The foundations of writing start with a writer deciding to write. The writer is moved to write by a certain purpose for a certain audience. They pick a specific structure (narrative, edifier, myth, drama, or poetry) and write according to its structural conventions. The writer also writes according to the conventions of a genre and occasionally a literary movement. As the writer writes, they choose a perspective to act as the voice of the writing and adopt a writing style to make that voice stand out from (or blend in with) the works of other writers. A writer is ultimately successful if their final written work appeals to their intended audience—something they can achieve by using the tools of rhetoric.
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 finds 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.
"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 an overall picture of the author's style. Let's dive in and look at each element:
TONE: speaker's attitude
Tone is a speaker's attitude toward the subject. Some describe this as "how the writing sounds" if it were spoken aloud, as tone of voice is relate to the different inflections made by the speaker.
More than just words, tone conveys emotion and feeling. 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 feelings, and a shift in tone can make even the most insipid and awful writing engaging.
But how does tone work on the page where the audience can't just listen? That's the beauty of tone: everything in the writing contributes. Certain words connect with sad tones (sigh, gloom, gray) and others connect to happier tones (bright, warm, eager). A short sentence can convey an impatient or authoritative tone, while a long, winding sentence can convey a relaxed and understanding tone. Each character can have their own tone based on how they feel about a given situation, and the narrator can have their own tone.
Tones also change throughout a text, as tone shows character progression: if a character in a narrative story starts with an angry tone and shifts to an understanding tone, the reader can tell that the character has gone through a change. Characters in drama are constantly changing tones to their situations, and poetry even has a shift in tone built into its structure called the volta.
The most common tone, however, is the objective tone used in edifiers. Since edifying texts like articles, essays, instructions, and the like are "just the facts," most writers use the objective tone to show a lack of bias and neutrality. Yet even neutral tones can have some variance. Consider the difference between an understanding tone and a matter-of-fact tone: the understanding tone would use softer words with longer sentences, while a matter-of-fact tone would be to the point and blunt.
To find tone in a passage, first look at if the speaker likes the subject (positive), doesn't like the subject (negative), or doesn't have a strong opinion (neutral). Once you narrow it down to positive-negative-neutral, determine a more specific tone:
More than just words, tone conveys emotion and feeling. 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 feelings, and a shift in tone can make even the most insipid and awful writing engaging.
But how does tone work on the page where the audience can't just listen? That's the beauty of tone: everything in the writing contributes. Certain words connect with sad tones (sigh, gloom, gray) and others connect to happier tones (bright, warm, eager). A short sentence can convey an impatient or authoritative tone, while a long, winding sentence can convey a relaxed and understanding tone. Each character can have their own tone based on how they feel about a given situation, and the narrator can have their own tone.
Tones also change throughout a text, as tone shows character progression: if a character in a narrative story starts with an angry tone and shifts to an understanding tone, the reader can tell that the character has gone through a change. Characters in drama are constantly changing tones to their situations, and poetry even has a shift in tone built into its structure called the volta.
The most common tone, however, is the objective tone used in edifiers. Since edifying texts like articles, essays, instructions, and the like are "just the facts," most writers use the objective tone to show a lack of bias and neutrality. Yet even neutral tones can have some variance. Consider the difference between an understanding tone and a matter-of-fact tone: the understanding tone would use softer words with longer sentences, while a matter-of-fact tone would be to the point and blunt.
