Writing with Style:

Three Concepts and

Two Stages
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Table of Contents
PAGE 3 Writing with Style — Three Concepts and Two Stages
PAGE 4 Fluency
PAGE 4 Points: the main way to push ideas forward
PAGE 6 Word choice: description and narrative
PAGE 8 Coherence
PAGE 8 Bad coherence
PAGE 9 Good coherence
PAGE 12 Readability
PAGE 13 Stage 1: Pre-writing
PAGE 13 Step 1: Getting informed
PAGE 14 Step 2: Keeping up with the competition
PAGE 15 Step 3: Keeping up with the trend
PAGE 16 Step 4: Creating a thesis statement — context, topic and position
PAGE 19 Stage 2: While-writing
PAGE 19 Step 1: Know the basics
PAGE 20 Step 2: Say, show, repeat
PAGE 21 Step 3: Conclude
PAGE 22 Conclusion
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Intro: Catching Clouds

There’s nothing more elusive than style — and if you’ve had any considerable experience
writing, you know it can be one of the most difficult things to achieve; much like trying to
catch clouds, or hold in sunshine.

And sunshine it really is. If you get it, your writing will sparkle.

So how exactly can you do it?

This is the thing: you really don’t.

Not if you focus on it.

You see, style is so slippery that I can’t even begin to describe it properly, without worrying
I’m losing it.

For all purposes, however, let’s stick with this definition: style is that property of writing
that makes it read fluently, coherently, and that keeps the reader reading.

What we have now is three concepts to start from: fluency, coherence, and readability.

Focus on getting those right, and you won’t have to worry about style — it will come by
itself.
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Fluency

Reading a good book, scanning a blog post, reading through a technical leaflet for your
hair dryer — there’s one thing these have in common: fluency.

If they’re good pieces of writing — and yes, even technical leaflets range from painfully
eye-raking to wonderfully helpful — then they will read smoothly; they will move from A
to B in a meaningful way, and even if they do go from A to C — much like literature does
— you’ll still be able to understand why that leap was necessary.

Points: the main way to push ideas forward

Take a look at the following piece (the article is called Inside Ethiopia’s sizzling
cauldron):
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Notice how smoothly it flows, both in terms of word-choice and of point and illustration?
There are the two things about this text I want you to pay attention to:

1. Point-illustration

look at the end of paragraph 1 and the beginning of 2:

The writer mentions the extreme 50C temperature in Danakil (which he was lucky enough
not to encounter yet), then goes on to show just how extreme the area is — “the hottest
inhabited place on Earth”. What happened was that he made a point, and then illustrated
it. Point-illustration is a great fluency device; use it right and your text will read smoothly.

2. Point-counterpoint

A second point is made at the beginning of the paragraph 3, but this time the point is
counteracted:

It’s what I call the point-counterpoint device: a secondary point that seemingly contradicts
your main thesis — “You’d think that the harsh landscape would leave it devoid of visitors,
let alone human habitation” — is negated by a counterpoint — “this is the surprising home
of a disappearing cultural tradition”.

In this brief paragraph, the counterpoint also acts as the introduction of the main characters
in the story — “the camel caravans that carry salt through the brutal desert, led by the
nomadic Afar tribe”.
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Word choice: description and narrative

Aside from these two devices, which have more to do with moving from one idea to the
next, the word choice is also particularly well adjusted to the purpose of the article.

Word choice is a particularly powerful factor in the fluency of your article — too many
adjectives in a narrative piece will bore your reader, too many verbs in a descriptive piece
won’t exactly paint the right picture. You want to adjust those according to the purpose of
your article — and you’ve got a great example of just that right here.

This is a story on a remote location — you’d expect some description — and on a remote
culture — you’d expect some narrative.

That’s exactly what you get, at precisely the right time.

Pay attention to how craftily the adjectives are used, and notice how beautifully they
balance each other:

Doesn’t it just make you want to find out more? “Harsh” and “surprising” appeal to your
emotions, and “cultural” stirs your intellectual interest. You’ll simply want to keep on
reading — and that’s because appealing to emotions and intellect has always made people
want to keep on reading. Use that in your writing, and you’ll achieve the same results, too.
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As for the narrative, what better way to start one than with “It was[…]”? It’s almost like you’re
reading a fairy tale — and you’re quickly introduced to two characters that will intensify this
enchanting, Arabian-nights atmosphere.

We already know Dawit the guide, and we soon find out that he “navigated us via a four-
wheel drive jeep to Lake Assal in the east of the Danakil Depression, where a team of Afar
were just finishing loading their camels”. Obviously, he’s some sort of gateway into this
world — a link between the outside writer and the inside traders.

