Find My Author's Voice
“Well, that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Greatness is often found in human mistakes.”
“The rain runs down my back along the old scars I don’t know the origin of.”
“He could kill right now – even though he already had.”
Those are just a few examples of what makes some of the elements of my writer’s voice. And of course, I like most writers, have different tones we use, but it’s the blend of those tones that make up our writer’s voice.
So how do you find your voice? It’s different for everyone, but I found my voice through a lot of writing, and finding out how my style sounded to others to fine tune it.
According to Ginny Wiehardt this is what a voice is in fiction writing:
“The term "voice" in fiction writing has two very different meanings:
Voice is the author's
, the quality that makes his or her writing unique, and which conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character; orVoice is the characteristic speech and thought patterns of the narrator of a
. Because voice has so much to do with the reader's experience of a work of literature, it is one of the most important elements of a piece of writing.”
The first part I found really easy to find. I just wrote a lot until I found it. At least for fiction, as you may have noticed, it’s taken me longer to learn my blogging voice. I find I like to add a lot of asides (like this when I make stupid or silly comments). I also find I really like making my writing skimmable. I’m a big skimmer, so I like writing posts that are easy to skim. It’s not to hard for me to find my voice and use it as long as I write a lot.
For my fiction, I have a tone that is mostly serious, interjecting with something that catches you off guard. Most of the time it’s a more fun catch, but I also notice when I get into more serious scenes they can be more dark or emotional changes. I also find I am much more dialogue and action. My major scenes are a mix of both with describing the scene almost as an actor would. It’s why I call myself an Actor/Method Author (make that a link to the other blog). I have a more dramatic tone as in similar to a theatre production more than just being big and over the top.
But the second part is harder to see. I agree that it has more to do with the reader’s experience than the writer’s intentions. This part was harder to learn, but I had a blast finding out what it was about my voice readers liked to use more. I found from my studies it’s three things:
1. Seriousness suddenly turned silly (I feel like I’d write well for the Avengers).
2. The vast tone of characters.
3. A very audible element.
This is what I got out of asking my editors, readers, and friends about what they notice about my tone in my writing. It was fun to see their reactions and try to answer the question.
What did you notice? What are the main points of my voice that you see? Do you agree or disagree with my findings? Let me know.