To find tone in a passage, first look at if the speaker likes the subject (positive), doesn't like the subject (negative), or doesn't have a strong opinion (neutral). Once you narrow it down to positive-negative-neutral, determine a more specific tone:
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SOME POSITIVE TONES:
amused: entertained by subject boastful: self-promoting and proud complimentary: praising or approving confident: without hesitation or fear cheerful: happy and full of joy excited: eager and ready festive: celebratory and social irreverent: carefree and not serious lighthearted: positive and without worry lyrical: very emotional and poetic nostalgic: sad but grateful for times past optimistic: looking forward to something playful: lively and slightly competitive reverent: treats subject with respect sentimental: tender and affectionate sincere: genuine in feeling sympathetic: kind and understanding whimsical: odd, strange, fantastic |
SOME NEUTRAL TONES:
authoritative: reliable and imposing curious: questioning to gain clarity clinical: diagnostic tone of a doctor candid: honest and frank cultured: refined tone of a butler coolheaded: peaceful and firm detached: unconnected and distant didactic: instructive tone of a teacher formal/objective: unbiased and fair matter of fact: sensible and to the point official: practiced and serious placid: calm and still plain: simple and ordinary reflective: shows inner thoughts restrained: controlled and careful scholarly: intellectual tone of a student urgent: hurried and insistent understanding: considerate and soft |
SOME NEGATIVE TONES:
apprehensive: nervous and reluctant arrogant: conceited and aggressive bitter: anger from pain or grief callous: not caring about others critical/judgmental: finding fault exhausted: suffering from lack of rest flippant: shallow and thoughtless gloomy: sad and depressed indignant: angry from injustice insolent: rude and egotistical livid: unreasonably angry malevolent: delighting in suffering malicious: purposely hurtful mocking: making fun of a subject pessimistic: seeing the worst solemn: deeply serious and grave threatening: giving a hostile warning vexed: annoyed but powerless |
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. Good imagery doesn't tell the story—it shows it, and by activating the imagination of readers, imagery makes readers more engaged.
Imagery is even important for edifying texts with objective tones: the recipe that describes the flaky crust that feels as firm as the skin of an earlobe when done, the encyclopedia entry describing a giraffe as a long-necked mammal the height of a two-story building and covered in golden fur no longer than a grain of rice, the speech arguing for a law against the pollution from the local factory that is so caustic that it snaps the blood vessels in the eyes as quickly as a toddler with a sheet of bubble wrap—all of these use imagery to convey information.
Developing imagery can be fun, but it can also be difficult. The best way to begin to add imagery to writing is to dress up your nouns with descriptive adjectives (while you can do the same with verbs and adverbs, this can actually result in more cluttered writing than more invented writing). When thinking of what to say about the noun, engage the human senses—don't just appeal to the reader's sense of touch, taste, smell, and hearing but also their sense of temperature, motion, pain, space, weight, and pressure. All writers should, at the very least, appeal to sense of sight by describing colors, textures, patterns, shapes, and sizes.
Here is an example of taking an idea and giving it depth with twenty different types of imagery:
Imagery is even important for edifying texts with objective tones: the recipe that describes the flaky crust that feels as firm as the skin of an earlobe when done, the encyclopedia entry describing a giraffe as a long-necked mammal the height of a two-story building and covered in golden fur no longer than a grain of rice, the speech arguing for a law against the pollution from the local factory that is so caustic that it snaps the blood vessels in the eyes as quickly as a toddler with a sheet of bubble wrap—all of these use imagery to convey information.
Developing imagery can be fun, but it can also be difficult. The best way to begin to add imagery to writing is to dress up your nouns with descriptive adjectives (while you can do the same with verbs and adverbs, this can actually result in more cluttered writing than more invented writing). When thinking of what to say about the noun, engage the human senses—don't just appeal to the reader's sense of touch, taste, smell, and hearing but also their sense of temperature, motion, pain, space, weight, and pressure. All writers should, at the very least, appeal to sense of sight by describing colors, textures, patterns, shapes, and sizes.
Here is an example of taking an idea and giving it depth with twenty different types of imagery:
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cat type: tabby color: tangerine cat age: the old arthritic cat size: the obese cat, plump as a Thanksgiving turkey shape: the narrow, wide-hipped cat 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 texture: cat with the tangled wire bristle fur weight: the svelte cat lying across her shoulder like a thick scarf pressure: the curious cat squeezing through the gap in the vent space: the brave cat on top of the bookcase with its head brushing the ceiling temperature: the fuzzy cat radiating warmth like a small oven pain: the limping cat that winced as it shifted its weight to the tender paw speed: the adrenaline-fueled blur that was only recognizable as a cat when it slept cleanliness: the fastidiously groomed cat with not a single hair out of place opinion: the ideal cat for the modern woman mystery: the wide-eyed cat that didn't cast a shadow disposition: the timid cat, trembling in the corner, trying to make itself disappear history: 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, nuanced, 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 a real meal, we have to spice it up. To spice up your writing, you should have a broad lexicon of different words.
