Personal Touch: A Guide To Writing Stylishly

So you want to break away from bland statements and basic descriptions and develop your own unique writing style? That personal touch will certainly distinguish your works from the vast wasteland of cookie cutter beach novels. But how to go about it and what elements define style in writing? Let’s look at a few.

How detailed should your descriptions be? How much should you articulate and how much should be completely left to the imagination?

Some say to describe only as much as necessary and to not go out of your way to break away from the story to paint a picture. Others argue for complete immersion and to included whatever is your mind’s eye.

Per usual however, the truth strikes a balance between the two. Weave your descriptions into the dialog and the actions of the characters as they move through your world. Treat the landscape itself as it were a supporting character in the scene and make each description relevant until you paint the picture you want, accomplishing both relevance to the story and full immersion into your world.
Adding descriptions of things you can see is one thing. How about scents and feelings and sounds? Adding a sensory symphony to your descriptions make your story seem real, your characters genuine and allows the reader to immerse themselves in your tale. Again, weaving these descriptions in the story and making them one with your character is key.

From whose perspective are you writing from? Are you always in the head of your character? Sometimes it’s best to break away from your main character’s point of view and see them and the world you’ve created from a third person perspective. Playing with perspective can really keep a story interesting and mastering POV can really boost your style points.

Should you use active or passive voice? This is a hotly debated topic. Most believe to only ever use active voice save for the case of an unknown subject matter. Other say that passive voice can be used to great effect to keep the reader guessing the focus of each paragraph. Active voice is usually far clearer however when done right passive voice can be very eloquent. When deciding your style, you have to decide whether to go for either more poetic or clearer sentences.

How much action is too much action? At what point is it overboard? What if you don’t have enough action in your story to keep things interesting? How much is just enough and what’s the best way to balance action and plot progression?

Well the honest truth is the point that you start having action for the sake of action is when it’s too much. Action and plot progression should not be separate entities. Make your action scenes either relevant to the plot or use them as character development tools. This not only gives your action scenes a point and keeps them relevant, it makes them more fun and exciting.

Climatic battles near the end always have to be the best. If your battles up to that point have been mind-bendingly explosive, you make it difficult to make your final one more satisfying and you tend to get into a game of ‘topper’ with yourself to make the next bit of action superior to the last, and eventually it gets ridiculous. You can make your action exciting, but keeping it more low key up until near the end can only benefit the story as a whole.

If you’re writing a story with a lot of action, it’s best to explicitly describe the action instead of just saying ‘then so and so did this and this and it was over’. Giving a blow-by-blow description can really feed life into a thriller. If your story doesn’t rely on a lot of action then giving simple yet visceral descriptions would be the best route.

Pick your battles wisely. If you characters don’t have to get into a fight, then don’t make them. Keep all of your battles inevitable and relevant. The moment that you have action for the sake of action is when you’ve failed.

Let’s face it, a lot of readers have short attention spans. So when telling your story it may become easy for readers to lose track of the plot and remember what had happened before. The story starts to become complex and convoluted to their eyes and they lose interest.

Therefore it’s important to periodically summarize the plot thus far. You only need to hit the highlights ever so often to make sense of it and keep the story on track for readers. However this has to be done in a smooth fashion that doesn’t break away from the storytelling. Here are some ways how.

In the show ‘24' where everything happens quickly, it becomes necessary to recap the basic plot several times an episode. This is masterfully handled by slipping references to what’s happened and what they’re now trying to do into conversations. One character reminding another of what their mission is and how they got there not only can make for dialogue, it also keeps the reader/viewer on pace with the story, leaving no room to get lost in an otherwise complex storyline.

A more awkward yet equally as effective way is to include brief summaries every few chapters at the beginning of a chapter. This is rarely done but it works.

The best way though is to summarize it within the thoughts of characters. In the heat of the battle, have them ponder what’s happened and how they got to the present point, and summarize it in their perspective, giving their thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the story thus far. This keeps the story interesting, keeps people from getting lost, and even does some character building on the side.

Keeping track of your story not only keeps your readers from getting lost but you as well. In especially complex storytelling schemes even the author can forget what he wrote several chapters back. That’s why it’s important to give some sort of summary of the important plot points every chapter or at least every other.

Hopefully this provides some groundwork for developing your own sense of writing style. Developing that unique style and adding that personal touch can really make your story…yours.