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Which Style Guide Is Best for You?

By Erin Wright

Today’s post provides an overview of the “big four” style guides in American English:

• The Associated Press Stylebook (AP style)
• The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago style)
• The MLA Handbook from the Modern Language Association of America (MLA style)
• The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA style)

The purpose of this overview is to help you decide which style guide is best for your writing based on each guide’s target audience, depth, and accessibility. If you need a quick primer on what style guides are and why you should use them, hop over to “ What Is a Style Guide? ”

The Associated Press Stylebook (AP Style)

The Associated Press Stylebook is for journalists who write for Associated Press outlets; however, it has been widely adopted by journalists outside of the Associated Press as well as organizations, news-centric bloggers, and independent authors who appreciate the Stylebook’s straightforward approach to style and usage.

The Associated Press Stylebook is updated every three years. Prior to 2020, it was updated every year. The Associated Press publishes it as a spiral-bound softcover and Basic Books publishes it as a bound softcover. It is also available through a subscription-based website .

Pros of AP Style

With special sections dedicated to business, fashion, food, religion, and sports, The Associated Press Stylebook is an obvious choice for bloggers, authors, and organizations writing news-centric content on those topics. Plus, the Stylebook’s alphabetized organization makes it easy to navigate.

Cons of AP Style

Because it’s updated more frequently than the other guides, The Associated Press Stylebook challenges writers and editors to stay current. In addition, it defers to Webster’s New World College Dictionary rather than Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary , which is the preferred dictionary for the other three style guides mentioned in this post.

The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago Style)

The Chicago Manual of Style is the most popular style guide in the publishing industry because it’s the most comprehensive option currently available—and this depth makes it more versatile for a variety of content, including general business writing.

The University of Chicago published the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style in 2010. The seventeenth edition was published in 2017. Subscribers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online have access to web-based versions of both the sixteenth and seventeenth editions. None of the editions are available as an e-book.

Pros of Chicago Style

The Chicago Manual of Style is a publishing industry standard (although not all publishing houses use it), so those who choose to follow it are in good company with many heavy-hitters of the writing world.

More importantly, The Chicago Manual of Style has more depth than the other style guides discussed here. If you have punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation, or other usage questions, you’re likely to find answers within this hefty tome—that’s why I use it for my writing and suggest it to clients who haven’t chosen a guide yet.

Cons of Chicago Style

It’s big! So, don’t plan on lugging it to your writing sessions at the coffee shop unless you have a large bag and a strong back. Of course, if you need a travel-friendly option, you can subscribe to the online version. Additionally, its length and density can be overwhelming, particularly if you’re looking for topics that aren’t directly listed in the index.

MLA Handbook (MLA Style)

The Modern Language Association of America’s MLA Handbook is geared toward humanities students. While it does offer some style and usage recommendations, its primary concern is documentation and citation. It’s available as a softcover and as an e-book .

The MLA Handbook had a companion titled the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing . This manual was more comprehensive than the current handbook; however, the Modern Language Association stop publishing it in 2016, and its recommendations are no longer part of MLA style.

Pros of MLA Style

The MLA Handbook is widely used by colleges and universities across the United States, so knowing MLA style is an advantage if you’re involved with academic writing in the humanities or other liberal arts. Furthermore, it’s physically small and, therefore, travel-friendly.

Cons of MLA Style

Due to its focus on documentation and citation rather than style and usage, the MLA Handbook may not be practical outside of academic or research settings.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA Style)

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is for academic writing and research in the social and behavioral sciences. It’s also an excellent option for bloggers and independent authors who write about topics within those fields of study.

The Publication Manual is available as a softcover, hardcover, and spiral-bound version, as well as an ebook. The American Psychological Association also has a subscription-based web portal called Academic Writer offering tools and resources for students and researchers using APA style.

Pros of APA Style

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is easy to read and well organized. Its tables and figures are especially helpful as quick references.

Cons of APA style

While more comprehensive than the MLA Handbook , the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is squarely focused on academic writing and research. Therefore, it can be difficult to adapt to other types of writing.

In my opinion, The Chicago Manual of Style is the best option for (1) general business writers, including copywriters, bloggers, and many technical writers; (2) fiction and nonfiction authors who are interested in traditional publishing; and (3) independent authors who want to maintain industry-standard styles and usage.

The Associated Press Stylebook is the obvious choice for journalists, but it may also be the best choice for freelance writers or organizations that (1) create news-centric content or (2) want to instill journalistic sensibilities into their writing.

Lastly, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association has more flexibility for use outside of academia than does the MLA Handbook , but neither is an ideal choice for business writers, fiction or nonfiction authors, journalists, or bloggers.

If you’re looking for even more style guide options, check out my previous post “ Alternative Style Guides .” And who wants a style guide without a dictionary? Find out which dictionary is best for you , also.

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How to create a writing style guide for your brand

Ashley Coolman

You’re a marketer, either in title or in responsibilities. You’ve made great headway in setting up better content governance, information architecture, and workflows. But unfortunately, the current state of your organization’s voice is… well, still a mess.

Your organization has writers in marketing, product, support, and design all creating content for blogs and social media — even your engineers end up responsible for writing a line here or there. Some of that writing goes through  proofreading  processes, while some accidentally ( “accidentally” ) bypasses established processes in favor of speed.

Voice decisions are made by individual writers and are wildly inconsistent as a result. You feel like you’re the only person at the company actively thinking about how word choice and stylistic characteristics can lead to better user experiences.

All to say, you’re ready to create and roll out your own style guide to help establish cohesion in copywriting and copyediting. Now, where to begin?

What is a writing style guide?

A  style guide , also known as a manual of style, is a set of standards for your writing, formatting and design for documents. You can apply a style guide for general use—like your blog or technical documents—or require one across your entire organization from memos to emails.

The purpose of a style guide is to improve communication by guaranteeing consistency across documents. When working with multiple contributors, you want to ensure they create in a clear way that reflects brand style from design to writing. Because everyone’s style varies, a style guide can set the standard for areas such as punctuation, capitalization , citation, language, typography, and even compliance if you’re writing technical documents.

A house style guide, which refers to your organization’s style manual, is unique to your brand. It’s what we’ll teach you to make in this guide.

Different types of writing style guides

Writing style guides are specially designed in a variety of formats. You can create them for interacting with a public audience, like on your blog. Or a business style writing guide for internal communication. Academics disciplines and technical documentation also use style guides to standardize to enforce ethical best practices and maintain clarity.

Let’s look at some writing style guide examples to inspire your own:

• The Chicago Manual of Style
• The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook
• Publication Manual of The American Psychological Association 
• Modern Language Association (MLA Style)
• The Elements of Style

Content style guides

• Medium’s Content Guidelines
• Mailchimp Content Style Guide
• The Business Style Handbook
• Shopify’s Polaris
• QuickBooks Design System
• The Red Hat Style Guide

Technical writing

• Microsoft Writing Style Guide
• IBM style guide
• Apple Style Guide
• gnome Style Guide
• Google developer documentation style guide
• Salesforce Style Guide

For more style guide examples, check out the 10 Best Style Guides in Tech  and the  Best Content Marketing Style Guide Examples .

How to create a style guide for writing

Choose a stylebook to follow, define your brand personality.

• Set your voice

Develop your writing style

• Share it with your teams

You know that writing style guides highlight the editorial rules for your writing. It may be about simple things like grammar rules and punctuation, or more complex situations like citation or format. Regardless, it’s best to know which book you’ll follow to create your own editorial style guide.

Here are a few common style books brands can follow for their publications:

• AP style: the standard for news outlets and journalists
• APA style:  the standard for social science, politics, engineering, and business work
• CMOS : the go-to style for book publishing
• MLA Handbook:  used mostly in academic writing

You can also follow alternative style guides, such as  Bluebook  (for legal) or The American Sociological Association (ASA). Most online publications tend to stick to AP or APA style, or a mix between the two.

If you choose the AP stylebook, you can find a writing style guide template at  Purdue Online Writing Lab .

Brands have a personality, just like a person. It can tell your prospects and customers that you’re traditional, innovative, witty, smart, caring, bold, strong—and if you’re not careful, copy can also convey that you’re careless, out-of-touch, or unreliable.

Characterizing your brand personality  first  will shape the language and design elements decisions as you move forward.

And no, for the naysayers, having a consistent voice doesn’t mean killing creative writing. Once you’ve created your brand personality, you can change your tone depending on the piece — or as our Creative Director thinks about it, “Tone should be like a brand’s outfit.” The goal should be to shape a consistent personality to inspire familiarity, trust, and confidence.

Below are some questions to help you sculpt the right voice. When answering, think about the personality you want to portray, and what you expect will go over well with your target audience.

Set your company voice

Voice often feels subjective when evaluated by humans — who are inconsistent by nature — but it’s still worth setting goals for your written content. Then, if you want objective measurements of the voice in your copywriting, consider using content AI technology .

