Practice eight advanced strategies for developing a stand-out writing style readers crave. 

By Julie Tyler Ruiz

CONTENTS:

• Overview
• 8 advanced writing style strategies 
• Final writing style thoughts

Overview

Discover easy steps you can take to transform your writing in minutes. 

By Julie Tyler Ruiz

CONTENTS:

• Writing style overview
• 6 easy writing style tips
• Final writing style considerations

Writing style overview

What is writing style? Writing style refers to the unique way you express yourself in words. It includes sentence structure, tone, and word choice, as well as how these elements relate to the overall message and meaning of a piece of writing.

No matter your genre—fiction, blogging, content marketing, or creative nonfiction—improving your writing style makes your work more engaging. It helps you communicate ideas with your readers more effectively.

Below, you'll find 6 quick tips you can apply to a short writing sample to see instant results.

6 easy writing tips 

Grab a short sample of your writing, something that matters to you, in any genre. Then, use these tips to refine the sample quickly and see improvements right away. This is your chance to...

Explore 14 diverse styles of creative writing and experiment with different techniques to develop your own style. 

By Julie Tyler Ruiz

CONTENTS:

• What is style in creative writing?
• Why do you need a writing style?
• 14 creative writing styles
• 5 writing style exercises 

What is style in creative writing? 

Style in creative writing refers to the distinct way a writer uses language to express ideas, create atmosphere, and shape the reader’s experience. It encompasses the choices you make at the sentence level, including word choice, syntax, rhythm, and tone, to achieve a particular effect and set your work apart.

Beyond these smaller components, creative writing style can include broader elements like narrative voice, pacing, and structure, all of which reflect the themes, characters, and emotions of your story.

Let's consider some examples:

• You might tell a story about a lonely, isolated widow using a somber, melancholy style, with sparse, understated...

Explore the vast array of top-rated creative writing courses on different genres and topics, available online and open to the public (no application). 

By Julie Tyler Ruiz

CONTENTS:

• What is a creative writing course?
• 18 creative writing courses 
• How to choose the right course for you
• FAQ 

What is a creative writing course?

A creative writing course is an educational program that helps creative writers master their craft and complete writing projects. As a creative writer, you'll find many valuable courses that cover all facets of writing, from getting started and learning specific techniques, to getting published and promoting your work. 

However, not all courses for writers are creative writing courses.

In a true creative writing course, you'll find a heavy emphasis on craft, the specific techniques involved in creative writing, such as developing fictional characters, structuring a plot, or refining your style. Most creative...

Discover the truth about writing a novel in 2024, the most effective strategies for developing a solid first draft, and tips for novel writing success. 

By Julie Tyler Ruiz

Novel writing process: what you should know in 2024

Writing a novel offers many rewards. By going through the process, you build important writing skills and see yourself in a new light, as someone with the vision and stamina to complete a large project. When you reach the end of the process, you get to see your work in print and offer readers an engaging reading experience.  

Now that you're at the outset of your novel project, you have the opportunity to take ownership of the entire process, every word, every sentence, and write from your heart and soul. This endeavor is especially important in the age of AI, a watershed moment for all content creators, when tools like ChatGPT and Copilot can generate pages of text on command. As a storyteller, your...

Discover what it means to write creatively and the best methods for actually doing it. 

By Julie Tyler Ruiz

What does it mean to write creatively?

Writing creatively is the act of turning your original ideas into a written piece, a unique reading experience that will inspire your audience. 

Unlike professional or academic writing, writing in a creative way means you use a special set of techniques and styles to infuse your work with emotional texture, innovative use of language, surprising forms, and aesthetic qualities. 

Let's look at a comparison example:

• A legal textbook: a piece of academic writing that defines laws in a straightforward manner, describes historical cases pertaining to those laws. By studying a legal textbook, students gain an understanding of laws to uphold them in their practice.
• A legal thriller: a work of fiction that tells a story about someone wrongly accused of a crime. To write the novel, the author...

Discover all that creative writing has to offer and begin your journey as a creative writer. 

By Julie Tyler

Creative writing definition 

Creative writing refers to a broad range of texts that draw upon writers' creativity (as the term suggests), facility with words, emotional depth, and intellectual rigor to convey meaning. Creative writing is also an area of study and college major at many colleges and universities. 

Creative writing is, by nature, an artistic expression, characterized by originality, invention, imagination, and inspiration. Creative writers use language as their primary medium, putting words together in new ways and using literary devices like symbolism or foreshadowing, to create original works. As we'll explore further down, creative writing encompasses fiction, poetry, nonfiction, drama, and even hybrid forms.  

Exceptional pieces of creative writing are considered literature and often appear on reading...

Discover the transformative power of creative writing prompts for every stage of your writing journey. 

By Julie Tyler Ruiz

What is a writing prompt? 

A writing prompt is an exercise or set of instructions that a writer uses to gain a fresh perspective, develop writing skills, burst through writer's block, or complete a specific writing-related task. You can use creative writing prompts at any stage of your writing journey to bring originality, inspiration, and confidence to your work.

For example:

• Let's say you're just starting out as a writer, and while you already have an idea for a novel, you don't know where to begin the writing process. You ask a generative AI tool like ChatGPT to prompt you with some ideas to get you over that initial hurdle. It gives you some options like, "Reflect on why writing a novel is important to you" and "What do you want readers to get out of reading your novel?" You start jotting ideas down on them both and actually experience...