Finding Your Writing Style, Finding Your Voice
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Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
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A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Seventh Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
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Do you let your voice shine through your writing?
Everyone has a unique voice and style. Have you found yours?
I was trained as a journalist in college. Trained, like a performing dog, to write using a very specific formula for creating a news story, and another for creating a feature article, and another for rewriting press releases, and yet another for writing an obituary. There was little room for creativity and I found it to be a thoroughly voice crushing experience. It was cramping my style. I can put this skill to use when there is a need, but it doesn’t flow from me with ease.
Sometimes your written voice is your thinking voice; sometimes it’s your speaking voice. Sometimes it can be drastically different from who you seem to be entirely.
My voice is obvious to me. It is my thinking voice. And this is how I think. Snippets. Incomplete sentences. Abrupt. And also long, unending run on sentences that seem to go on forever and ever because the thought is expansive in some way and I just can’t fully explain it with out using many colorful, elaborate words. This has always been my voice, since the third grade when I was first inspired to write a book about my life and my feelings. I quickly ran in to some technical problems with my Apple IIe and never did complete the manuscript. Yes, the writer’s many excuses is a topic for another article.
I don’t think grammatically. I think I may have been born without the grammar gene. I know this drives some readers crazy and they want to tell me how to fix it and why to fix it and how much damage I am doing to the reputation of the English language because I refuse to fix it. I know it is there irking you, but I often just prefer the way it feels. My own little rebellion, I suppose.
Most of the time I seek to amuse my reader, but I am not all that amusing live and in person. I hate small talk. I just want to get right to the heart of the matter. Tell me what you are all about. Tell me about your struggles and triumphs or be done with me. I can’t connect well with people casually in the hi, how’s the weather manner. Oh, unless you want to talk about the cold and how monumentally annoying and disruptive it is to life. I try to connect with readers on a deeper level, letting them know that I get it, what ever it is.
Writing and real life personalities don’t usually match up perfectly. A meek person can write with fire and a fiery person can write with gentleness. A shy recluse can write effectively about social issues and a social butterfly can communicate the pain of loneliness.
Explore a little with voices. Try a new one. There is no rule book that states one voice per writer. Follow your thoughts and let them stream out onto the page. Talk as you write and see where it goes. When the world looks drab, ordinary and plain reach back into your memory for something beautiful or intense to mull over in your mind and find a new angle.
Nurture the passion and creativity within you and watch your voice come bouncing out like a super bouncy ball or flowing through you like a tranquil, steady stream. And start your sentences with AND however often you like and don’t let your creativity and voice be stifled by anyone, or any method or any theory or any stylebook. Then, when your voice is clear and strong, you can use such resources to sharpen and enhance your work. That is, if you want to, have to or feel like it, or if you are overcome by the immense responsibility of being a grammatically correct member of society.
- Finding your voice
Making your writing sound like YOU. Article by Christoper Meeks at Write Away. Includes tips and suggestions to strengthen and develop your voice as a writer. - Finding Voice in Writing
Article by Susan Letham at Write101.com. Includes examples of voice and tips for the novice writer.
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Comments
Delightful and encouraging! Thanks.
Amy Jane, I want to share this article with you. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0 It's old, but I ran into it recently and the boldness of her voice was what struck me most. Let me know what you think?
Thanks Rainbow, glad you enjoyed it. i think you will enjoy the links too - they are from a less personal / more practical view :)
Hi C-Lee, thanks so much! I am going to go take a look at that now and I'll come back to comment!
Just stopping by and upping the page views, LOL
Thanks Mark, I appreciate it :)
This is a good one, Amy! A keeper for sure... :-)
Interesting - I think I write the way I talk - but then I have to go back and fix the spelling and put all the little words in that I missed like but, to, not etc!
Thanks Steph!
Hi Lissie, I am always missing words too when I write, or I write half a word because I am trying to get all my thoughts out fast :) Thanks for reading!