One of these inside traders is “a young Afar camel herder named Mohammed, whom Dawit
knows from previous trips”. He “came over to ask for a cigarette”, and incidentally told the
writer a story about his hard-working father.

See what the writer did? He created a beautiful landscape for his story, an interesting
scaffold for the characters — the outsider, the link, and the insider, and used narratives
within narratives to further draw the reader in.

Actually, the narrative is something you’ll want to use in your writing, unless you’re writing
technical or academic pieces. A bit of a back-story is a great way to draw the reader in, and
moving back and forth between your main point and the narrative is a great way to keep
the text reading fluently.
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Coherence

We’ve seen that word choice and a good point-illustration-counterpoint routine are great
ways to keep the text running smoothly.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to make sure your text is not self-contradictory; that is,
you’ll want your text to be as well-documented as possible, and you’ll want your points to
be as clear and as self-explanatory as possible.

Bad coherence

Let’s look at an example where that doesn’t happen — an assertion left hanging — and see
what effects it has on the text as a whole.

The following is an excerpt from a Guardian piece on Mexican immigrants — particularly, on

the strenuous journey these immigrants have to take to reach the US. All’s well and good,
until you can’t help but notice that the writer equates “immigration officers” to “bandits”:
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In two consecutive paragraphs, immigration agents and armed robbers have been placed
on an equal position, without even a hint of supporting argument. Why is it bad for people
to come across immigration officials? Since the average reader can’t simply assume that
The Guardian is encouraging criminal conducts such as violating the borders, additional
arguments are crucial if the writer wants the article to have the desired impact — namely,
to make people sympathize with the migrants.

Since nothing of the sort is provided, the article doesn’t strike as well as intended.

Good coherence

Argument after argument in support of an idea is a great way to ensure that your piece
is coherent — and if you manage to do that consistently, you’ll end up with a convincing
article.

It may not be beautiful, it may not be enchanting — but at least you’ll sound informed and
knowledgeable, and your reader will actually consider believing you.
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In an article about tipsy taxi passengers, Erin Biba went the whole nine yards on the
coherence part.

His thesis is this: drunk taxi passengers are a pain in everyone’s side — drivers and fellow
passengers alike.

Notice the powerful, catchy intro (starting with an “it” is most of the time a good idea). This
is, from the get go, a supporting argument in favor of the main idea — that “the act sets off
a whole series of headaches for the driver.”

However, that’s really just half of the drunken nastiness.

The other half is this:

It’s not only drivers that are affected — passengers are, too. And the “vomit” sentence is a
supporting argument for that point.

What follows is a series of supporting points for the main one — that drunk passengers
throwing up in the backseat are more of a nuisance than you’d imagine:
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Those are just three of the supporting arguments — cleaning up is a real problem because
the driver has to go all the way to the garage (1), which often means missing out on
plenty of clients (2) and roughly a 4-hour ride that will have to be paid by the taxi drivers
themselves (3).

But that’s not where it ends — notice the little side quote? Health risks are a problem, too
— and that’s supporting argument no. 4.

The article goes on to describe the exact health issues posed by passengers barfing in
taxis, but what I want you to take home is this: a good point will be supported by plenty of
additional points. Don’t ever stop until your main idea is clearly illustrated and argued for.

After reading the taxi vomit article — which I really urge you to — you can’t help but be
convinced of the ultimate problem vomiting in a taxi is.

It’s the same feeling of agreement that you’ll want your readers to have — and you can’t get
it unless you bring enough arguments.

That’s what makes a coherent piece.

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Readability

Anything can be readable if it’s written in a language you understand — but that’s not what
I mean by readability.

What I’m referring to is this: content that doesn’t require any conscious effort to read.

Compare these two texts (all names are fictional):

People aren’t happy around New Huckurut, because they dont like the restaurants. They
were built in 2015 by private investors, but people don’t like them, though there are
many tourists who bring a lot of money to the town, which is maybe a good thing. Overal,
restaurants in Huckurut are very popular.

Obviously, the text is a mess — there is some sort of initial thesis statement, but that’s soon
forgotten in the midst of anachronisms, ungrammatical run-on sentences, and pure lack of
logic.

Compare it to a second, more polished version:

They’re a hit with tourists, but locals hate them.

The new restaurants in New Huckurut have brought in massive amounts of tourist money,
and they’ve created lots of jobs for the small Honka community. However, the residents
aren’t all that thrilled.

