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...

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...