What is Voice and How Do I Find Mine?

Voice. What is voice? And why is voice important?

Voice is your unique “sound” – it’s how you come across as an author. It’s in the way you put words and phrases together, how you tell your story, how you express it. That doesn’t mean you can call head-hopping or other bad mechanics part of your voice. What it does mean is that you have a unique way of looking at and then interpreting the world, and that uniqueness is voice.

I’m sure you know what I mean when I say there are many authors out there you can read and know the author’s name before you see it. Many authors use particular story choices as part of their voice, character types like warriors or cops or shapeshifters, settings like the Old West or the South, themes such as dreams, or childhood abuse, or simply acceptance, or even certain times like Regency England or America’s Civil War years, and those choices can also help define your voice. Some authors write in short staccato sentences and some write with longer more descriptive speech. Some use a lot of colloquialisms while others use a lot of slang and/or cursing. All of these choices can be part of voice.

Some authors write as they speak, and when you meet them and talk to them, you feel you almost know them because you recognize the cadences they use. Others don’t write as they speak, so it depends. Some have a very different voice to their writing. I think everyone has a unique tone of their own, and I don’t think you have to work at having a voice. What you have to work at is how to let your voice shine, how to step aside and let your voice work for you. You must learn to be a window and let the light shine through rather than blocking it by trying to force it into something it can’t be.

Look at your writing and get familiar with your voice and how it flows. Once you do that, you can tell by the flow when it’s NOT working. And do not change your voice just because a CP doesn’t like it – if you’re writing to please everyone else, you aren’t going to like your career much. You have to please yourself. But by the same token, there could be a nuance to your writing that is the problem, and not necessarily your voice. If you hear multiple CPs or beta readers telling you the same basic complaint, you should look at your writing and weigh the possibility that they have a valid point.

An author can change their tone of voice to tell certain stories in a different way, and some authors use a different type of voice to write in multiple genres and it works very well for them. I think some stories call for softer voices and expressions than others. And you can use the same voice in softer expression to tell a different type of story, I think, and still remain true to your voice.

When an author is struggling to find their voice, it is usually very obvious to an editor. The writing seems flat, or it may change tone from chapter to chapter, or it may read overdone or exaggerated. There is sometimes nothing to catch your interest, make you want to read more, give you a clue to the tone or personality of the author or the character, and the story will read stiff and stilted, just words with no personality.

It is said that editors are always looking for unique voices. That’s in many ways true – we’re always looking for good stories told in a different way. But it’s not simply being unique that is the “Golden Fleece” we’re searching for – there are a lot of unique authors out there who may never sell a story. What is of utmost importance is a great story told in a distinctive way.  The great story has to be there – no one wants to read the same old story they’ve read over and over again with nothing new or different or exciting about it. But that distinctive viewpoint and sound is what makes your voice stand out from every other author. It’s that ability to tell a story in a different way, with a style of your own, that sets an author apart, gives them a recognizable voice. And that recognizable voice is what readers will start to look for as they become acquainted with your voice and discover they love the stories you tell and the way you tell them. Your audience will grow and they will expect to hear the same voice telling them new stories every time they buy your books. And that recognizable voice and expectant audience is what they mean in part by “building a brand.”

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