‘The tourists can be noisy and quarrelsome late at night. We feel the streets aren’t safe
anymore’, says Jim Patamoura, a local shop owner.
You see, the second piece is much more readable — mainly because it’s fluent and coherent.

Remember this: readability is the sum of a text’s fluency and coherence, minus grammatical
and lexical errors.

Now that we’re through with the three main components of style, we can focus on the
process of getting good writing done.
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Stage 1: Pre-writing

There’s a whole lot of things that you need to do before you actually get down to writing
the content piece. Obviously, this includes research and planning. We will focus on these
two things in this chapter.

Step 1: Getting informed

The first thing you need to do before writing is to gather resources. There’s plenty of ways
to do that, from books to google searches — it all really depends on what exactly you’re
going to write about.

At this point, you don’t need to have a main point figured out. All you really need right now
is approaching the issue, finding out about the general subject.

You’ll only be able to make that main point once you know a few things about the issue in
questing. Makes sense, right?

Let’s say you want to write an article on surveillance programs. At this point, you don’t
really know if that’s good or bad, and chances are it’s a mix of both.

You really want to know about it, though.

So what you’ll do is google “surveillance programs”, go through the most relevant results —
you may want to ignore the sponsored links, as they’re usually not all that helpful — make
a list of the main points that interest you, save the most important pages in a OneNote file
— or whatever other note-taking soft you’re using — and then review everything, until you
understand what surveillance programs are about.
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Step 2: Keeping up with the competition

Chances are the previous section seemed too obvious for you. What I mean is, starting with
Google seems like the obvious answer to 99% of questions.

Still, here’s why you absolutely need to begin with Google: a basic search will reveal the
results deemed the best answers for the query. For instance, here’s what you’ll see if you
google “surveillance programs”.

The four pieces in the red box are the content that you’ll need to compete with. As a writer,
you’ll need to come with a way to provide readers with additional value of some sort.
This implies coming up with a new opinion (or new arguments), or a more comprehensive
coverage, or info that’s more detailed, more up-to-date, etc.
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Step 3: Keeping up with the trend

Another great thing about researching the most popular searches is that they reflect the
most popular opinions on the subject. To make your writing resonate with the public (and
not just a handful of people), you will need to work with these opinions.

One more resource that will help you identify the most popular content pieces is Buzzsumo.
This online tool provides you with the most-shared content for a particular query. Let’s try
using Buzzsumo to search for the most shared posts on “surveillance programs”:

Notice how the top results are completely different from what we’ve found on Google.
Including them into your list of sources are a must-do if you aim to work with a topic
related to a particular trend. Also, studying the most shared posts will help you understand
what sort of content gets more attention for social media users.
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Step 4: Creating a thesis statement — context, topic and position

The next thing that comes right after your research is crafting a thesis statement

Here’s the reason why thesis statements are an absolute necessity. Once you’ve processed
a huge amount of data, you will be tempted — even compelled — to answer every question
and cover every aspect your topic. But summing it all up into a single paragraph will help
you avoid committing this mistake.

Your introductory paragraph contains the most important part of your work: the thesis
statement.

With all texts in general, and particularly with short ones, it will have to be very clear and
concise. It should address the main points of your work and clearly show your position.

Take this example: Surveillance programs have a negative impact on society, since they infringe
basic human rights while offering no real protection against acts of terrorism. Furthermore, they
are extremely costly to a country’s budget. For this reason, I believe they should be cancelled.

The topic is clearly stated (surveillance programs), the author’s position is clearly identifiable
(have a negative impact on society/should be cancelled), and the reader is offered a preview
of the supporting arguments (infringe basic human rights/offer no protection/are costly).

Notice how everything is clearly stated, without extra embellishments; a thesis statement
doesn’t need a lot of detail, and it doesn’t need to state every single point you’re going to
make.

But you do need to let the reader know your subject and your position.
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Context is essential, too. With more complicated topics, it’s often important to have a
brief intro before going into the thesis statement itself. That’s what I mean by context —
everything the reader needs to know to understand what your article’s going to be about.

Take a look at the following Moz blog intro:

Notice how the thesis statement (framed in red) doesn’t come exactly at the beginning of
the article. Rather, it’s only after creating a bit of a context (the need for article ideas, the
time taken to come up with a list of articles) that the author lets the reader know exactly
what the article is going to be about.

Without that paragraph, the second one — the thesis statement — would have been much
less powerful.

