Informal or Formal Writing

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As a freelance writer I write a lot of things for other people. In most cases I’ve been hired because someone came across my web site and liked what they saw in terms of my writing and writing style. People who subscribe to my site and folks who come to visit here know that my tone tends to be a bit less formal most of the time. It is my natural voice and it is how I get mypoint across best, in my opinion.

There is a fine line between what is considered conversational and what would be considered loose writing. If you don’t know how to differentiate between the two then you could be losing out in more ways than one.

I use my natural conversational tone in the articles I write here and the ones that I write for my blog. At times, I may get more colorful on my own blog and that’s appropriate. I’ll take the hit if I offend someone. I tend to be less than colorful here because this site belongs to Monika and she should not have to take any guff for my writing.

When I’m writing articles for a client, I still use a conversational tone but I move things up a few pegs on the formality scale. You see, I often have no idea where the articles are going to end up and there are times when a conversational tone can be a turn off.

I’ll give you an example. I was asked if I wanted to write some articles for a fairly well known lifestyle web site. I jumped at the chance and submitted my first few articles. Later, when I spoke with the person who had asked me to do the writing, she indicated that the articles needed to be re-written. They needed to be a bit more serious and formal. As much as I wanted to write for that site, I knew that their style and mine were not a good fit. Rather than make things difficult for everyone, I begged off any more writing. My candor was appreciated and our relationship remains strong.

At the other end of the spectrum, I just had to rewrite a bunch of articles for a client. As I looked through them, tone was a real issue (among other things). The informality bordered on loose to insulting. It was hard to believe that any serious writer could have turned those in for payment.

Conversational writing is just that – conversational. It is written in a voice that would not be out of place were a conversation happening. For some of us, this style is blessedly natural. For others it is a struggle and more often than not, it shows. It’s one of those things that you just can’t fake.

The point here is that a good freelance writer is able to morph their writing voice to a lot of different situations. Smart writers know which voice to use in a given circumstance. Too formal and you come across as stuffy, too informal and you look like an amateur.