• Formality  — Is your brand formal or informal? Does it change depending on the content context? Examples: • Formal: Please submit your email address. • Informal: Let us know how to reach you.
• Narrative style  — Do you show or do you tell? Look to creative writing resources for inspiration, e.g.,  here  and  here . Examples: • Show: Ashley’s face fell. Her fingers dragged across the keyboard as she responded to the email. • Tell: Ashley was sad.
• Sentiment  — Do you use a lot of emotionally charged words, or are you reserved by nature? Examples: • Emotional: These animals will suffer without your generous support. • Reserved: These animals need your help.
• Persuasiveness  — When should your writing sway emotions/actions, and when should it just inform readers on the facts of the situation? (Related topic:  loaded language ) Examples: • Persuasive: The regime enforced laws that went against the wishes of the people. • Explanatory: The government in power made an unpopular decision.
• Liveliness  — Is your language excited and upbeat, or does it instill a sense of quiet and calm? Examples: • Excited: We’re thrilled to welcome you to our team! • Calm: Welcome to our team.
• Clarity  — Do you lean on well-known words and phrases, or are you a retinue of grandiloquent penmen and penwomen? Examples: • Simple: Our resort has simple and luxury rooms to suit every vacationer. • Complex: Whether you prefer simple or luxurious living, our resort can accommodate your every whim.
• Assertiveness  — How confident are you in what you write? And where does this confidence come from (e.g., research, personal experience)? Examples: • High Confidence: This is how it is. • Low Confidence: This is possibly the answer for you.

As mentioned in step one, you’ll want to find a good style book to make this part easier. Your writing style will help content creators write clearly and concisely, and should cover the following items:

• Readability:  Should your content meet specific  Flesch Reading Ease or Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level  standards?
• Brevity:  Is brevity important to you? Should you cap the number of words per sentence?
• Terminology :  Do you and/or your audience prefer specific terminology? ‘Coworker’ over ‘colleague,’ ‘crew member’ over ‘flight attendant’, ‘customer’ over ‘user’? Are there any words that should be banned from your brand lexicon altogether?
• Dialect:  Within a single language, different dialects make unique grammar, spelling, and punctuation choices.  Whose rules do you follow?

English examples:

Do you select ‘colors’ or ‘colours’? Are you working with ‘provosts’ or ‘vice chancellors’? Will you schedule a call in the ‘afternoon’ or the ‘arvo’? Are collective nouns (e.g., an organization’s name) followed by singular or plural verbs? Do you preface a bulleted list with ‘:’ or ‘;’?

• Punctuation:  Writers love nothing more than a heated argument about the right way to use a comma, but at the end of the day, what matters is consistency. Your brand needs rules around “the small things” in copy consistency, such as usage of periods at the ends of headers, quotation marks, hyphens, time and date formats, and Oxford commas.
• Emojis:  Which emojis or emoticons will you allow in your copy? Moreover, if you speak to different age groups or a global audience,  do they all use emojis the same way ? @_@’
• Personalization: Do you target multiple audiences or personas that require completely different writing style guides governing the content you create for them?
• Acronyms and abbreviations:  Will you introduce abbreviations in brackets next to the full term? Will you place periods between letters in two-letter initialism?

Sharing your writing style guide with your teams

When you’re done creating a style guide, it’s time to share it across your organization. This way, you empower everyone to adhere to brand standards and improve their content.

If you’re using a product like Writer, you can input your style guide into the platform and share a link with your team.

Otherwise, sharing your guidelines via a Google Doc is a fine place to start. We’ve also seen teams set up a #style-guide Slack channel to field internal questions and create a space for unstructured “office hours.”

To learn more about how teams use the Writer content intelligence platform and style guide templates, start your free trial .

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The Ultimate Guide to Learning Writing: Styles

Writing Styles: How to Write It All

Political speeches, travel guides, recipes, fantasy novels - all are written works created with specific, and yes, widely varied purposes. And despite the existence of an almost intimidating range of writing, we can actually classify written works in four main writing styles: expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative. Think of these styles as four general purposes that lead someone to write a piece - and because different pieces have different purposes, each style has its own distinct characteristics.

If you’re going to an evening gala, you will definitely not be wearing the sweats you just watched Netflix in (although you may wish you could). You make different choices based on the goal and impression you want to make - and the same goes for writing styles. These choices, however, are not mutually exclusive. As you may want to wear shoes that are both fashionable and comfortable, you can also write a piece that is both descriptive and narrative.

In this guide, you will learn:

• The characteristics of the four main writing styles: expository, descriptive, persuasive, narrative
• When to use each writing style
• How to write in each writing style

Types of Writing: Purpose Equals Connection

How can learning how to apply different writing styles help you as a writer?

Everyone has preferred ways of writing, and some writing styles may come more naturally than others. Perhaps you only write narrative short stories and poetry. Or you may write grant proposals and the occasional op-ed. However, many written pieces have various purposes, and can therefore be enriched by blending or moving in and out of writing styles. Think of this like the art of creating fusion cuisines - you can blend flavors to appeal to your readers’ diverse palates. Learning how to weave different styles into your writing will not only improve and stretch your skills as a writer, but will also allow you to make a stronger connection with your audience.

1) Expository Writing

Expository writing is ubiquitous - its goal is to inform readers by explaining or describing. It will often provide insight or instruction with regard to a particular topic, answering questions such as “Why?”, “How?”, and “What?” Common types of expository writing include news stories and magazine articles (excluding editorials), nonfiction books, guides and how-to articles, self help writing, recipes and cookbooks, textbooks and educational resources, and business, technical, and scientific writing

One key thing to note is that expository writing can often be confused with persuasive writing. While some texts can include multiple writing styles, an expository piece cannot be persuasive, and vice versa. You should write in this style if your main goal is to solely inform your reader about a specific topic without voicing opinion. Connotations of language are crucial here - when writing in an expository style, take care to use language that carries a neutral connotation.

A How-To: Key Characteristics of Expository Writing

• Be concise and clear (especially if giving directions)
• Organize your information in a logical order or sequence - start with an outline if helpful
• Use transitions
• Highlight information with quotes, illustrations, informative graphics
• Incorporate supporting material and evidence
• Use research and cite sources, link to additional resources and websites if writing online
• Avoid using language that has a positive or negative connotation - don’t insert your opinion or attempt to persuade your audience to think, feel, or do something based on your beliefs

What does expository writing look like?

See articles marked “ News Analysis ” in The New York Times as exemplary examples of expository writing. These pieces examine important and often controversial news events, and also help the reader understand possible causes and consequences of situations without reflecting the author’s opinion.

2) Descriptive Writing

“Paint a picture with your words.” This is the classic metaphor associated with descriptive writing, especially in fiction novels, yet this style is used in many other types of written works as well. You should write in this style if your goal is to bring your reader into the written work as if they were experiencing it first hand. It is pulling your audience in, providing details about a character, the setting, or situation in a manner that helps readers imagine and understand the piece. You are essentially transporting the reader to the world of your work through description.

Descriptive writing can often seem poetic in nature, depending on the language used. Most fictional pieces fall under this writing style, yet we can also find this style in some nonfiction pieces, such as memoirs and creative nonfiction, like first-hand accounts of events and travel guides. Poetry and prose, travel diaries, writing about nature, personal journals, musical lyrics, and fictional novels and plays are all common types of descriptive writing.

If writing in different styles is culinary fusion, descriptive writing is the salt - the most flexible seasoning that can be applied to almost any written piece. While cookbooks are expository texts, we often find descriptive writing in the paragraphs describing the dish at the start of a recipe. Likewise, a persuasive text may employ descriptive writing in select parts in order to draw the reader in - an immersed reader is more likely to be convinced of the author’s opinion. Descriptive writing pairs especially well with narrative writing, as communicating a story is most effective with language that places the reader right there.

A How-To: Key Characteristics of Descriptive Writing

• Have a reason for the description before you start. Bring attention to select details and only highlight those that aid in telling the story
• Use the six senses: sight, touch, taste, smell, sound, and feeling. Try writing about the same character or situation while highlighting different senses. Play around to see which descriptions give the reader the impression or feeling you want to impart
• Use literary devices like metaphors, similes, imagery, and personification
• Show, don’t tell: rather than telling your reader about something in passive language, activate your writing with adjectives, adverbs, and verbs that show what you want to say. Rather than describing your character as exhausted, describe their eyes, their breath, their voice, their posture, their movements - what about them shows they are exhausted?

What does descriptive writing look like?

In Hard Times, Charles Dickens describes the self-centered Mr. Bounderby. Notice the details Dickens opts to highlight to create the character’s impression and the senses he activates:

‘He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him… A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility.’

