't mean that style is an enigma. When authors and critics break down the style of a piece of writing, they refer to literary devices. A literary device is a technique that a writer uses to convey an idea using specific tone, imagery, diction, and syntax. You've probably already heard of several common literary devices like metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, and personification, but there are dozens of different techniques that help create an author's overall style, from anaphora to zeugma. For simplicity's sake, these devices fall into five broad groups:
This doesn't mean that style is an enigma. When authors and critics break down the style of a piece of writing, they refer to literary devices. A literary device is a technique that a writer uses to convey an idea using specific tone, imagery, diction, and syntax. You've probably already heard of several common literary devices like metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, and personification, but there are dozens of different techniques that help create an author's overall style, from anaphora to zeugma. For simplicity's sake, these devices fall into five broad groups:
- ANALOGY: Analogy is a comparison of two things to provide clarity or an example. Literary devices that fall into the category of analogy include metaphor, simile, allegory, metonymy, and euphemism.
- IRONY: Irony is any reversal of expectations where what seems to be the case turns out not to be the case. There are three types of irony: verbal irony, situational irony, and dramatic irony, all of which are used to fuel narrative conflict and specifically benefit the genres of comedy, romance, and mystery as well as the postmodern literary movement.
- SONANCE: Sonance is the art of manipulating diction and syntax to make a sentence sound a certain way, and includes assonance, consonance, dissonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme, and alliteration.
- PARALLELISM: Parallelism is the process of using similar syntax over multiple sentences or similar ideas throughout a work to make the lines or ideas more noteworthy or memorable for the reader. Types of parallelism include anaphora, chiasmus, and lietmotifs.
- SOLECISM: Solecism is the intentional breaking of grammatical conventions for literary effect. Types of solecism include syncope, portmanteaus, anastrophe, litotes, zeugma, parataxis, and ellipsis.