If you've been a serious writer at least a few years, you are well aware of the importance of discovering your own voice, your own style of writing. That being said, it's not as easy as one might think!
(Photos: Public Domain)
Here's a definition of a Writer's Voice: The writer's voice is the individual writing style of an author, a combination of their common usage of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text (or across several works).
While that definition seems easy enough, if you're a new writer (like I was eight years ago), then you're constantly thinking of the rules of writing; it feels like you don't have the luxury to discover your voice just yet. Consequently the quote above could have seemed frightening to someone like me, having only started seriously writing in 2007.
The thing I did have at my disposal back then was time. Time to write as fast and as frequently as I desired. So that's what I did. I wrote like I had to make up for lost time, which in a sense was true. (But that's a topic for another post.) In the process I began to see that just because someone says they've been a writer for umpteen years, doesn't mean they're an expert writer - we're all on our own storyteller's journey. As that truth dawned on me, I felt less frustrated at being a "late bloomer."
What has happened in the last eight years, is that while I am by no means a veteran writer, I do feel comfortable with the rules of writing. (One of them is to have an editor!!) Only recently do I feel I have begun to see my voice emerge on the pages of my manuscripts. It has taken years. The thing is, I believe my writer's voice will keep evolving over time. However, I no longer find myself thinking of rules while I write; I'm thinking about my protagonist's thoughts, her challenges, her journey.
This quote sums up the journey all creative souls should take:
Have you discovered your writer's voice yet?
