Finding
Your Own Unique Voice
Guest Post From: Nikolas Baron
Attending
conferences, reading about writing, and perusing writer’s market guides,
writers often run across advice to “develop a unique voice”. It is some of the
most valuable, and frustrating, advice a writer can receive. In addition to
doing a thorough spelling and
grammar
check, revising
and editing for clarity, continuity, characterization, and a solid plot,
writers are told that they must have a “fresh voice”. What do editors mean by
“voice”?
One
mistake that many writers make is confusing voice with style. A
style of writing refers to the way the material is presented. Sentence length,
word choice, and structure of the writing all contribute to style. You can copy
another writer’s style with impunity, but your voice must be your own, unique
mode of expression that no one else shares. Your voice must stand out from the
crowd, if your work is to be noticed. It is well understood that developing
one’s voice is critical to success as a writer, but what is voice, exactly?
The
precise definition of voice is difficult to pin down. Voice is a combination of
style, and the unique perspective each writer brings to their work. Finding
one’s voice is really a matter of finding the deeper motivation and purpose for
writing, and allowing the depths of honesty to flow out onto the page. Finding
a unique voice means writing not what you know, but rather what you are
passionate about. Diction, sentence structure, and the choice of literary devices,
as well as the tone of the piece, come together to determine voice.
Discovering
and developing one’s own unique voice is a process that takes place over the
course of learning craft and developing one’s writing experience and ability.
To help hasten the process, try writing in a journal or blog, or even free
writing. When unfettered from the rules and regulations of writing for an
audience, the voice is freed.
Piers
Anthony is a British writer who is well known for incorporating puns and word
play into his fantasy stories. Milkweed pods, in his books, replace cows as a
source of refreshing nourishment. Sugar sand is sweet, and ant lions are a
dangerous hybrid of insect and large feline. Tolkien, by contrast, takes a far
more serious and poetic approach to creating an equally elaborate fantasy
world, relying on descriptive passages and elegant imagery to draw the reader
in to Middle Earth. When reading, it’s easy to tell the two authors apart,
because each has a unique voice.
Finding
one’s own voice is a lifelong endeavor for most writers. Writing well is a
matter of learning the craft, of studying grammar, spelling, and word choice.
Studying craft is important, but in the pursuit of effective writing, many
writers allow their voice to be buried in a sea of advice. By avoiding certain
types of words, like adverbs, or certain types of sentence structure, like
dangling participles, a writer limits himself or herself, fencing them in.
Learning the rules is important. Without the rules of good writing, clear expression
is impossible. Once the rules are learned, they can be effectively bent and
broken.
William
Faulkner didn’t seem to understand the concept of a run-on sentence. His
sentences are sometimes several paragraphs long. Yet, his prose is known as
iconic American literature, and his books have informed a generation of
writers. Mark Twain was perfectly capable of using correct grammar, yet
his most effective characterization was created using broken dialect. Each word
he laid onto the page was specifically chosen for its impact and power. He once
said; “The difference in the right word and the almost-right word, is the
difference between the lightening, and the lightening bug.”
Finding
one’s voice is a matter of deciding upon the type of personality to bring to
one’s work, and the tone that best fits the audience, and purpose of the
writing. Word choice and sentence structure are less formal and more
simplistic, for example, when writing for children, than writing for a
professional journal. The personality projected when writing for a boss will be
different from what is expressed when writing a love letter. Voice is as much a
matter of tone as of style. Once a writer finds their unique voice, they will
find success.
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Bio:
Nikolas
discovered his love for the written word in Elementary School, where he started
spending his afternoons sprawled across the living room floor devouring one
Marc Brown children’s’ novel after the other and writing short stories about
daring pirate adventures. After acquiring some experience in various marketing,
business development, and hiring roles at internet startups in a few different
countries, he decided to re-unite his professional life with his childhood
passions by joining Grammarly’s marketing team in San Francisco. He has the
pleasure of being tasked with talking to writers, bloggers, teachers, and
others about how they use Grammarly’s online proofreading application to improve
their writing. His free time is spent biking, travelling, and reading.
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