Do You Have Style?

What does your writing say about you? If you read different authors you can start to get a feel about the person behind the words. Every writer has their own style, or voice. Sometimes it’s in the choice of words. Other times it may show through the tone or emotion you feel when you read their words.

I took a step back the other day and observed my own writing. In the past I used online writing aids to check and rate my writing occasionally just to get a feel for how I compare with others. Sometimes I didn’t agree with their assessment because I had written my words intentionally to achieve a desired effect. However, I learned from some of the corrections they made.

As I tried to rate my writing objectively against others I have read I noticed the difference I saw. My writing is written more from the heart. I write the way I speak. I don’t write to impress others with big words and proper haughty grammar. It is my hope that my words touch your heart and your soul.

My style, my voice, is emotion. When I write, I pray that my words touch your heart in some way. I hope that my readers can understand why I’m saying what I am. My emotions are laid bare when the words flow freely through my fingers.

I tried changing my style after running some paragraphs through an online program to check writing. I followed their suggestions, made changes, deleted extra words or cleaned up some of the punctuation. It might have made an English teacher happy. But it didn’t feel right to me.

I left some of the changes. Punctuation has always been a bit of a mystery to me. If they suggested I add a comma, there was probably a good reason. But if I followed all of the changes they suggested my writing sounded cold to me. It felt like I lost my voice. My style changed.

I think one of the mistakes a lot of writers make is to try to change their writing to match another writer’s. They lose their personal style in an attempt to match the style of somebody else they admire.

Writing is communication. In the earliest days writing may have been nothing more than glyphs on a wall. They didn’t worry about capital letters or punctuation. Instead, they were concerned with conveying an important message and making sure the message could be understood. That is what writing is about.

Truly, if you want to sell your writing, a good understanding of grammar and punctuation are necessary. But, if you can tell your story in your own way, and the readers can understand what you are saying, how you tell the story makes no difference. Choose your own style. Speak your own words. It’s part of who you are.

What does your style say about you?