What Is Style in Literature? (Definition) 

Style refers to all the ways that an author chooses to convey their meaning, including their syntax, word choices, use of literary devices, and tone. A writer’s style is their own unique voice, and it gives life and creativity to an individual work of literature. It’s what separates Virginia Woolf from Ernest Hemingway. The style of whatever book, play, short story, or poem a person is reading works to engage them and reinforce the author’s messages. 

Examples of Style 

Example 1: The Crucible 

The Crucible’s style mixes historically accurate phrases with more contemporary-sounding speech. This situates the play in its time period while simultaneously reminding audiences the ideas remain relevant today.  

The characters’ speech patterns in the play reflect the language the playwright, Arthur Miller, found in legal documents and court transcripts in the Salem courthouse. One word may be particularly foreign to readers: “Goodwife,” sometimes shortened to “Goody,” which was how wives were commonly referred to in the 1600s. At the same time, Miller modernizes some archaic words, like changing “saith” to “said.” Most other words are familiar, though less common in everyday speech, especially biblical words like “abomination,” “damnation,” and “heathen.”  

The diction varies between characters based on their education and profession, so while Parris, Hale, and Danforth speak formally even outside the courtroom, the Salemites’ language is less polished and sometimes contains grammatical errors. Characters’ grammar and pronunciation also depend on social status, much like how accents today affect speech. Tituba’s speech is especially unique as the play’s only non-native English speaker, although her speech is probably not historically accurate to the real-life Tituba.  

Throughout the play, the narrator serves as a bridge between the historical characters and the modern reader. The narrator’s language, characterized by witty and sometimes biting asides, feels more familiar than the phrases used by the characters. This narrative style—skeptical, opinionated, and judgmental—informs our reading of the play as a cautionary tale about the worst aspects of human nature. 

Example 2: The Things They Carried 

The Things They Carried is written in an informal, colloquial style, reflecting the way American soldiers in Vietnam spoke. The author, Tim O’Brien, frequently makes use of the soldiers’ slang, such as the term “SOP” (which means “standard operating procedure”). He takes care with specific details, such as the long list of things that the men carried in the title story: “Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs…” The use of acronyms, military jargon, and specific recognizable items anchors the novel in a feeling of authenticity. Some of the stories are told in the slightly more remote third person, as in the title story, while other stories are told in first person voice, such as in “How to Tell a True War Story,” in which O’Brien writes, “I had a buddy in Vietnam.” The direct address in those stories particularly creates a sense of intimacy for readers. 

Example 3: The Odyssey 

The formal, elevated, and repetitive style of The Odyssey is largely a result of its history as part of an oral tradition that predates writing. Homer includes formulaic elements that would have been essential to keep the audience engaged and help the person performing the poem (called a bard) remember the lines. For example, Homer often repeats poetic phrases and entire lines of poetry. This repetition helped the bards performing the poem improvise verses that fit the necessary rhythm, while also giving them time to recall what came next in the story.  

Another important characteristic of The Odyssey’s style is its use of “epic similes” that compare characters and actions in the plot of the poem to aspects of daily life or the natural world, which helps audiences visualize the fantastical events. Some of these similes have become common figures of speech, like when Athena “flies like the wind.” Others compare the fantastical feats the characters perform to more mundane activities the audience would be familiar with, like a blacksmith plunging an axe into cold water, causing it to sizzle, or a man burying a burning log in ashes to keep the spark alive. These descriptions connect the world of the epic to the world of its audience, at the same time slowing down the narrative and providing expressive detail. 

Common Misunderstandings about Style 

Style should be considered separately from the form and content of a written work, although they often influence each other. Style is how something is written, rather than what it’s about or what structure the author uses. 

It's also helpful to distinguish style from genre. Genre refers to a category of texts that have similar conventions, such as science fiction, horror, and action-adventure. However, texts within the same genre could have dramatically different styles. One might rely more heavily on figurative language, like similes and metaphors; another might be written entirely in slang from the perspective of a teenager. Style encompasses all the creative ways an author gets their meaning across. 

Why Does Style Matter? 

Style matters because the choices an author makes are not accidental – they all inform who the characters are and what meaning the reader is meant to get from the story.  How the author structures their sentences; what words they use; how casual or formal the register of the language is; how flowery or straightforward the prose is: these all provide layers of meaning.