3) Persuasive Writing

As writers, we often first encounter persuasive writing in the form of a five paragraph argumentative essay in grade school. This writing style is far more nuanced, however, though the underlying goal is the same. Put simply, the goal of persuasive writing is exactly as it sounds - to persuade, to influence the reader into believing or doing something. This style is appropriate if you are taking a stand on a position or belief and your goal is to convince others to agree with you. In opposition to expository writing, your opinions and bias as an author are acceptable. Sometimes your intent may even be a call to action.

Persuasive writing can be found in written pieces including editorial or opinion pieces in newspapers and magazines, letters written to request an action or file a complaint, advertisements and propaganda, business proposals, political speeches, marketing pitches, cover letters, letters of recommendation, academic essays, and reviews of books, music, films, and restaurants. What makes persuasive writing unique is its intersection with psychology - as its goal is to trigger a desired response, as the author, you must know your audience.

A How-To: Key Characteristics of Persuasive Writing

• Have a clear purpose Keep in mind the action you want the reader to take. Sometimes that action is tangible, and other times it is simply forming an opinion or changing one’s mind.
• Build a case Present the current situation and facts and articulate the need for change - what are the consequences if the situation continues unchecked? Outline a plan for change (or options if they exist) and call the reader to action if appropriate.
• Appeal to emotion Showing empathy with your readers begins to establish trust and relatability - this connection will make your readers more inclined to listen to you. Know your audience and what matters to them.
• Appeal to reason Present your argument with facts, data, and other analytical information in a logical manner that makes it irrefutable and reasonable.
• Capitalize on social proof This is the psychological phenomenon in which people assume the actions of others to reflect “correct” behavior. In persuasive writing, this may emerge in the form of testimonials from strangers or people with authority, influencer recommendations, and polls - all which lend credibility to your argument.
• Make comparisons Relate your scenario or situation to something your reader already knows and accepts as true. Use metaphors, similes, and analogies.
• Anticipate and respond to objections/counter-arguments If you leave holes, your audience will fill them with doubts. Anticipate counter-arguments and address them immediately so you won’t appear on the defensive.
• Ask rhetorical questions These aren’t meant to be answered, however they draw attention and invite your reader to continue reading.
• Use repetition Make your point in several different ways. By presenting information in repeating (not mundane) patterns, your audience is more likely to remember your message.
• Tell stories Stories help you to build and strengthen an emotional connection with your reader. They also generate interest and are most effective when your reader may not know much about the topic at hand. Here we can find an intersection with descriptive and narrative writing.

What does persuasive writing look like?

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s seminal essay Self-Reliance and Paul Graham’s How To Do What You Love were written centuries apart, and demonstrate how texts can vary stylistically yet focus on the same goal: to persuade. Both authors pepper their writing with rhetorical questions that push the reader to challenge basic assumptions. In Self-Reliance, Emerson outlines what it means to be self-made and promotes self-reliance as an ideal. Graham, in more colloquial language, challenges readers to redefine their understanding of what “work” should be.

4) Narrative Writing

Are you telling a story? Specifically, does your story include a plot, setting, characters, conflict, and a resolution? If so, you are likely writing in the narrative style. Most fiction novels are written in this style and also employ descriptive writing. The biggest difference between purely descriptive versus narrative writing is that the former simply describes, rather than narrate a sequence of events. Aside from fiction novels, memoirs and biographies, screenplays, epic poems, sagas, myths, legends, fables, historical accounts, personal essays recounting experiences, short stories, novellas, anecdotes and oral histories are all examples of narrative writing.

A How-To: Key Characteristics of Narrative Writing

• Outline the plot of your story. What is the resolution?
• Include detailed descriptions of your characters and scenes - use concrete and descriptive language that gives readers a specific image to visualize and relate to
• Give your audience insight into characters’ inner thoughts and behind-the-scenes information
• Answer the “6 Ws” - who, what, when, where, why, and how - in your piece
• Consider point of view: your story will change depending on the point of view you choose to tell it from. Whose point of view is the most interesting? Help your reader situate themself in your story by telling it from a defined point of view.
• Use dynamic dialogue. Keep it short and believable, rather than having characters explain a situation. Use dialogue to show, rather than tell.
• Know what to tell and what to omit. Leave some elements of the story to your reader’s imagination - this is what keeps them wanting more.

What does narrative writing look like?

See David Foster Wallace’s classic narrative essay Ticket to the Fair , a formidable example of storytelling woven with ample reflection on the Midwest experience and his own identity.

Writing Styles: What are the next steps?

Digging deeper into writing styles - be it your preferred style, the one you work in, or one you rarely write in - can lead to creative surprises and produce more complex pieces that speak to your reader in nuanced ways. As much as it can be a pursuit of passion, writing is also a practice, and writing in different styles can allow you to flex your full range of mental muscle. For example, you may try writing a persuasive essay and descriptive essay on the same topic. Or a poem may become a journal entry or short story. If you’re looking for inspiration, the Writing Prompts guide is an apt starting point.

Try on different styles outside of your comfort zone - experimentation can yield your best work.

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Writing With Style: 10 Style Guides to Inspire You

A writing style guide is a set of rules and agreements for everyone involved in writing or editing documentation in a company. Usually, a style guide prescribes using certain words, expressions, terms, and punctuation. It can sometimes go even beyond that and cover content architecture or UI texts.

What are the main benefits of following a style guide? 

• It will be a single point of truth to keep the documentation consistent even when it’s written by a team of writers, each with their own personal writing style.
• It alleviates the editors’ workload coming from external contributors.
• A style guide brings an anonymous authority into the writing process and prevents conflicts.

Do you need to create your own style guide?

Most writing teams rely on several recognized style guides: The Chicago Manual of Style, Microsoft Style Guide, or Google developer documentation style guide. Sometimes companies need to cover cases specific to their industry or business. But even in this case, you can save time and effort basing it on an established style guide.

Let’s look at ten great style guide examples.

The UK Government

The UK Government Digital Service style guide covers grammar and spelling conventions for all content under gov.uk and is a fine example of the signature British writing style. It also has a special COVID-19 section that describes how to communicate on this sensitive topic. 

The Mailchimp Content Style Guide contains guidelines for all who write content, including documentation, emails, and even legal agreements. It includes tone of voice, grammar, style, and accessibility recommendations. 

The RedHat style guide contains not only grammar and style guidelines, but recommendations for the correct markup elements usage. It also describes the appropriate language to use, for example, to avoid slang, neologisms, ambiguity, and anthropomorphism. 

Atlassian  

The Atlassian Design guide contains a content section as well. It covers best practices and patterns for both documentation and conversational writing and provides a lot of detail on inclusive writing. 

A classic example of a software documentation style guide. It covers a wide range of the writing rules, like how to use terms, units of measurement, numbers, and so on. 

A nice practice to swipe from Apple’s style guide is to have a history of changes so that users can check when the specific rule was introduced. 

Adobe , in general leans, on the Associated Press writing standards and their guide is a set of exceptions from it. They also have separate sections dedicated to writing about errors and new user onboarding. 

There is a government related style guide from 18F , which is the US General Services Administration (GSA) internal team who provide digital services for the US government. Their guide is user-centric since the government often addresses a broader audience. The style guide helps users understand what they are saying and keeps them from being wrongly interpreted. A separate section is dedicated to inclusive language. 

The GitLab style guide is not only about grammar and style, but about the principles and content architecture they follow. This style guide is used by both the GitLab writers and external contributors. 

It contains guidelines about the topic types they use, documentation-first methodology, markup elements usage, document’s structure, proper directory organization, and much more. It references other recognized technical style guides, like Google and Microsoft, as a primary source of truth. 

The SUSE style guide focuses on the document’s purpose and proper structure, but also covers language guidelines, terms and definitions usage, and markup reference. It’s most interesting feature is that it starts with a separate section about how to define your target audience. 

AListApart  

Last but not least, is the A List Apart style guide , which is an example of the reader-first approach. It not only describes how to write and style texts in a clear and concise manner, but also how to treat visual assets. An interesting feature is it describes how and when it is appropriate to use metaphors. 

What will you choose?

Mind, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to language and style. So there are two options here:

• Check which rules and recommendations in other style guides you studied do not suit your case and create exceptions. 
• Check what rules are missing and create ones from scratch.

Are there other options? Share!

UPD: Use style guides right inside your IDE

Want to check your writing against some recognized industry style guides? Try Grazie Professional.

Grazie Professional is a plugin that works in any IntelliJ-based IDE. Install it on top of the Grazie plugin which is bundled with most IntelliJ-based IDEs. If it’s not, you need to add Grazie first. 

Out of the box, Grazie Professional offers three popular style guides:

• Microsoft Writing Style Guide 
• Google Developer Documentation Style Guide 
• alex linter rules for inconsiderate writing

Open Settings | Editor | Natural Languages | Grammar and Style | Rules and select the rules you want to apply. Switch rules on and off, mix and match them as you need. Just make sure you haven’t checked the same or conflicting rules in different style guides, as they can clash. 