Notice I just said lexicon and not vocabulary: your vocabulary is the set of words you know how to say and use in conversation, while your lexicon consists of words you can spell, read, and use in writing. There isn't much of a difference between the two words, but there is a difference. This difference between two closely related but not identical terms—like vocabulary and lexicon—is called nuance, and being a good writer means you can pick a word that fits your specific nuanced use.
For example, let's say a writer decides their story protagonist is a butcher and writes The butcher cut the meat with her knife. Cut isn't very nuanced, so let's replace it with something more butchery: The butcher chopped the meat with her knife. Much better.
But wait: now the writer has changed the character from a butcher in an abattoir to a plastic surgeon in a hospital: The surgeon chopped the patient's skin with her knife. That sounds like a malpractice lawsuit waiting to happen, so let's change the verb again: The surgeon sliced the patient's skin with her knife. There—all fixed.
Oh, wait—now the character is a circus performer with a knife-throwing act, and the sentence is now The knife sliced the exact center of the target. That makes it sound like the knife barely touched the target as it flew past. The sentence needs a verb that shows the knife hit the target with some force and got stuck... something like The knife skewered the exact center of the target.
It's important that a writer knows what the words they use actually mean and not just replace every common word with something picked out of a thesaurus entry. Most of the English language consists of words that are closely related but cannot be swapped in for each other, like jealousy and envy or poisonous and venomous. We call the ones that are most confused with each other yellow words, and like a yellow light or road sign, you should use caution when using them.
Talented writers use nuanced diction to specify, not complicate, their language. Take the sentence She broke the old stuff with a heavy mallet: it would help the sentence to replace the vague old stuff with more advanced words (She broke the antique tchotchkes with a heavy mallet) but would make the sentence more confusing if heavy was replaced (She broke the old stuff with the ponderous mallet). Avoid circumlocution (the use of too many advanced words to overcomplicate a sentence), and make sure your sentences don't lack clarity.
Speaking of a lack of clarity, in adding to using an advanced and developed 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.
Notice I just said lexicon and not vocabulary: your vocabulary is the set of words you know how to say and use in conversation, while your lexicon consists of words you can spell, read, and use in writing. There isn't much of a difference between the two words, but there is a difference. This difference between two closely related but not identical terms—like vocabulary and lexicon—is called nuance, and being a good writer means you can pick a word that fits your specific nuanced use.
For example, let's say a writer decides their story protagonist is a butcher and writes The butcher cut the meat with her knife. Cut isn't very nuanced, so let's replace it with something more butchery: The butcher chopped the meat with her knife. Much better.
But wait: now the writer has changed the character from a butcher in an abattoir to a plastic surgeon in a hospital: The surgeon chopped the patient's skin with her knife. That sounds like a malpractice lawsuit waiting to happen, so let's change the verb again: The surgeon sliced the patient's skin with her knife. There—all fixed.
Oh, wait—now the character is a circus performer with a knife-throwing act, and the sentence is now The knife sliced the exact center of the target. That makes it sound like the knife barely touched the target as it flew past. The sentence needs a verb that shows the knife hit the target with some force and got stuck... something like The knife skewered the exact center of the target.
It's important that a writer knows what the words they use actually mean and not just replace every common word with something picked out of a thesaurus entry. Most of the English language consists of words that are closely related but cannot be swapped in for each other, like jealousy and envy or poisonous and venomous. We call the ones that are most confused with each other yellow words, and like a yellow light or road sign, you should use caution when using them.
Talented writers use nuanced diction to specify, not complicate, their language. Take the sentence She broke the old stuff with a heavy mallet: it would help the sentence to replace the vague old stuff with more advanced words (She broke the antique tchotchkes with a heavy mallet) but would make the sentence more confusing if heavy was replaced (She broke the old stuff with the ponderous mallet). Avoid circumlocution (the use of too many advanced words to overcomplicate a sentence), and make sure your sentences don't lack clarity.
Speaking of a lack of clarity, in adding to using an advanced and developed 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.
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 and, once and for all, find out 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:
These differences are accomplished through rearranging the clauses, as usually the last clause gets the emphasis. 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 writing. 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.
