Every individual has his or her own unique writing style that shines through every article, essay or blog they produce. Yet a writing style is more than just a reflection of the writer, it is also a reflection of the audience and how that writer perceives them.
Getting the writing style right can make a key difference to how the writer engages with the audience and whether or not they achieve that all important connection.
For instance, if you were article writing for a student magazine you might choose a chatty, informal style that would be forgiving of slang and even text speak, whereas your style for a news article would be precise, professional and clear.
Sometimes writers can play with these styles to grab the attention of their audience, to challenge the style boundaries and to have a little fun! If you can raise a smile from your readers then you already have them captivated, so let’s look at the 8 best wacky writing styles to entertain both you and your reader.
1. Drunk Writing Style
We all know that writing an email or posting a comment whilst drunk is not the brightest of ideas, but drunk writing can be seen as a highly entertaining form of writing for those reading it.
(Image source: Wikipedia Creative Commons)
Who doesn’t like to read the excruciatingly embarrassing emails sent to the boss from the drunk employee who has decided to tell his boss exactly what he thinks of him?
And you can stick yuor jobbies up your arsenal cause ive never loiked yuo anway. Want to know what your knickername is? Scuzzbucket!
So to achieve the desired result – get drunk! Failing that:
- Make sure auto-correct is off
- Leave the typos in
- Never read through
- Type exactly as you speak, don’t bother with sentence construction!
More drunk writing tips here.
2. Comedy Writing Style
(Image source: Imagined_horizons)
This is a tricky one to get right and it all depends on who your audience is. To get a connection, try to gauge their humour and level your best jokes at them. This could be bottom humour (college students) or satirical (journalists). Look at what happened when one Helen Fielding chose to use self deprecating and observational comedy to write a fictional blog entitled Bridget Jones’s Diary.
More comedy writing tips here.
3. Pirate Writing Style
(Image source: Runran)
If you go into your accounts on Facebook and change your language to English (pirate speak) you will have the ultimate pirate experience! Go ahead, try it! The fact that Facebook have gone to so much effort to incorporate pirate speak into their site proves its enduring popularity – there’s even an International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So take your cue from Facebook and sing like a plucked parrot, that’s the way me hearties, arrrr!
More pirate writing tips here.
4. Laid Back Style
Now man, don’t be stressing over no writin’ style when you could just be chillin’ out, enjoying life and getting in with the groove.
(Image source: Ack-Ook)
You get me man? Life is a breeze innit? Everyone is your sister and your brother and they are all diggin’ that vibe, letting their worries float away and thinking they is on the beach. There ain’t no rules here, no grammar gets in our way, just tell it how it is brother and make no mistake.
5. Text Writing Style
(Image source: Mendhak)
Ok this may be a bugbear for many but for teens it’s an effective way of communication that can be read and understood whilst glancing surreptitiously at the phone from underneath the school desk. So don’t b shy, uz ur lingo 2 appeal diRct 2 d yunga gnr8n & confuz d rSt of ur readers!
6. Smart Alec Writing Style
Around 99% of the people reading this have no idea what they are doing. Which leaves 1% and that’s me. No-one likes a Smart Alec but without us you would all be losers, which you actually are anyway, with a capital L.
(Image source: Stevendepolo)
The Smart Alec gets attention by being completely annoying, frustratingly smug and making outrageously general statements which enrages people into leaving comments and sharing with their friends – bingo!
A great example of the smart alec, or cocky style can be found here.
7. Sarcastic Writing Style
(Image source: Richard Winchell)
Are you still here? Really? Well honestly if you don’t know how to write decent copy then perhaps you should just give up now and get back to stacking shelves. Who’s your reader anyway? One lonely visitor who stumbled on your site by accident whilst searching for the most boring websites?
Particularly sarcastic reviews get plenty of attention, often becoming more popular than the product or service they are actually reviewing as many Amazon reviews will testify to!
8. Off the Wall
(Image source: Public Domain Images)
Off the wall writing is anything that is considered zany, quirky, surreal and wacky. Consider this advertising by Groupon for a Daily Deal:
“The Tooth Fairy is a burglarizing fetishist specializing in black-market ivory trade, and she must be stopped. Today’s Groupon helps keep teeth in mouths and out of the hands of maniacal, winged phantasms.”
It’s offbeat and certainly manages to capture people’s attention, even if it’s only by prompting them to scratch their heads in bemusement.
Go ahead, have fun with styles and see if you can’t win over an entirely new audience!