You can also define your project-specific style guide with custom rules and replacements. All to help you maintain a consistent and professional voice across the docs.

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Style Guides: Essential Writing Resources for Professionals

by Melissa Donovan | Jul 25, 2023 | Writing Resources | 16 comments

A style guide is an essential writing resource.

When we’re writing, we run into a lot of technical issues. Where do the quotation marks go? When is it correct to use a comma? How should titles be formatted?

Some of these questions are answered by the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. But other questions are not addressed by grammar: there’s no official rule for how to format a title.

We writers need trusted resources that we can use to resolve all these issues, especially if we want to produce work that is both grammatically correct and stylistically consistent.

That’s what style guides are for. Style guides answer grammatical questions and provide guidelines for consistency.

What is a Style Guide and Should I Use One?

A style guide is a manual that establishes rules for language (including grammar and punctuation) and formatting. Within academia, these guides also provide standards for citations, references, and bibliographies. Many disciplines have their very own style guides, such as the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association .

These manuals promote proper grammar and ensure consistency in areas where grammar is unclear. Style guides answer all those burly writing questions that are absent from the rules of grammar: Did you use a serial comma in the first paragraph, but leave it out in the third? Have you used italics in one post to refer to a book title, but in another post used quotation marks?

Basically, a style guide is an all-purpose writing resource.

If you’re serious about writing, then you should definitely use a style guide. Because a style guide’s primary purpose is to render a work consistent and mechanically sound, every project will benefit from its application. That includes creative writing, academic writing, and blogging!

In many cases, a style guide is not only appropriate, it’s mandatory. If you’re writing for submission, it’s a good idea to check a publication’s submission guidelines to see if they require writers to use a particular style guide.

By establishing these standards, a style guide will help you streamline your work. Once you are accustomed to using a particular set of guidelines, the writing process will flow more smoothly, because you won’t have to stop and deliberate on grammar and style. Your readers will be pleased too, because consistency lends to clarity.

Which Style Guide Should I Use?

In many cases, the matter of which style guide to use is not up to the writer. As mentioned, publishers will provide guidelines explaining which style guide is required.

Most newspapers adhere to The Associated Press Stylebook on Briefing on Media Law (often called The AP Stylebook ), whereas a small press publisher might ask you to use The Elements of Style (often referred to as Strunk and White ). Professors and teachers generally require students to use the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers .

What about fiction writers and everyone else?

For general use, Chicago is by far one of the best writing resources on the market, and for me, it’s been one of the best investments I’ve made for my own writing career.

Do you use a style guide, and if so, which one? Are there other writing resources that you can’t live without? Share your favorites in the comments.

16 Comments

In my current writing I don’t use a style guide. Granted, my current writing isn’t meant to be treated as a serious piece of journalism, either. While in grad school we used APA style in our writing (I was a Master’s student in Higher Education Admin.).

Purdue actually has a very handy online style guide at Purdue OWL . It practically got me through grad school.

Erik, I don’t think you have to write serious journalism in order to make good use of a style guide. The emphasis on style guides is consistency in all those issues that are not addressed by the rules of grammar. If that consistency is present in your writing, then a style guide may not be of great use to you.

Chicago and APA both offer online versions through a paid subscription. As much as I love online resources, I opted for hard copies!

Thanks for breaking it down like this, Melissa! I am like you in that I LOVE hard copies. 🙂

I really enjoyed reading this post. You always teach your readers so much!

Smiles, Michele

Thanks, Michele, for prompting this post, which was both challenging and fun to write. I just started using style guides a few months ago, because I felt they were necessary to the professionalism of my copywriting, and I have become a huge advocate! I don’t really aim to teach; I just want to share what I’ve learned or experienced with others!

Thanks for this article. I had been using the Elements of Style but I didn’t realize Chicago was more popular. Of course, I haven’t really used any style manual as much as I should since it’s no longer required by a professor. Maybe using it more would be a good New Year’s resolution!

Ashley, The Elements of Style is next on my list of style guides to buy. I have a very old, outdated copy from the early 80s, and it’s high time to upgrade. Thanks for stopping by!

Depending on the situation I think I have used most of the ones listed. I own several because they were required for classes and I prefer hardcopy.

Currently on my shelf, at least what I can see from here: AP, APA, Turabian, Elements of Style, MLA, and an unknown technical style manual. Unbelievable; and there is no Chicago because it was only required for one class and our team shared. AP gets the most use at present since my work is newspaper-focused. Maybe Chicago needs to be on my wish list.

Deb, it sounds like you have a great collection of style guides! I used to have MLA, but I can’t find it anywhere…

Hello, Melissa. Happy New Year. 🙂

I’m amidst a forced break from blogging (illness and surgery next week) so have had time to reflect on business and my personal blog.

It’s coincidental that you wrote about this now, as I was realizing I feel a lack in not using a style manual *even* in writing my personal blog.

For years any writing I did was always under a specified syle manual. The MLA was “it” for ages and then the arcane “Blue Book,” as we called it, for the law school years. I used Elements of Style as a general reference when I occasionally wrote outside the predetermined style spheres…

I didn’t think I’d want to bother for my personal blog. Really. I have no pretensions to being a freelance writer in the usual sense. As time went on I noticed the pauses for choices, and see that my blog is horribly inconsistent as well. The guides really help! They aren’t the additional burden I thought of them as when they were enforced. It’s time to get a current hard copy (of course) of whatever guide — but I can’t make up my mind.

This article helps quite a bit, thank you. I have narrowed it down to two, at least. An updated Elements of Style would probably do the trick. I wonder why the Chicago is that popular? I am very glad to have found out it is, thanks.

The Chicago guide is much longer, isn’t it? I’d love to read any observations you have comparing the two if you end up having them both… By the way, I always have used the final comma before the conjunction in a series. I don’t think I could accept a guide that dictated the opposite. 🙂 How we get stuck in our ways!

Chicago is huge, enormous. It’s almost 1,000 pages, while my ancient copy of Strunk & White isn’t even 100 pages. I figure that’s a good indication that Chicago will answer just about any style question I may ever have. Also, since I do copywriting for clients, it helps to have a guide that covers every issue imaginable.

When I get the latest edition of Elements , I’ll definitely write up a comparison, since these two are most popular for general writing.

Thanks, Essie!

I have “The Elements of Style” but I haven’t actually read it cover to cover yet. *hangs head* It sounds like I could benefit from reading the book and getting the “Chicago Manual of Style” too.

One question: Is it difficult to find what you need in the 1000 pages? Despite not having read “Elements”, I was able to find the section about comma use I needed. Of course, glancing at the table of contents leads me to think the book is not particularly all-inclusive.

I’ve found I tend to do things consistently with my writing out of habit. It would be great to learn a specific ‘style’ so that I could adapt to those techniques. While glancing through Strunk and White’s today I’ve already discovered things I do that could be improved upon.

Thanks for the thought provoking and informative post, Melissa!

Rebecca, I haven’t had any trouble finding anything in Chicago . It has an easy-to-use index, and it covers just about every style issue imaginable. I find it to be an invaluable resource, which is why it’s featured here at Writing Forward this month. I’ll have to get Elements sooner rather than later. My copy is actually the one my mom bought for me in sixth grade for my very first term paper. It’s ancient, but ah, the memories!

Thanks for the article, Melissa. I recently bought the Chicago Guide for my husband who is finishing his 5th book. His publisher recommended it. But he refuses to do the footnotes properly, so I’ll leave it between him and his editor.

However, I’m finishing my own memoir, and have already used it several times.

I just got some edits back, and I am glad I had Chicago on hand, because my editor made references to it when she cited reasons for her revisions. I could have just accepted the revisions, but I was able to see which guidelines she was following, and I found that informative.

I use The Chicago Manual of Style. Sharing your post.

Thanks for sharing it, Bette!

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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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Creating a writing style guide in 8 steps (A walkthrough)

A writing style guide is a reference resource for editorial content creators. It helps people within your organization, as well as freelancers, to develop written content that aligns with your brand values and mission. Style guides support your efforts to provide a consistent customer experience across all communication channels.

Why your brand needs a writing style guide

Brands typically have two main style guides: one for branded visuals and another for editorial content. Approximately 90% of polled companies say that consistency is important to their public brand . Style guides ensure that current and prospective customers have a consistent experience with your brand whether they’re reading a blog post, watching a video or interacting with your social media content.

Whenever you produce marketing content for your brand, you need to adhere to your style guides. This includes when you outsource content production to an agency or freelancers.

But don’t think of your style guides as an official decree that never expires. Your brand needs to evolve along with the times to stay fresh and relevant. While the basic rules of grammar are unlikely to change, certain words, phrases and other elements of style may transform over the years. Therefore, think of your writing style guide as a living document that chronicles your brand personality. It is a reference point and guiding light for your writers, but one that allows for creative freedom.

