Developing Your Style

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by ArielxStinson

by ArielxStinson

Developing your style

By using a variation of these, you can create your own writing style.

1. Describe elongated words in dialogue. This adds to the "show, don't tell" moto I like to keep. Describing the way your character says something or how they say it, adds to the story and makes your character more realistic. Description in dialogue also makes it less boring to read. Here are some examples:

“AAAALLLLLLLLYYYY!” Vs. “Ally!” She yelled in a singsong tone.

“I love you, Lily.” His husky voice sent a satisfied shiver down my spine.

“What are you going to do, now that you’re trapped?” As he spoke, a glint of light caught my eye; a butcher knife sat on the counter next to me. “I’m looking forward to watching you scream,” he whispered as I slowing reached for the sharp object.

2. Describing the five senses helps the reader visualize the setting. Feel, taste, see, hear, and smell are words that can help in showing your reader whats going on. See the example below.

"I could taste the salty air from the ocean.The fabric was soft in my hands. The laughter of children floated in my window. Cinnamon waved through my nostrils as I pulled his body into an embrace."

3. To make characters more realistic, refer to characters by their appearance instead of their names, give reasons of why your characters do the things they do, give the character realistic qualities and make them different from each other. Also, by refering to a characters appearance, you are reminding what your readers of what the character looks like.

Referrencing appearance: "The blond stood by the counter while the brunette sat at the table. I knew Alex and Annie had been waiting for my arrival for quite some time."

Giving a reason: "Wanting to protect her, I went back to the cabin."

A realistic quality: "I thought my plan couldn’t go wrong, but I forgot to include some minor details."

Differences: "Amber was more timid and less outgoing than Ariel. She hated to be alone, while Ariel was used to doing things for herself because she was the only child and had more free will when growing up, but that didn’t stop the two from sharing the same tastes in fashion, music and food."