What are the 5 writing skills?
As a writer, you've likely heard about the importance of writing for your audience. Well, first you have to figure out who your audience is, right?
And that's where all five types of writing skills come in. In this post, we'll walk through each of these categories of writing.
As we do so, we'll discuss examples and applications of each one to help you understand how they're used in everyday life and how they can be translated into your own career as a writer.
#1. Narrative Writing
Narrative writing is a story. A story is a sequence of events with a beginning and an end.
The main purpose of narrative writing is to tell a story. It can be informative, entertaining or persuasive in nature, but the goal is always to get across one or more messages through the use of characters, setting and plot (or all three).
#2. Descriptive Writing
When you're writing a descriptive piece, you want to do more than just tell the reader about what happened. You want to paint a picture in their mind so they can get inside your head and understand how it felt.
Your goal is to describe the sights, sounds and smells of your place in as much detail as possible.
Here are some examples:
The sun rose over the horizon. The sky was clear and blue with streaks of orange and reds above me. It was warm but not hot yet; there was still dew on the grass at my feet that I could feel through my shoes when I walked across it towards my car parked beside yours on the driveway next door.
With a loud screech of tires against wet pavement, a truck sped past us with its headlights off as we stood waiting for our bus home after school one day last fall.
#3. Persuasive Writing
Persuasive writing is a type of writing that is used to convince someone to believe in a certain point of view or take a certain action. It can be used in advertising, politics and public relations. Persuasive writing is also often used in persuasive speeches.
Why should you care about persuasive writing?
As you can see by the examples above, it's commonly found in many different types of text; so it's important that you understand how to identify it and use it effectively when creating your own texts.
#4. Expository Writing
Expository writing is a type of writing that explains, describes or informs the reader. This can be done in a variety of ways, but the goal is always to clearly and logically guide your readers through your explanation. Expository writing is used to convey information in a logical and organized manner, highlighting key points while also providing additional useful details for context.
Expository writing can be found in many different forms of texts including research papers, journalism and other text types such as instruction manuals or textbooks that explain complex ideas in an understandable way.
#5. Creative Writing
You can also learn creative writing from the books and stories you read. Creative writing is not usually taught in schools, but there are many books that teach you how to write creatively, such as Writing for Children (by Jacqueline Briggs Martin) or The Elements of Style (by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White).
You can try making up your own characters and settings for yourself, too! That's what I did when I was little--I used to make up stories with my stuffed animals as characters who went on adventures together. It was so much fun!
To know what are the 5 writing skills is the first key to writing well in any format or genre.
Knowing what are the 5 writing skills is the first key to writing well in any format or genre. The five basic writing skills are narrative, descriptive, persuasive, expository and creative.
In order to improve your writing you need to learn how to apply these five basic skills. If you want your readers to understand what you have written then you need a strong understanding of all five of these areas.
Knowing which one is most appropriate for each situation will help ensure that your audience gets exactly what they want from what you write.
Conclusion
The five writing skills are the fundamental and simplest tools you need to develop in order to become a writer. They aren't complex skills that will take years of practice, but they are essential to your development as a writer. Having these skills will allow you to write anything from an essay, short story, screenplay or novel, because they are the fundamentals of all good writing.