What a writing style guide is not

A writing style guide is not like an employee handbook — it shouldn’t be overly long, and it does not need to cover every possible issue writers may encounter. In fact, your guide probably shouldn’t be more than 5 pages in length. Any longer and you risk bogging down your writers with too many rules — they’ll be so focused on adhering to the style that your content could suffer.

Likewise, your style guide is not the place to teach people about the basics of grammar. You should hire writers who already know the fundamentals. That goes for company policies, too. Unless your brand frequently produces content about sensitive topics, you don’t need to include guidance about topics about discrimination or inclusivity — save those topics for your employee manual.

Style manuals: A starting point

Here’s some good news: You don’t need to build your brand style entirely from scratch. Instead, you should choose an established style manual as a starting point. Editorial guidelines specific to your brand should branch off the trunk of the style manual, allowing your brand to take on a personality of its own.

So, which style manual should you use? Let’s take a look at the most popular options:

• AP Stylebook: Designed for American journalists, AP style provides guidelines for grammar and citations. It is used by most media outlets in the U.S.
• MLA Handbook: Developed by the Modern Language Association, MLA style is commonly used in academic writing and focuses on the aesthetic production and reception of scholarly inquiry.
• Chicago Manual of Style: Created by the University of Chicago, the goal of Chicago Style is to help writers to properly cite sources and clarify meaning for readers.
• The Elements of Style: This short style guide is intended to produce writing that is easy to understand, active and free of unnecessary details.

If you’re struggling to choose one, we recommend the AP Stylebook. Most readers are familiar with this style, even if they’ve never heard of it. Plus, it’s very accessible to people of all reading levels.

8 steps to create a writing style guide that uplifts your brand

As you create your content style guide, be sure to involve multiple stakeholders at your company. The best way to make sure people actually use your guide is to get their input during the drafting process. Here’s how to get started:

1. Review your brand values and mission statement

Whenever you develop any guidelines around our brand, it’s important to return to your main source of inspiration: your company’s values and mission. This will help you define your editorial personality. The way your brand speaks to its customers will depend on a variety of factors, and your editorial style plays a huge part in how your tone is perceived.

2. Define your editorial style and tone

Your editorial style guide is intended to help multiple writers produce content that is unified in a way that reflects your brand values and relates to your target audience. For example, B2C brands usually seek to show that they understand customer needs and relate on a personal level. B2B brands, on the other hand, are typically more formal and demonstrate thought leadership.

Use adjectives that describe your brand personality. For example:

• B2C brand: “Our brand is conversational and isn’t afraid to be funny. We are unapologetically authentic, but never crass. We laugh with our customers, never at them. Our authenticity means we care about our customers and the issues that affect them at a social and emotional level.”
• B2B brand: “Our brand is objective and we’re not afraid to be controversial when we’re pushing against the barriers found within our industry. We’re sophisticated, but not egotistical. Our confidence comes from experience, which includes both successes and failures. We’re always learning and we use our expertise to benefit our clients.”

3. Address common spelling and grammar issues

Be sure to note any exceptions your brand makes that divert from your chosen style manual. For example, the AP Stylebook advises against using serial commas, also known as the Oxford comma, but you might choose to use it anyway.

Other common grammar guidelines include:

• Abbreviations: You might require writers to spell out phrases on the first mention and abbreviate on the second reference. Or, you might include the abbreviation in parentheses upon the first mention.
• Capitalizations: Make a note of any non-standard capitalizations or lowercase words.
• Passive and active voice: Provide examples of when passive voice is acceptable to use.
• Bulleted lists: Will you always end list items with a period, or only when they are full sentences?
• Quotation marks: Single or double quotes?
• Hyphens: Is it OK to use an em dash or a hyphen for parenthetical phrases? Should you hyphenate phrasal adjectives?

4. Include branded words and phrases

Always include branded words in your style guide. Make a note of any usual spellings or capitalizations. For example, your brand name might be lowercase in logo form, but use a capital letter when written out. This is where consistency is crucial, so don’t leave any room for interpretation here.

5. Provide examples of how to speak to different buyer personas

If your brand speaks to multiple buyer personas, or operates in several global markets, you’ll need to note important differences. These could include spellings (e.g. color vs colour) or they could be a matter of tone. For example, a software company might use more technical language when writing content for developers, and more informal language when developing content for end-users.

6. Explain how editorial text complements branded visuals

Oftentimes, editorial content will appear alongside branded visual elements, such as in an advertisement, eBook or infographic. While it’s not necessary to fully detail your visual style guidelines here, make a note of anything that will help writers to collaborate with visual designers. For example, it’s helpful to note how many words can fit on each page of your white paper template.

7. Create a ‘do not mention’ list

Make a list of topics that writers should never mention. Many brands make a point to never mention politics or religion, for example. It may also be a good idea to provide guidance for when those topics are unavoidable. In some cases, you’ll need to consult with your company’s legal team to understand any applicable restrictions.

8. Offer examples of approved sources

Provide a list of approved resources — or at least types of resources. For example, you might tell your writers that it’s OK to use content from .edu and .gov websites only. Also make sure to develop a consistent citation style. On the web, a hyperlink will usually suffice, but you may also want to include a bibliography at the end of certain pieces of writing. Create examples of citations so your writers don’t need to figure it out for themselves.

Make your style guide accessible

Your editorial style guide can be simple. Some companies have a simple text document that explains the basics. However, you should consider designing your writing guide so it is easy to understand at a glance. Then, make sure it is easy to access — put it on your company’s intranet or in an otherwise central location where writers can reference it as needed.

To help your content developers, your content style guide shouldn’t stand alone. It should accompany other reference materials such as visual style guides, buyer personas, industry research and any other resources that might provide insight into your customers and your market.

Alexander Santo

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Alexander Santo is a Brafton writer living in Washington. ​He enjoys searching for the perfect cup of coffee, browsing used book shops and attending punk rock concerts.

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Writing Guide

This guide was created for Harvard Library employees, but we hope it’s helpful to a wider community of content creators, editors, producers — anyone who’s trying to communicate a message online.

If you work at Harvard Library 

This is our website style guide. It helps us create clear and consistent digital content that’s welcoming and useful for our users. Please use it as a reference whenever you’re writing content for library.harvard.edu.

If you work at another organization

We invite you to use and adapt this style guide as you see fit. It — like our entire website — is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Speaking of credit: Several other writing guides inspired this one. Those include: MailChimp’s Content Style Guide , Harvard University Style Guidelines & Best Practices , 18F’s Content Guide , Federal Plain Language Guidelines , and City of Boston Writing Guide . These are great resources for additional reading on the topic.

We love to talk shop. If you have questions about this writing guide or the Harvard Library website contact the Harvard Library communications team at [email protected].

With every piece of content we publish, our goal is to empower our users so they can use our services and tools to get their work done and discover new ideas. 

We do this by writing in a clear, helpful and confident voice that guides our users and invites them to engage with us. Our voice is: 

• Straightforward 
• Conversational 
• Trustworthy 
• Proactive  
• Knowledgeable 

Our voice is also positive — instead of rules and permissions, think options and opportunities. It’s also welcoming and accessible to all audiences. 

The Harvard brand brings with it a lot of history. We want to highlight our association with the positive attributes — credible, trusted, secure, historic, bold. But we also want to do our best to break down barriers, which means overcoming other attributes some people may assign to Harvard, such as elite, academic, exclusive, traditional.

Part of being credible, trusted, and secure is ensuring every bit of content we have on our website is up to date, accurate, and relevant to our users. 

The tips that follow in this guide will help us fulfill these goals. 

"Damn those sticklers in favor of what sounds best to you, in the context of the writing and the audience it’s intended for." —Merrill Perlman, Columbia Journalism Review

Things To Do

Write for the user first.

Before you start writing, ask yourself: 

• Who is going to read this content? 
• What do they need to know? 
• What are they trying to accomplish? 
• How might they be feeling? 

Put yourself in their shoes and write in a way that suits the situation. Remember: You’re the expert, not your users. 

Put the most important information up top

Users tend to scan web pages until they find what they need. Most people will only read 20 percent of a page . Use the “inverted pyramid” technique by putting the most important information at the top of a page. That’s the section users are most likely to read.

Choose clarity over cleverness

Say what you mean and avoid using figurative language, which can make your content more difficult to understand.

Address users directly 

Use pronouns to speak directly to your users, addressing them as “you” when possible. If necessary, define “you” at the beginning of your page. And don’t be afraid to say “we” instead of “the library.” 

• Instead of:  The Harvard Library has staff members who can assist with research.  We’d write: Our expert librarians are here to help answer your research questions. 

