Hope Writes

Discover Your Writing Voice (TWS - Part 1)

Posted by Hope

A lot of writers struggle with finding their voice. I personally believe new writers make too big of a deal out of this. Instead of practicing the craft of writing and learning how to write well, some struggle over finding their writing voice. I speak from experience.

Many moons ago I worried about this very thing. I fretted over sounding right. In all truthfulness, I had absolutely no idea what a "writer’s voice" meant. And because I didn’t know what it meant, I worried even more over how to find my own voice.

Every writer possesses his or her own voice. It isn’t something you can necessarily create on your own. Rather, your writing voice is who you are. If you’ve ready my blog for very long, or any of my work, you have probably noticed I have a very down-to-earth, conversational voice. I tend to write like I talk.

I didn’t discover this overnight though. In fact, I’d say it took a few years for me to even understand what writing voice was, let alone understand my own writing voice.

If you haven’t discovered your writing voice yet, I am of the opinion that you shouldn’t worry about it. A lot of writers get hung up on not knowing what their writing voice is…to the point where they stop writing. Don’t do this to yourself.

If you attempt to force your voice, you’ll not only sound stuffy and weird, but your writing will begin to sound exactly like the voices you are mimicking. It’s okay to try things you like that other authors do, but don’t allow yourself to copy another writer so much that you start sounding just like him/her.

Several years ago when the Junie B. Jones series came out, I started buying them to read to my daughter. I adored Junie and couldn’t get enough of the precocious little girl’s stories. So I decided I would try my hand at writing a children’s chapter book.

I completed the first book and sent it off to a few friends for critiques. In the meantime, I developed a ton of ideas for more books with the same characters. After I received feedback, I decided to let my first book sit on the back burner for a bit while I wrote the second one.

A couple months later when I went back to the first book I’d written, I immediately realized that it just wasn’t good enough. The biggest reason was because I’d unintentionally imitated Barbara Park’s writing voice. My characters weren’t really MY characters.

The best thing for any writer to do is–you guessed it–WRITE. Practice writing what you love. Work on the craft of writing. Learn new techniques. Develop and hone your writing skills. In doing so, you’ll naturally develop your own writing voice, which is what you want to happen.

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4 Responses to “Discover Your Writing Voice (TWS - Part 1)”

1. The Writer’s Struggle | Hope Writes Says:
   April 1st, 2008 at 6:08 am

   […] Discover your voice […]

2. Find Your Purpose (TWS - Part 2) | Hope Writes Says:
   April 2nd, 2008 at 2:32 am

   […] Read the first post in this series - Discover Your Writing Voice […]

3. Bob Younce at the Writing Journey Says:
   April 3rd, 2008 at 7:48 pm

   Excellent post. Voice is something that it takes time to develop, and that is critical to any Internet writer.

   I devoted a series of posts on my blog recently to the same idea - the idea that the Internet writer has to “bang their own gong”: be unique in the vision, voice and brand.

   Bob Younce at the Writing Journey’s last blog post..Why the Internet is the Perfect Market for Writers

4. Hope Says:
   April 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 pm

   Thanks Bob! I’ll go check out your posts tomorrow…look forward to reading them!

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