Writing Styles
Writing style is the bridge a writer creates between themselves and the reader to convey their point. It’s not about the point itself but how the point is made. There are a few methods to effectively get to the point along with the reader.
Writing is a distillation of thoughts. Paul Graham does this along with his readers. He writes for clarity, and it shows. He begins with a point and distills it to a level where either the reader gets their answer or the question becomes irrelevant. This often creates memorable essays, ones that both the reader and writer would love to revisit because the essay made them think about a topic in detail.
The second style of writing emanates from conversations. Writing like you are talking to a friend at a bar is the simplest way to approach writing. Stephen King writes like he is talking to a friend at a bonfire, narrating a ghost story. Despite writing a thousand-page novel, he is easy to read. Such writing styles face grave danger too—they can become preachy. When that happens, the purpose of writing is defeated. When executed well, it can build solid connections with the reader.
The third style of writing is thinking out loud. You have a topic in mind that you have given a lot of thought to. Now you stitch it all together while writing. You are thinking out loud on a blank page in a cohesive manner. You connect multiple thought pieces into one single essay to form a detailed think piece under a single headline. Such essays are often crisp, easy to read, tightly narrated, and readers can connect with them too. If you can manage to keep it simple, you can potentially have a large reader base.
I have simplified it by breaking it down into “writing styles.” But they can easily be termed as “writing approaches.” All the above writing styles end up defining the writer’s personality. Just like there is no right personality, there is no correct writing style. They all can be used interchangeably or just one for life.