Shorter sentences and paragraphs make your content easier to skim and less intimidating. Paragraphs should top out around 3 to 8 sentences. Ideal sentence length is around 15 to 20 words.

Use plain language 

Using words people easily understand makes our content more useful and welcoming. Don’t use formal or long words when easy or short ones will do. 

• Use write instead of compose , get instead of obtain , use instead of utilize , and so on. Plainlanguage.gov has a great list of word alternatives . 

Use the active voice 

The active voice supports brevity and makes our content more engaging. 

Using the passive voice deemphasizes who should take action, which can lead to confusion. It also tends to be more wordy than the active voice. 

• Instead of: Overdue fines must be paid by the borrower. We would write: The borrower must pay any overdue fines. 

How to recognize the passive voice: If you insert “by zombies” after the verb and the sentence still makes sense, you’re using the passive voice.

Write for the user with the least amount of knowledge on the topic

It’s not dumbing down your content. It can actually be harder to to make information simple and easy to understand. The truth is: even experts or people with more education prefer plain language.

Imagine your audience and write as if you were talking to them one-on-one, with the authority of someone who can actively help.  

Try reading your writing out loud and listen for awkward phrases or constructions that you wouldn’t normally say. Better yet, have someone else read your writing to you. 

Create helpful hyperlinks 

When links look different from regular text, they attract users’ attention. That’s an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed. 

When creating hyperlinks, keep these tips in mind:  

• Meaningful links should stand alone and help users with scanning the page.
• Write descriptive and true link text — explain where users are going and why.
• Use keywords to describe the link’s destination — look at the destination page for context.
• The link destination should fulfill the promise of your link text .
• If linking to a PDF, indicate that. 

For example: 

• Instead of:  This collection is available online here . Try:  Browse this collection online.
• For PDFs:   Our pricing guide PDF  provides estimates for various reproduction formats. 

Break up your content 

Large paragraphs of text can lose readers. Using subheads and bullet points is a way to help provide clear narrative structure for readers, particularly those in a hurry.

Tips for breaking up your content: 

• Add useful headings to help people scan the page.
• Use bulleted lists to break up the text when appropriate.
• Write short sentences and short sections to break up information into manageable chunks.

"Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away ... Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there." —William Zinsser, On Writing Well

Things to Avoid

Jargon or acronyms.

Jargon and acronyms are often vague or unfamiliar to users, and can lead to misinterpretation. If you feel an acronym or a jargon term must be used, be sure to explain what it means the first time you use it on a page.

We strongly discourage writing FAQs , or Frequently Asked Questions. Why? Because FAQs:

• Are hard to read and search for
• Duplicate other content on your site
• Mean that content is not where people expect to find it — it needs to be in context

If you think you need FAQs, review the content on your site and look for ways to improve it. Take steps to give users a better experience.

Ask yourself:

• Is the content organized in a logical way?
• Can you group similar topics together?
• Is it easy to find the right answer?
• Is it clear and up to date?

If people are asking similar questions, the existing content isn’t meeting their needs. Perhaps you need to rewrite it or combine several pieces of content. Pay attention to what users are asking for and find the best way to guide them through the process.  

Linking users to PDFs can make your content harder to use, and lead users down a dead end. The Nielsen Norman Group has done multiple studies on PDFs and has consistently found that users don’t like them and avoid reading them.

Avoid using PDFs for important information you’re trying to convey to users. Some supplementary information may make sense as a PDF — or something a user would need to print. 

If you must link users to a PDF, be sure to let them know. For example: 

Our pricing guide (PDF)  provides estimates for various reproduction formats. 

Duplication

If something is written once and links to relevant information easily and well, people are more likely to trust the content. Duplicate content produces poor search results, confuses the user, and damages the credibility of our websites.

Before you publish something, check that the user need you’re trying to address has not already been covered.  

Style Guide

With some exceptions, we’re following Associated Press style guidelines on the Harvard Library website.

Here are some common tips: 

Abbreviations and acronyms

Spell out abbreviations or acronyms the first time they are referenced. Avoid abbreviations or acronyms that the reader would not quickly recognize. 

Capitalization

In general, capitalize proper nouns and beginnings of sentences. For nouns specific to Harvard University and other common academic uses, please refer to the Harvard-specific guidelines below.

As with all punctuation, clarity is the biggest rule. If a comma does not help make clear what is being said, it should not be there. If omitting a comma could lead to confusion or misinterpretation, then use the comma. We do use serial commas.

Compositions

Capitalize the principal words in the names of books, movies, plays, poems, operas, songs, radio and TV programs, works of art, events, etc. Use italics or quotes when writing about them online. 

One word, no hyphen. However, use the hyphen for  e-book and e-reader.

A plural noun, it normally takes plural verbs and pronouns. However, it becomes a collective noun and takes singular verbs when the group or quantity is regarded as a unit. 

Right: The data is sound. (A unit.) 

Also right: The data have been carefully collected. (Individual items.) 

Use figures for date, abbreviated month when used with a specific date. So: January 2018 but Jan. 2, 2018. Use an s without an apostrophe to indicate spans of decades or centuries: the 1900s, the 1920s. 

Headlines/Headers/Subheads

Capitalize all words that aren’t articles.

In general, spell out one through nine. Use figures for 10 or above and whenever preceding a unit of measure or referring to ages of people, animals, events, or things. 

Use figures for: Academic course numbers, addresses, ages, centuries, dates, years and decades, decimals, percentages and fractions with numbers larger than 1, dimensions, distances, highways, monetary units, school grades. 

Spell out: at the start of a sentence, in definite and casual uses, names, in fractions less than one. 

Phone numbers 

123-456-7890 

am, pm, Lowercase, no periods. Avoid the redundant 10 am this morning.

web, website, webcam, webcast, webpage, web address, web browser, internet

Harvard Style Guidelines 

Here are tips for Harvard-specific terms and other terms you may encounter more frequently based on the nature of our website. They're based on guidelines provided in the Harvard University Style Guidelines .

Harvard University Proper Nouns

Capitalize the full, formal names of:

• Departments
• Colleges and schools
• Institutions
• Residential houses
• Academic associations
• Scholarships

However, do not capitalize names used informally, in the second reference. For example, when calling it the center, or the department.

Example: The Science Center contains five lecture halls; you can reserve space at the center by submitting a room request.

The exception is to capitalize College, School, and University when referring to Harvard, as well as the Yard.

Always capitalize Harvard Library. Do not capitalize Harvard libraries. Be careful in referencing Harvard Library, so as not to give users the idea that the Harvard Library is a place. 

Capitalize formal titles when used immediately before a name.

Lowercase formal titles when used alone or in constructions that set them off from a name by commas.

Use lowercase at all times for terms that are job descriptions rather than formal titles.

Named professorships and fellowships are capitalized even following the person’s name.

Academic years and terms

Terms designating academic years and terms are lowercased, like senior, first-year student, fall semester

Class titles

Capitalize the name of classes. Course titles and lectures are capitalized and put in quotes.

Example: June teaches Literature 101. Professor John Doe is teaching “The Art of Guitar Playing” this semester.

Concentrations

Concentrations are not capitalized. 

Harvard academic titles

Unlike AP, use title case for named professors, like Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values.

Treat all other academic titles as formal titles: capitalized when used immediately before a name.

The preferred format is to spell out the degree. Capitalize an individual's specific degree, but do not capitalize when referring to a degree generically.

For example: John Smith holds a Master of Arts in English. She is working toward her bachelor’s degree.

If abbreviating degrees, use capitalized initials with periods: A.B., S.B.

When referring to someone’s year of graduation, capitalize “class.” Example: John Harvard, Class of 1977, was in town for a lecture.

"Writing is an instrument for conveying ideas from one mind to another; the writer’s job is to make the reader apprehend his meaning readily and precisely." —Sir Ernest Gowers, The Complete Plain Words

Tools & Resources

There are tons of tools available online to help you accomplish the goals outlined above and test your content for readability. Here are some to get you started: 

Creative Writing Styles: Pros, Cons & Guide

What are creative writing styles, prose writing style: pros & cons, poetry writing style: pros & cons, playwriting style: pros & cons, screenwriting style: pros & cons, journalism writing style: pros & cons, blogging style: pros & cons, copywriting style: pros & cons, guide on how to choose a writing style.

Imagine having a toolbox. Inside this toolbox, you have different tools, each with its unique purpose. Similarly, as a writer, you have a toolbox filled with various writing styles. Each style has its benefits and drawbacks and serves a unique purpose. Today, we'll explore these different creative writing styles, their benefits and drawbacks, and how you can select the right tools for your writing project.

Just like an artist uses oil paints or charcoal to create a masterpiece, a writer uses different writing styles to craft their work. So, what exactly are these styles? There's no one-size-fits-all definition. However, we can think of writing styles as the way you express your thoughts and ideas on paper. Each style has its own distinct characteristics, rules, and conventions. Let's dive into the benefits and drawbacks of different creative writing styles.