But as it is, it packs quite a punch — and mostly because it’s been boosted by the previous
context description.
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Basically, we can break the Moz thesis statement into two:

- topic: “how to generate 100+ long-tail blog title ideas that
include…”. The justification for this topic has already been given in the
“context” section.
- author’s position: “the process of coming up with ideas shouldn’t be a
burden”. While that’s not exactly a position, it does tell you that the author is
going to take on the helpful/specialist tone throughout the article.
- extra: facts — the little “positive impact on inbound traffic” hyperlink is a great
way to gain the reader’s confidence. Just like with the previous example,
adding facts into your introduction is always a great idea.
So what should you do? Create some context, state the topic, summarize your position (are
you going to criticize a situation, help the reader achieve something, or will you simply tell
an enchanting story?), and always remember to include a fact or two.

That’s a powerful thesis statement. No frills, no nonsense; just pure clarity and sharp facts.

You’re now ready to start working on your text.

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Stage 2: While-writing

Now that you know what needs to be done before you actually get down to writing, let’s
take a look at the ins and outs of the writing process.

Step 1: Know the basics

There are plenty of online resources with tips on how to write well, such as this one, or this
other one.

However, the main point that you’ll have to remember is this: beside the point is not good.
Be on point.

Here’s an example of “on point” language, from the same Moz blog:

Notice how everything is clearly laid out, nothing is beside the point, and there’s no
unnecessary detail — if you read that, you’ll know what makes a good topic, and you’ll know
what to do to get one.

People don’t want you to show off your writing skills — people want to be entertained,
inspired, or informed.

That’s pretty much all the reasons why people read; and if you do it right, you’ll be able to
provide for both.
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Step 2: Say, show, repeat

You’ve got a thesis statement, so you’ve basically got your main points, too. Now you need
to elaborate them, so that your writing will be coherent.

Remember this routine:

• say what you have to say,
• show some evidence,
• repeat with just a bit of rephrasing what you’ve just said.
Doing so gives your writing logic and coherence, while keeping it brief and easy to read.
You need to take things on a point by point basis, depending on the length of your writing.
You can either go paragraph by paragraph, or reserve a few paragraphs for each point.

Take a look at this scheme based on the taxi article from the previous section. Notice how
the writer goes from the first point, the one about the drunk passenger problem affecting
taxi drivers, to the second one, namely health issues. In dealing with the two points, he
states them, illustrates them, then nails them in with a few repetitions.

That’s what you want to achieve. If you’ve got a point that’s important, then it’ll be worth
stating, illustrating, and restating it again.

If all fails, your readers will at least have gotten that.

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Step 3: Conclude

A strong conclusion is crucial to the effectiveness of your writing.

Take a look at the taxi article conclusion:

“So, in the future, if you ever feel the urge to purge when you’re riding in the back of a cab,
Desai says the best course of action is to warn the driver so they can pull over — then give
them a few extra bucks to make up for your mistake. Though, she points out, one day we
might all be tootling around town in driverless cars.

And when that happens the real question will be: who’s going to be responsible for the
clean up?”

Not so bad, right?

Here’s the recipe:

• Reinforce the main point, which can be summed up as puking in taxis really
is as bad as it gets
• Show some course of action — tell the reader what to do in a certain situation,
or how they can use the information in your article. In this case, warn the driver
to pull over.
• Extra: end on an interesting note by bringing into the discussion a topic for
a possible further article — cleaning up driverless cars.
That’s what you want to achieve with your conclusion — giving extra-power to your main
topic. And this principle holds for most non-technical writing, from movie reviews to how-
to articles.
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Conclusion

Trying to write with style won’t help you unless you know what style means.

And good style is basically good writing.

Look: you don’t have to focus on style. You don’t have to sound smart — you have to try and
be smart.

Write content that moves smoothly from point to point, and that makes clever, informed
use of different words and phrases (fluency), bring as much arguments to your points as
necessary (coherence), and make sure you follow a logical line while limiting the amount
of grammatical/lexical errors (readability).

If you stick with the principles above, your writing will be readable and convincing.

Readable and convincing means it’ll have style.

And if you keep on writing fluent, coherent, and readable articles, your style will eventually
shine through — your own way.
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Thanks for Reading!

If you’ve found this guide useful, chances are you’ll like the other guides and e-books that
we have to offer. While working on these e-books, our authors focus on the topics that help
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See other e-books

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Sources

Inside Ethiopia’s sizzling cauldron (bbc.com)

Cab driver’s Friday evening nightmare (bbc.com)
Generate 100+ Blog Topic Ideas in Seconds (moz.com)
11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing (copyblogger.com)
Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques
Central American migrants desperate to reach US risk new dangers at sea
(theguardian.com)

Images

Freepik.com