- The first sentence puts emphasis on finding out who Dad loved more once and for all
- The second sentence focuses 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. 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 writing. 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:
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.
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.
CREATING 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 stylistic devices. A literary device is a technique that a writer uses to establish their writing style, while a rhetorical device is a technique that a writer uses to make their writing more appealing to a reader. While these two categories are not mutually exclusive, they are useful for thinking about the tools in a writer's toolbox: literary devices help the writer express themselves, and rhetorical devices help audiences connect to that expression.
Stylistic devices help writers reconstruct the style of their writing in the same way that power tools help a building contractor reconstruct the style of a house. And just like contractors, some tools are intended for surface-level remodeling and beautification, while other tools are only taken out when rebuilding the underlying structure that holds everything up. Figures of speech are devices that manipulate the syntax and sound of writing—the literary equivalent of interior design. Figures of thought are devices that manipulate the meaning of words and ideas, tools akin to those used for framing and foundation work. Such devices fall into eight groups:
While these tools are helpful, a beginning writer doesn't need to master every stylistic device to create their style. They don't even need to develop their style from scratch: writers can reference or recreate the style of another author through allusion, homage, and pastiche. These are all different types of intertextuality, i.e., the shaping of a text by deliberately and specifically connecting it to another text. Novice writers often ape the stylistic flairs of other writers until they find their own voice in the same way an interior designer may draw inspiration from Pinterest posts by other designers early in their career. Writers can even borrow the entire blueprint from another text and create an adaptation of another work until they learn to draft their own designs.
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 stylistic devices. A literary device is a technique that a writer uses to establish their writing style, while a rhetorical device is a technique that a writer uses to make their writing more appealing to a reader. While these two categories are not mutually exclusive, they are useful for thinking about the tools in a writer's toolbox: literary devices help the writer express themselves, and rhetorical devices help audiences connect to that expression.
Stylistic devices help writers reconstruct the style of their writing in the same way that power tools help a building contractor reconstruct the style of a house. And just like contractors, some tools are intended for surface-level remodeling and beautification, while other tools are only taken out when rebuilding the underlying structure that holds everything up. Figures of speech are devices that manipulate the syntax and sound of writing—the literary equivalent of interior design. Figures of thought are devices that manipulate the meaning of words and ideas, tools akin to those used for framing and foundation work. Such devices fall into eight groups:
- ANALOGIES compare ideas to provide clarity or an example. Analogies are primarily figures of thought and include metaphor, simile, allegory, and metonymy.
- 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: situational irony and dramatic irony (figures of thought) and verbal irony (figures of speech).
- PARALLELISM is the process of using similar syntax over multiple sentences (figures of speech) or similar ideas throughout a work (figures of thought) to make the lines or ideas more noteworthy or memorable for the reader. Parallel structures include anaphora, chiasmus, and antithesis.
- PHRASEMES are cultural sayings that can’t be understood literally. These figures of speech include idioms, cliches, euphemisms, and snowclones.
- POSTURES are strategies to use tone to throw an opponent off balance. These rhetorical devices are figures of thought and include accismus, anacoenosis, epiplexis, and hypophora.
- SOLECISM is the intentional breaking of grammatical conventions for stylistic effect. Solecistic structures are figures of speech and include syncope, anastrophe, tmesis, and holophrasis.
- SONANCE is the art of manipulating diction and syntax to make a sentence sound a certain way. These figures of speech include consonance, dissonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme, and alliteration.
- WORDPLAY is the deliberate manipulation of what words mean. These figures of thought include hyperbole, understatement, double entendre, and zeugma.
While these tools are helpful, a beginning writer doesn't need to master every stylistic device to create their style. They don't even need to develop their style from scratch: writers can reference or recreate the style of another author through allusion, homage, and pastiche. These are all different types of intertextuality, i.e., the shaping of a text by deliberately and specifically connecting it to another text. Novice writers often ape the stylistic flairs of other writers until they find their own voice in the same way an interior designer may draw inspiration from Pinterest posts by other designers early in their career. Writers can even borrow the entire blueprint from another text and create an adaptation of another work until they learn to draft their own designs.
This article was last updated on 2 September 2026.