• Prose Writing: This style is your everyday, run-of-the-mill writing. It's what you find in novels, short stories, and essays. It's straightforward, with the words flowing in sentences and paragraphs, just like the water in a river.
• Poetry Writing: Poetry is the songbird of writing styles. It uses rhythm, rhyme, and imagery to convey emotions and ideas. It's the style you turn to when you want to capture the heartbeat of a moment.
• Playwriting: As the name suggests, this style is all about writing for the stage. It's about creating dialogues and actions that actors will perform. If you've ever dreamed of seeing your words come to life, playwriting is the style for you.
• Screenwriting: This style is similar to playwriting but for the screen—be it a television, cinema, or even YouTube. It involves writing scripts for films, TV shows, and online videos.
• Journalism: Journalism writing is about reporting facts in a simple, clear, and concise manner. It's the style you'd use to write news articles, features, and interviews.
• Blogging: Blogging is a casual and conversational style of writing. It's like having a chat with your readers over a cup of coffee. Blogging is perfect for sharing personal experiences, opinions, and advice.
• Copywriting: Last but not least, copywriting is the art of selling with words. It's the style you see in advertisements, sales letters, and marketing campaigns. This style aims to persuade and convince readers to take a specific action, like buying a product or signing up for a newsletter.

Now that we've unpacked the different writing styles, let's delve deeper into each one's benefits and drawbacks. This will help you choose the right style for your next writing project, be it a blog post, a poem, or a screenplay.

Ever thought of writing a novel or a short story? Then, you should consider the prose writing style. It's like cooking a hearty stew— you mix a variety of ingredients, let them simmer, and serve a delicious dish. Now, let's look at the benefits and drawbacks of this creative writing style.

• Freedom of Expression: The prose style gives you the liberty to express your thoughts and ideas without the restrictions of rhythm, rhyme, or meter. It's like painting on a blank canvas, where you are free to explore and experiment.
• Complexity and Depth: Prose allows for the development of complex characters, intricate plots, and detailed settings. It's a style where you can delve deep into the human psyche, societal issues, or even the mysteries of the universe.
• Accessibility: Prose is the most common and accessible form of writing. Its straightforward and familiar structure makes it easy for readers of all ages and backgrounds to understand and connect with your work.
• Length: Prose writing, especially novels and long-form essays, can be time-consuming and require significant commitment. It's like running a marathon, where you need to pace yourself and keep going, even when the finish line seems far away.
• Overwhelming Detail: While detail can be a strength, it can also be a drawback. Too much detail can overwhelm readers and slow down the pace of your story. Remember, not every leaf needs to be described, and not every thought needs to be explored.
• Difficulty in Standing Out: Given the abundance of prose, standing out can be a challenge. It requires a unique voice, a compelling story, and a mastery of the craft to leave a lasting impression on the reader.

There you have it— the benefits and drawbacks of the prose writing style. Remember, the key is to balance the freedom of expression with the discipline of storytelling. So, are you ready to pick up your pen and start your prose adventure?

Have you ever felt an emotion so deeply that it felt like a song? Poetry might be your ideal creative writing style. It's like dancing with words, where each step, each twirl, each pause, is filled with meaning. Let's explore the benefits and drawbacks of poetry.

• Emotional Impact: Poetry is known for its ability to stir emotions. A well-crafted verse can make your readers feel joy, sorrow, wonder, and even a sense of camaraderie. It's a style where a few words can leave a deep impact.
• Conciseness: Poetry forces you to say more with less. It's like packing a suitcase for a trip— you can only take what's essential. This brevity can lead to powerful and memorable writing.
• Creative Freedom: While there are many forms of poetry, there are no hard and fast rules. You can experiment with rhythm, rhyme, structure, and even invent your own poetic form. It's a playground for your creativity.
• Difficulty in Communication: The abstract nature of poetry can make it difficult for some readers to understand. It's like a coded message that needs deciphering. This can limit the reach and impact of your work.
• Stigma: Unfortunately, poetry is often seen as highbrow or inaccessible, which can deter some readers. It's a misconception that you, as a poet, will need to challenge and overcome.
• Monetization: Let's face it— poetry is not the most lucrative writing style. Most poets write for the love of the craft rather than financial gain.

There you have it— the benefits and drawbacks of the poetry writing style. Remember, at the heart of poetry is emotion. So, are you ready to write your heart out and let your words dance?

If you've ever been swept up in the world of a stage play, you know the power of this form of writing. But what are the benefits and drawbacks of this creative writing style? Let's break down the pros and cons of playwriting.

• Collaborative Creativity: One of the unique advantages of playwriting is the opportunity to work with directors, actors, and designers to bring your words to life. It's a team effort where each person adds their own flavor to your dish.
• Immediate Audience Feedback: When your work is performed live, you get immediate reactions from the audience. It's like a conversation where you speak through your play, and the audience responds with laughter, gasps, or applause.
• Dynamic Storytelling: In playwriting, you can use dialogue, stage directions, and physical action to tell your story. It's like painting a picture where every element— the colors, the shapes, the brush strokes—contributes to the final image.
• Dependent on Performance: Your play's success is largely dependent on the performance. If the actors don't deliver your lines as intended, or if the director's vision doesn't match yours, your story may not come across as you hoped.
• Limited Scope: Unlike a novel, a play has to be performed in a specific space and time. This can limit the scope of your story. You might have to cut scenes or characters to fit the constraints of the stage.
• Inaccessibility: Not everyone has access to live theater, which means your potential audience is smaller. It's like cooking a delicious meal, but only a few people get to taste it.

So, there you have it— the benefits and drawbacks of the playwriting style. If you're a team player who loves the energy of live performance, this might be the writing style for you. Ready to take the stage?

Ever wondered what it's like to write the next big blockbuster or binge-worthy TV show? Let's take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of the screenwriting style, a unique form of storytelling that's all about visual drama.

• Vivid Visuals: Screenwriting allows you to create a powerful visual experience for your audience. You get to craft beautiful scenes, thrilling action sequences, and heart-tugging moments that can only be fully appreciated on screen.
• Wide Audience Reach: Films and TV shows are consumed by millions around the world. This means your story has the potential to reach more people than most other forms of writing.
• High Rewards: Successful screenwriters can earn significant financial and critical recognition, from hefty paychecks to prestigious awards like the Oscars.
• Highly Competitive: The film and TV industry is extremely competitive. Landing a screenwriting gig requires not just talent, but also persistence, networking, and a bit of luck.
• Restricted Creative Control: Screenwriters often have to compromise their vision to meet the demands of producers, directors, and actors. Your original script might look very different by the time it's on screen.
• Strict Formatting: Screenwriting has specific formatting rules that can be challenging to learn and follow. It's like learning a new language—each scene heading, character name, and line of dialogue has its own place.

So, that's the screenwriting style for you. It's a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows, but if you have a knack for visual storytelling and a passion for cinema, it can be a thrilling journey. So, are you ready for your close-up?

Ever thought about being the voice that informs the public about the happenings around the world? Journalism writing style is a unique blend of factual, concise, and compelling storytelling. Let's shed some light on the benefits and drawbacks of this writing style.

• Informative & Impactful: As a journalist, you have the power to inform, persuade, and change public opinion. Your words can have a significant impact on society.
• Dynamic Field: Journalism is fast-paced and ever-changing. There's always a fresh story to cover, making it a vibrant and exciting field to work in.
• Explore Various Topics: Whether it's politics, sports, fashion, or technology—the list is endless. You get to delve into diverse topics, expanding your knowledge and understanding along the way.
• High Pressure: Being a journalist can be stressful. There are tight deadlines, and the need to be the first to break the news can create immense pressure.
• Fact-Checking: It's very important to verify every piece of information before publication. Mistakes can damage your credibility and have serious consequences.
• Unpredictable Hours: News doesn't follow a 9-5 schedule, and neither do journalists. This job can demand long, unpredictable hours, which may interfere with personal life.

There you have it, the journalism writing style. It's not for the faint-hearted, but if you have a nose for news and a desire to make a difference, it's a rewarding profession that keeps you on your toes.

Have you ever thought about sharing your personal experiences, insights or expertise with the world? That's what blogging is all about. Let's dive into the benefits and drawbacks of the blogging writing style.

• Freedom of Expression: Blogging offers a platform to express your thoughts, feelings, and ideas. You can write about anything you're passionate about, making it a highly personalized form of writing.
• Building a Community: Through your blog, you can connect with like-minded individuals, creating a supportive community that shares your interests. It's a great way to engage with others and expand your network.
• Potential Income: If your blog gains a substantial following, it can become a source of income. From advertising, affiliate marketing to selling products or services - the possibilities are many!
• Time Consuming: Maintaining a blog requires a considerable amount of time and effort. From creating content, responding to comments, to promoting your blog - it's a significant commitment.
• Slow Progress: Building a successful blog doesn't happen overnight. It can take months, even years, of consistent effort to gain a significant following and start earning.
• Writer's Block: Coming up with fresh, engaging content regularly can be challenging. Blogger's block is real and can be a major hurdle to overcome.

