Finding Your Writers Voice

For all those out there who either don't know what a "writers voice" means or for those of you having trouble finding it, this article is the one for you!

Great, now I sound like an advertisement company.

So it must be a good year back that I'd write so formally, it sounded as though it were written by a robot on a planet where everyone talked without emotion.  So I had a few really good novel ideas, but the writing was just bland and dry.  It sounded something like this:

So, it must be a good year back that I'd write so formally and it sounded very dry.

That sentence is just, blah.  If you compare it to the other sentence it resembles, which sounds better?  The sentence that states a dry fact, or the sentence that I make fun of myself about the robot?  I think most readers would say most definitely the ladder.  So what did I do to make such a difference with those sentences?  Well, I didn't strip them from their original layer.

Okay so what the heck do I mean by that?

Well, quite literally, that sentence was put down on the paper the way that it was said in my brain.  No tweaking, no stripping, nothing.  Just plain old like it is, raw to the bone.  And that's exactly what gives writing its' flavor and makes it fun to read.  It's like stepping into the mind of another person.  Naturally it's something we want to do because we go through our entire lives only being able to hear one single mind, ourselves.  So I guess that makes us curious about how other people think.

So now we know what a writer's voice is, now let's figure out how to find it.

What's interesting about a writer's voice is that no one can teach it to you.  It stems from within yourself.  You can copy another person's voice, but then it's not your own. 

So I stumbled on this article that had some excellent pointers for finding your writers voice.  The website title is Men With Pens. I encourage you to fully complete each of the nine exercises on the page because they WILL help you.














Just for the fun of it I'll answer the second exercise on here.  It asks: If your writing style was a drink, what kind of drink would it be?  What about food?




 Okay.  So I would probably say that my writing style is something sour.  Maybe a super sour mojito because mint and sour lime just shouldn't work in a drink together.

Food.  I think my style is along the lines of a five course meal.  Way too over the top for no particular reason.

Now it's your turn.  Complete the exercises and have fun with it!  Please leave comments letting me know if this article helped at all.

ariwrit3s