8 Different Types Of Writing

Writing is a way to express human emotions, knowledge. Every writer has his/her own style of writing, which reflects his personality. However, each piece of writing requires different style and tone which can decide on the basis of the content of the writing. No matter what you write it is very important for you to stay focused on your purpose of writing. There are mainly four categories in which all different type of writing fall, which are narrative writing, Descriptive writing, expository writing, and persuasive writing.

In addition to the four main categories, there are few more categories such as creative writing, review writing, subjective writing and objective writing. Each writing type has a different purpose and requires a different writing skill. Many a time, writers use multiple type of writing to write a single paragraph. It requires skills to use these type of writing to convey your message efficiently.

In this article, you will learn about the different types of writing and where to use them.

1) Narrative writing :

The purpose of narrative writing is to tell a story just like a storyteller but in written form. The story could be a fictional story or a real story. Narrative writing is considered one of the most difficult styles of writing to write and one of the easiest writing styles for reading.  Because it requires a lot of skills to write a story in such a way that it takes the reader in the world of the story. Writing stories need great imagination and writing skills to convey it to the reader.

In narrative writing, the writer develops a lot of fictional character and tell what happened to them in the form of a story. Mostly, stories are narrated from the point of view of one character, which is called first-person narration. All novels, poetry, short stories, biographies, and autobiographies fall under this category. A whole narrative writing is an answer to the simple and small question “what happened then?”. Narrative writing always has a person who tells a story or an event from his / her point of view. It has characters who carry the story. It has a dialogue.

There are situations in narrative writing such as actions, conflicts and fights, motivational events. A narrative story always has a definite beginning, interval, and ending. Sometimes the ending of a story is definite and sometimes write leave the story with an open ending. There are two reasons behind leaving a story with an open ending. First, the writer is planning to write a sequel to the story. Second, the writer wants his reader to imagine their own ending.

There are zillion examples of narrative writing which takes the reader into its world. one among them is Harry Potter. It is a series of seven books. One who has read Harry Potter has imagined the “Hogwarts” school differently.

2) Expository writing :

This type of writing styles is commonly found in textbooks. This types of writing is used to explain things, people, place, relationship or an idea. Expository writing is used to provide information about various things, therefore, it is sometimes also referred to as information writing. In this types of writing, the author provides factual information about a certain subject rather than voicing his / her own opinion.

This types of writing is built on facts, statics, reasons, laws and principle, cause, effects, and examples. As this information written in this types of writing is factual, therefore, it is written without emotions and from the point of view of a third person. Self-reference can be used in expository writing but to give an external description and explanation and not to explain personal feelings and opinions.

Expository writing is sometimes confused with descriptive writing because both type of writing are used to describe things. However, both types of writings are quite different from each other. An expository writing style is used to explain and describe external things, situations and processes whereas descriptive writing is used to explain the point of view of someone about the world or a subject or a thing at a particular time.

Moreover, the expository style of writing is written with neutral and matter- of – fact tone.  This type of writing usually explains things in a process with facts and figures in a logical order and sequence.  The expository writing style is used in textbooks, newspapers, magazines, recipes, how to articles, editorial writing, business, scientific or technical writing.

3) Persuasive writing :

The main purpose of this type of writing is to persuade its audience about something. It includes opinion and a personal point of view of the author.  The author should have known about the other side of the topic so that he can present the strongest information to counter it. He/she should be able to develop a well-defined and debatable topic.

Sometimes the author writes about the other side of the opposing point and refute them and give a strong explanation for why he/she does it. Even though persuasive writing includes a personal opinion of the author, it is still written objectively. Persuasive writing usually uses emotional appeal to win the heart and confidence of readers. Persuasive writing contains reasons, arguments, and justifications.

The author takes stand about something and appeal his/her to do the same. In this type of writing, the author appeals to his/ her readers to take some actions about the situation which is referred to as call-to-action. Persuasive writing can be seen in editorial and opinion sections of newspapers, reviews (of books, movies, music, restaurant, hotel or city), cover letters, letters of recommendation or complaint.

4) Descriptive writing :

Descriptive writing is describing things such as characters, places, events etc. in details. It is like painting a picture in the minds of readers. Descriptive writing is an art of shoeing something through words. A writer describes everything with respect to all senses. Through words, he tells you how it looks like, feels like, smells like and sounds like. Descriptive writing does the job of connecting the outer world with the inner world.

A writer uses various adjectives and adverbs to make the picture vivid for the reader. Descriptive writing usually written with the point of view of the first person and the context of the writing is emotional and personal. Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer is famous for his descriptive writing. His books like Kafka on the shore and Norwegian woods are the best samples of his descriptive writing.

One not only read his books but also lives in the world of his books. Descriptive writing is used along with all other type of writings because every now and then a writer needs to describe a scene, character in detail so that readers can understand the story better. Descriptive writing is poetic in nature. It focuses on describing everything in a deep- detailed manner, so a reader can see, smell, taste, hear and feel things. This type of writing style is used in writing poetry, journals, fictional stories, diary writing and nature writing.

There are few more style of writings other than above four main types of writing. You will learn about those categories ahead.

5) Objective writing :

This type of writing includes writing something which you can support with facts and shreds of evidence. The information provided should be well research and correct statistically and scientifically. An author should remain neutral and unbiased and let the readers make their own opinion. Objective writing is a formal way of writing. Therefore, rather than writing “men and girls” write ‘men and women”.

This type of writing is “to the point of writing”, therefore, a writer should not intensify anything by using words like always, very, never etc. It is right to say that objective writing is fact driven.

6) Subjective writing :

This type of writing is opinion driven writing. An author writes his own feelings, opinions, beliefs, and perspectives. The author does not bother about the correctness of the material. Subjective writing is originated from authors own experiences and observations. Subjective approach is important because it gives the reader an insight into the author’s thinking process. This type of writing gives freedom to the reader to imagine things from their own unique perspective.

7) Creative writing :

Creative writing is an art of making things up. This type of writing is far different from professional writing. Writing fiction, non-fiction, horror, crime, biographies, screenwriting, scriptwriting, short stories, and playwriting all fall under this category. Basically, any writing which origin from the imagination of one person is called creative writing.

There are plenty of jobs available in the market which requires creative writing. Other than that, many people are running successful websites, blogs, YouTube channel because of their creative writing. Creative writing has become the need of the hour these days. Many people are taking classes to improve their creative writing skills.

8) Review writing :

Reviewing things has become a trend these days. People review everything like restaurants, food, cosmetic products, books, movies, and even mobile phones and laptops. Tech savvy people read the review of things online before making any purchase. Therefore, it has become so important that many companies pay people to review their products. Review writing is art.

It requires both persuasive writing skills as well as descriptive writing skills.

One can make handsome money if they are good at persuasive reviewing things.

Thank you for reading out article about writing!