Freshening Up Your Style

Spring is well and truly here and with the new season comes a wealth of new and exciting trends. Take the world of fashion. With fresh looks and styles hitting the high street, there’s no wonder you’ll be keen to sort through your wardrobe to keep your style fresh and savvy.

Much like your wardrobe, spring is the ideal time to clean up all areas of style. Here, we’ve got a few tips for keeping your writing style fresh.

The Word Wardrobe

Think about your favourite pair of jeans. You can dress them up or you can dress them down. They’re ideal for any situation and they’re so comfy you could forget you’re wearing them, even for a few days on end.

Your writing style is much like your favourite pair of jeans. Possibly without even realising it, you’ll use the same phrases, the same sentence structure and even the same tone of voice in every article you write, whether it fits or not. Fortunately, though, keeping your writing style fresh is easily done.

The Reflection

The first step is getting to know your own style. Have a read back on the articles you’ve written and take note of any words or phrases that you repeat. Phrases such as “many people” or “also” or “however” might even have worked their way into your articles without you even being aware of it.

The Changing Rooms

Getting to know different writing styles is a great place to start freshening up your own. If you normally read lifestyle blogs, have a look at the sports news or technical blogs. If you don’t normally read online at all, check out anything and everything! The more you read, the more style-subtleties you’ll come across, which in turn will help you fine-tune your writing skills for the job at hand. For the real pro, try a blind reading test – read a few short excerpts from various sources and see if you can identify the source from the style alone.

Someone Else’s Shoes

Imagine you were in someone else’s shoes and try writing from their perspective. This is one simple, yet challenging exercise. Take an everyday object, like a coffee mug, and write a short description of it – first, as if you were a woman, then as a man, then as a pensioner, for example. Did you change the description?

This is a useful exercise when you’re writing for different target audiences. The more you can identify with the target audience when writing, the better your content will be received.

Time for Something New

Here’s where the good news comes in. Freshening up your style isn’t about throwing out the old, rather adding to it and developing what you’ve got. Your writing style – much like your favourite jeans – will get better each time you use it. It will excell the more practice it gets in different circumstances, so challenge yourself. Try writing short passages on anything you can; a piece of fiction, poetry, news – whatever.

Remember: every stylish fashion icon knows that you only look as good as you feel. And the same is true of your writing – so enjoy your talent!