Another great hub. My voice tends to ramble on, and on, and on... I fight the stream of consciousness bug all the time. Thankfully, the ability to downsize and edit was drilled into me by a few journalism professors back in the day. I enjoy your style. Keep on going!
Thanks, Rob! I hope let that stream of consciousness bug run wild every now and then, just for fun :)
Nice Hub Amy. It is nice to know I don't have to apologize for the style I feel comfortable writing in. Keep it up.
Thank you, Akeejaho. Never apologize for your writing style!
You are so right about style and grammar. For our voice to be realistic, we have to break the rules sometimes. We don't speak the way we write, so to follow the rules unconditionally takes our writing even farther away from our speaking voice.
Thanks, TwoCansMom! I like to ditch the rules, on occasion :)
After years of producing numbing cookie-cutter writings for a living, I am now looking for my voice. My voice is not obvious to me. I know I have it, I just can't find it.
It could be under the bed, in a corner of the kitchen, in some dank and dusty lost-and-found drawer in a worm-riddled desk, or in Australia. It could be in a letter I wrote to a friend years ago. It could be in a poem I penned as a child. Perhaps it is in the silent conversations I have with myself. At times, it plays hide-n-seek with me, allowing only a glimpse of itself before vanishing again. I don't know where it is, yet I know it is somewhere.
Amy, what an insightful hub this is. You inspire me to intensify the search and rescue mission.
Warm regards, S.
I love your voice, Amy Jane, and certainly have never been tempted to call the grammar police on you-- Not that I am on good terms with them either. I spent so much of my writing life doing the kind of formula writing you talk about that I am really loving "unwinding" here on Hubpages and letting my voice do its own thing:-)
Sally, your voice is very clear to me! Even when you post comments or in the forum, I think I would recognize you without your name :) Your writing has a distinctive flow that I really enjoy... thank you for reading and commenting!
Hi Robie, I agree, hubpages is a great place to unwind after years of writing for others standards or requirements. Thanks so much for stopping in!
I also write in snippets and bursts. Thanks for a great article.
Amy Jane, it is so interesting that I "hear" my voice so differently than you do. Your affirming comment caused me to think about why that might be.
My thoughts go along these lines...when we look at ourselves in a mirror, we do not see what others see when they look at us directly, and that is because our faces are not symmetrical. Artists have wrestled with this fact of asymmetrical facial features for centuries. Even now, we wonder if the image we have of Leonardo da Vinci through his self portraits would allow us to identify him in a crowd at, let's say, a flea market or a NASCAR race. Chuck Close is easier; he painted his self-portraits from photo images, images that told him what his face looks like from others' visual points of view. We can pick him out of that crowd in an instant.
So I wonder if our perceptions of our own writing voices are somehow affected by an asymmetry. For example, if the right brain is responsible for processing spatial, non-verbal information, and the left brain leans more toward the verbal and a concrete, conscious thought process, then maybe our own perceptions of our writing voices are somehow reversed, or at least confused?
Anyway, as I said, food for thought! I need a cookie now.
Warmest regards, S.
Hi Cheryl, thanks for reading and commenting :)
Hi Sally, certainly food for thought! I see myself as grammatically incorrect, yet no one else seems to notice. I find that so confusing! It is fascinating to think about how others perceive us, either through our writing or in person. People are never what they appear to be anyway, right? I know I am not. At least, I am not what people guess just by looking at me. A writing voice may be a most accurate view into a person. Hmmm...my kids ate all the cookies.
As a writer, I enjoyed reading this and found it insightful. And liberating!
Thanks so much, Danielmybrother. i am so glad you liked it! I come back and read it myself when I need a reminder that writing is fun, because this really was fun to write. :)
Great article
Thanks dutch!
A very good hub, thanks :)
You are welcome, uninvited writer. Thanks for reading!
working
RainbowRecognizer says:
3 months ago
Thank you, Amy - this is a great article - I'm going to visit some of the links in my next period of "Me" time :o)