So, that's the blogging writing style. If you enjoy sharing your experiences, opinions or expertise and don't mind putting in the work, blogging can be a rewarding venture that allows you to connect with the world on your terms.

Ever seen an advertisement that made you want to buy that product right away? That's the power of copywriting. Let's explore the benefits and drawbacks of the copywriting style.

• Direct Impact: Copywriting is all about persuasion. A well-crafted copy can compel readers to take action, whether it's buying a product, signing up for a service, or subscribing to a newsletter.
• High Demand: Good copywriters are always in demand. Every business, from small startups to multinational corporations, needs compelling copy to sell their products or services.
• Creative Freedom: Copywriting allows you to flex your creative muscles. You can play with words, use puns, tell stories - whatever it takes to engage your audience and get your message across.
• High Pressure: As a copywriter, your work directly affects a company's bottom line. This pressure to deliver results can be stressful.
• Tight Deadlines: Copywriting often involves working under tight deadlines. You need to be able to think on your feet and create compelling content quickly.
• Revisions: Copywriters often have to make multiple revisions based on client feedback. This can be time-consuming and sometimes frustrating.

So, that's the copywriting style. If you have a knack for persuasion and don't mind working under pressure, copywriting could be the perfect fit for you, allowing you to combine your creativity with a business-oriented approach.

Choosing a writing style is like picking the right pair of shoes. You want something that not only fits but also complements your style and purpose. The question is, with so many options available, how do you choose the right one? Here are a few tips to help you make the right choice:

Consider Your Purpose: What do you aim to achieve with your writing? Are you looking to inform, entertain, persuade, or narrate a story? Your purpose will help guide your choice. For instance, if you're looking to inform, journalism or blogging style might be best. If you're aiming to persuade, copywriting could be your go-to.

Analyze Your Audience: Who are you writing for? Different audiences prefer different styles. For example, a younger audience might prefer a casual blogging style, whereas a professional audience might appreciate a more formal journalism style.

Play to Your Strengths: Do you have a knack for vivid descriptions? Prose might be your style. Are you good at expressing emotions? Poetry could be your forte. Do you excel at writing dialogue? Consider playwriting or screenwriting.

Experiment: Don't be afraid to try different styles. Write a blog post one day, a poem the next. You'll never know what you're good at until you give it a go.

Remember, there's no 'one-size-fits-all' when it comes to writing styles. The beauty of writing lies in its diversity. So, don't be afraid to explore the benefits and drawbacks of different creative writing styles until you find the one that fits you like a glove.

If you're interested in exploring different creative writing styles and techniques, don't miss the workshop ' Writing From Memory - Part 1 ' by Charlie Brogan. This workshop will help you tap into your personal experiences and memories as a source of inspiration for your writing, adding authenticity and depth to your work.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, understanding the 4 writing styles: how to identify and use them.

General Education

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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ProWritingAid's Writing Styles

Hayley Milliman

Different styles of writing require different language.

Academic writing, for instance, requires a more formal style and use of the passive voice is more acceptable. In creative writing, on the other hand, using the passive voice can detract from your writing and sentences are often shorter.

ProWritingAid makes it easy for you to set the style of writing for your document and receive custom suggestions that make sense for your work's context. In this article, we'll explain how changing your writing style settings alters the suggestions you'll get when using our editing tool.

How Changing Writing Styles Works

Writing style (not set):, writing style: general, writing style: academic, writing style: business, writing style: technical, writing style: creative, writing style: web, writing style: script, writing styles: get custom suggestions for your work, start editing like a pro with your free prowritingaid account.

Changing the writing style changes the statistics that we use to calibrate against.

For each style we have drawn together a reference set of documents in that genre. These are high quality pieces of writing that have been published. We have analyzed these to calculate an acceptable baseline for the particular genre. Then in reports such as the Overused Words report, we change the target levels depending on the style.

Beyond the baseline statistics, some other things that may change are:

• some rules are only applied in certain genres of writing
• some targets, such as average sentence length

Let's dive into what happens with each writing style.

If you don't set your Writing Style, your style will automatically be set to General.

Under the General Writing Style, the following rules are enabled in addition to our normal set of checks:

• Inconsistencies in punctuation marks
• "Show, don't tell" rule which encourages you to show emotions in writing
• Capitalization within a word, which checks for incorrectly capitalized letters within a single word

The following rules are disabled in the General Writing Style:

• Business jargon, which finds business jargon and suggests replacements.

Under the Academic Writing Style, the following rules are enabled in addition to our normal set of checks:

• Simple sentence fragments, which checks to make sure a fragment contains both a subject and a verb. In other styles of writing, a sentence fragment (i.e. either the subject or the verb can be omitted and inferred from the context) can be stylistically effective, but in formal writing, it is recommended to use them both.
• Smileys rule, which suggests removing smileys from formal writing.
• Business jargon rule, which finds business jargon and suggests replacements.

The following rules are disabled in the Academic Writing Style:

• Passive voice, which finds instances of passive voice and suggests replacements. Passive voice is often more acceptable in academic writing.

Under the Business Writing Style, the following rules are enabled in addition to our normal set of checks:

• Offensive language check, which checks against Discriminatory Language rules to remove inappropriate words.
• Email style rules, which transform your sentences to be more polite. For instance, changing, "Have you started X" to "Can you tell me if you have completed X?"
• Simple sentence fragment rules, which make sure your sentence fragments contain both a subject and a verb.

Under the Technical Writing Style, the following rule is enabled in addition to our normal set of checks:

The following rules are disabled in the Technical Writing Style:

• Structured punctuation, which finds inconsistencies in punctuation marks and provides potential fixes.

Under the Creative Writing Style, the following rule is enabled in addition to our normal set of checks:

• "Show, don't tell" rule which encourages you to show emotions in writing rather than explaining them.

Under the Web Writing Style, the following rule is enabled in addition to our normal set of checks:

• Each sentence is limited to 30 words.

Under the Script Writing Style, the following rules are disabled:

• Capitalization within a word, which checks for incorrectly capitalized letters within a single word.
• Passive voice, which finds instances of passive voice and suggests replacements.
• Em-dash, which searches for instances where em dash should be used instead of two consecutive dashes.

By changing your writing style, you can get suggestions that make sense for the context of your writing. Try it today!

If your style is off, your reader will lose trust in your writing. Make sure your writing fits conventions without losing your personal voice with ProWritingAid.

Regardless of your writing style, ProWritingAid is one of the best grammar checkers out there. But it's far more than that! The Editing Tool also looks at elements of structure and style that have an impact on how strong and readable your writing is.

More, it helps you learn as you edit, making you a better writer every time you use the program.

The best way to find out how much ProWritingAid can do is to try it yourself!

Take your writing to the next level:

20 Editing Tips From Professional Writers

Whether you are writing a novel, essay, article or email, good writing is an essential part of communicating your ideas., this guide contains the 20 most important writing tips and techniques from a wide range of professional writers..

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Hayley is the Head of Education and Community at ProWritingAid. Prior to joining this team, Hayley spent several years as an elementary school teacher and curriculum developer in Memphis, TN. When Hayley isn't hunched over her keyboard, you can find her figure skating at the ice rink or hiking with her dog.

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Creative Writer's Style Guide: Rules and Advice for Writing Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Hardcover – January 1, 2002

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 240 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Story Pr
• Publication date January 1, 2002
• Dimensions 6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1884910556
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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Story Pr (January 1, 2002)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1884910556
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1884910555
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches
• #6,145 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)
• #831,842 in Literature & Fiction (Books)

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Creative Writing Style Guides

What follows is a collection of style guides dealing with creative writing..

Note: If you are looking for more general writing style guides, then go to General Writing Style Guides .

• The Complete Guide to Writing Fiction (1990), by Barnaby Conrad. Writers Digests Books.
• Fade In: The Screenwriting Process (1988), by Robert A. Berman. Westport, CT: Michael Wiese Films.
• The Elements of Screenwriting: A Guide for Film and Television Writers (1986), by Irwin R. Blacker. New York: Macmillan.
• The Poet’s Handbook (1980), by Judson Jerome. Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books.
• The Screenwriter’s Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script (1995, 2nd edition), by David Trottier. Silman-James Press.
• A Short Guide to Reading and Writing Poetry (1976), by William Edwards Taylor. DeLand, FL: Everett Edwards.
• The Way to Write: A Stimulating Guide to the Craft of Creative Writing (1981), by John Fairfax. New York: St. Martin’s.

Back to Subject-Specific Writing Guides .