Every writer’s style, or "voice", is supposed to be unique, a bit like a fingerprint. Combine that with your unique perspective – no one else has had exactly the same experiences and perceptions that you have – and each writer has the ability to produce an original story, even with only 32 basic plots to choose from.

So it makes sense to hone your writing style into a powerful and effective tool for conveying your artwork, rather than relying only on your plot or characters.

Simplicity

Some of the best prose is deceptively simple. Many children’s authors aim for pared down clarity so that their young readers can understand the story even if the writer introduces some advanced vocabulary. But as soon as we turn our writing attention to an adult audience, we seem to want to show off.

The mark of a confident, mature writer is the ability to trust their reader’s intelligence and imagination. This writer writes for his reader, inviting the reader to join in the story experience rather than telling him what to think. He develops strong, specific characters whom the reader can understand and engage with, giving the reader the familiarity to anticipate how a main character might react to certain situations. If you get the mix just right, you won’t necessarily need to tell your reader when your character reacts angrily or when she feels depressed – it will be obvious.

Simplicity and clarity are achieved by pruning your prose until it is tight and clean. Use stronger nouns and verbs instead of relying on modifiers. Don’t try to say too much in a single sentence – give your reader some breathing space. Search for your excess commas and see if you can write them out of the sentence.

The more complex your story the better a simple, clear style will enhance it.

Complexity

Conversely, when you have a very simple plot, you may want to make the purpose of the work all about the writing style. Many award-winning literary stories are vehicles for displaying the writer’s artistic prose.

The best time to introduce complexity is after you’ve simplified your text by trimming the excess modifiers – after all, the chance are that the first modifiers you grabbed were the usual culprits, the ones you’ve grown up with and read over and over in book after book.

To inject complexity into your writing, you need to go looking for uncommon imagery. And this is where your unique perspective comes in. Write your descriptions based on how you see the world, not the way you’ve read something described countless times before. You need to untrain your mind and tap into your own observations. You may even need a few months without picking up a reading book, to degunk your perceptions.

Metaphors

Using metaphors as description tools can allow you far more room to use your own observations and experiences. Does something have an unusual connotation for you? Look at the world around you and try to associate everyday objects with something else – an emotion, an attitude, or a colour. Let your imagination run wild, and then tap into it.

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Improve the quality and effectiveness of your writing voice with these books:
Finding Your Voice : How to Put Personality in Your Writing by Les Edgerton
Style : The Basics of Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams