What does it mean to have a unique writing voice? Your writing voice is the style, tone, viewpoint, and general vibe that come across in your writing. Finding your own voice is what sets your writing apart from others and gives it personality. Just as everyone has their own speaking voice, writers have distinctive writing voices.
Developing a compelling writing voice takes time and practice. But the payoff is huge. Having an authentic writing voice makes your work stand out, connects you with readers, and helps you love the writing process. This guide covers why a unique writing voice matters, signs you haven’t found your voice yet, and actionable tips on how to find your writing voice to make your voice shine through.
Why Developing a Unique Writing Voice Matters
It Makes Your Writing More Compelling
A strong writing voice draws readers in and keeps them hooked. The style, word choice, and viewpoint create an emotional experience that generic writing lacks. When done skillfully, a unique writing voice mesmerizes readers from the first sentence.
Take this example from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar:
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”
With just one sentence, a vivid backdrop and tension fill the scene thanks to Plath’s strong voice and perspective.
It Helps You Stand Out
With so much content published every day, it’s vital to stand out. Tapping into your authentic voice instead of mimicking others gives your work an angle no one else has. Once you embrace your natural voice, you’ll gain fans who come back to bask in it again and again.
Authors like Judy Blume and J.K. Rowling attracted loyal readers early on through unique writing voices that felt like befriending someone witty, irreverent, and perceptive. Their fiction books became wildly popular partially through developing a voice and point of view no one could replicate.
It Helps You Write with Ease
Writing without a voice feels unspeakably hard. You second-guess every line, delete most of what you write, and rework the same phrases over and over. But when you write in your voice, the words flow effortlessly. The writing process becomes fun and organic rather than stiff and frustrating.
Writer Anne Lamott beautifully expressed how voice and ease connect:
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: if I wanted to have something interesting to say, I had to focus all my energy on listening well and answering questions directly.”
It Adds Personal Fulfillment
Expressing your unique perspective through writing is profoundly fulfilling. Putting your spin on ideas, stories, and concepts boosts confidence and adds meaning to the work. Even technical writing benefits from hints of personality and individuality.
In her book Bird by Bird, Lamott also says:
“I learned that you really can’t tell where you are going, that life is a wandering around, and that is about the best we can do…I learned to just sit down and work.”
When you write freely in your voice rather than judging every line, creative bliss follows.
Signs You Haven’t Found Your Writing Voice Yet
How do you know if you need to find your distinctive writing voice? Here are some signs to watch for:
You Mimic Other Writers’ Voices
While studying others’ writing styles has value when starting out, relying too heavily on mimicking them prevents your authentic voice from emerging. If your writing always seems derivative of authors you admire, it’s time to amplify what makes your voice special instead.
You Avoid Writing
For those who feel they lack an authentic writing voice, facing the blank page brings more dread than excitement. The uncertainty over whether your words will reflect a unique perspective stifles creativity and willingness to write.
You Don’t Recognize Your Writing As Yours
Pay attention if your published pieces don’t quite sound like you—almost as if someone else wrote them. This disconnect stems from not fully expressing your vantage point. It’s a sign to take more risks showing your colors as a writer.
Tips for Finding and Strengthening Your Writing Voice
If you see hints that you haven’t fully tapped the potential of your writing voice yet, don’t lose hope. There are concrete steps you can take to find your writing voice. Here are impactful tips for developing an authentic style.
Write About Your Passions
Writing about topics you care about is key for bringing out your viewpoint. Passion breeds conviction, drawing more distinct voices out of us. On bland or unfamiliar subjects, it’s harder to form and share strong opinions. So choose concepts that get your blood pumping—then capture your enthusiasm in words.
As author Steven Pressfield put it:
“When we conceive a piece of work that inflames our passion, we are actually in the process of tapping into a profound personal truth.”
When you uncover truths that excite you through writing, your authentic style emerges.
Read Your Work Aloud
Hearing your writing aloud exposes strengths and weaknesses the eye may miss. Listen for sections that capture attention versus dragging. Animate phrases that fall flat. Let musicality and cadence guide edits to amplify your signature style. Careful listening helps writing leap off the page.
The habit of reading work aloud dates back centuries. Literary icons like Tennyson, Milton, and Shakespeare are said to have read their lines out loud constantly to hone lyrical flow. Treat your prose similarly to pick up on moments where sentences run choppy or feel limp. Then smooth out the punctuation or diction bothering your ear.
Cut Unnecessary Fillers
Catchphrase-like interjections we pepper into conversation like “you know,” “basically,” “I mean,” or “totally” rarely serve writing well. Prune these fillers—and fancy extra adverbs and adjectives—from your drafts. The clearer your unique perspectives and engaging voice shine through.
As concise writing expert William Zinsser noted:
“Clutter and vagueness are failures of language and signal failures of thought. Be direct; don’t inch toward sentences — stride toward them.”
Direct action writing outpaces directionless meandering.
Vary Sentence Structure
Shaking up sentence lengths adds fluency and verve. Short, punchy phrases let key points land POW! Like this. While longer winding passages build suspense and intrigue. Mix it up! And read every variation aloud to catch clunky spots needing polish.
The opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities demonstrates masterfully varied structure:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Embrace this level of artistry in your openings too!
Use Visual Details
Painting pictures with visually captivating details puts readers right inside vivid scenes. Describe smells, textures, sounds, flavors—any sensory or emotional details reflecting your perceptions. This fully realizes your viewpoint for readers to experience. Specificity trumps vague generality.
Zinsser covered this eloquently too:
“Good writing doesn’t come from the top of the head; it comes from the bottom of the heart.”
Sensory details rouse the heart. Spread them generously.
Write Stream-of-Consciousness style
For getting into a creative flow and accessing your spontaneous thoughts, try writing stream-of-consciousness style. Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and write nonstop whatever comes to mind about your topic. Edit later. Capturing raw impressions first can reveal authentic angles you’d otherwise overthink or filter out.
A stunning showcase for stylistic stream-of-consciousness is the “Molly Bloom soliloquy” that ends James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. For nearly 40 pages the main character, Molly, expresses an unedited internal monologue spanning emotions from rage to bliss. That window into raw reaction and rumination put stream-of-consciousness style on the literary map.
Don’t hesitate to explore early drafts this candidly before self-editing stages.
Tell Stories from Your Life
Using first-hand stories and examples in your writing makes it delightfully specific and individual to you. Telling anecdotes from your own life or relating personal accounts of an event pulls readers in much closer than detached descriptions. Even for technical topics, sprinkling in real-life stories boosts warmth and relatability. Share moments that shaped your perspectives.
Maya Angelou powerfully demonstrated this in her autobiographical works. The traumatic and triumphant tales alike from her life take on an incredible sense of intimacy and vulnerability from her masterful storytelling style. Siphoning memorable moments from your own history can forge similar bonds between writer and reader.
Write Like You Talk – Casually
Striving for elegance has its place but straight-laced prose can sound pretentious. In early drafts especially, use the relaxed, familiar voice you’d use chatting with friends. Then layer in spice from your personal lexicon. Inside jokes, cultural references that crack you up, quirky lingo—they deserve to see light through writing too!
Ernest Hemingway pioneered embracing casual diction in literary contexts with his novels. He often used simple, grounded language rather than florid, scholarly terminology. Yet his writing moves readers profoundly. Follow his lead using words your circle would recognize.
Try New Genres That Scare You
Venturing outside of comfort zones opens creative pathways that bring out raw and authentic new dimensions. What forms do you avoid for fear skills lag behind vision? Poetry? Rap rhymes? Fiction? Autoethnography? Shame-smashing freedom awaits when you confront intimidating genres head-on. Boldly experimenting expands voice repertoire.
Just as a singer wouldn’t limit vocal range staying only in safe key, why restrict your writerly “voice” by avoiding genres that seem hard? Stretch beyond current abilities. Surprise yourself.
Read Your Draft Backwards
Backward reading? Strange sounding perhaps, but surprisingly effective for assessing flow and catching gaps. By examining your piece out of context, sentence by sentence, working backward, you notice holes in logic, verbosity, and missing links that leapt out, escaping forward sequential focus. Choppy areas become prominent. Strong continuities shine too. Try it!
This unorthodox editing method lets you experience your writing anew.coming from the end first untethers habits of skimming over repetitions or inaccuracies via the fatigue of overly familiar terrain. Flip directions to regain vigilance. What trips you up backwards holds wisdom for needed improvements.
Use Your Own Quirky Expressions and Words
We each pick up funny personal phrases in life that crack us up or perfectly capture a moment. Honor these organic witticisms sprouting in you by letting them bloom in writing too. Embrace using made-up words that feel deliciously descriptive. Create new shorthand for referencing inside jokes or beloved concepts. Write for your people and let intimate language fly free!
Mark Twain embellished his writing with colloquial dialects, folksy turns of phrase, and down-home idioms that celebrated America’s melting pot linguistics. He bent grammar rules to capture exact regional and cultural cadences. You get to be both informant and innovator excavating gems from your communities’ engaging ways of communicating.
Find Inspiring Art, Music or Film
When searching for writing inspiration to tap uniquely YOU, consider pieces of art, songs, and movies that give you visceral emotional reactions. What specific moments make you tear-up without fail or nostalgically giddy? Write about those creative works and the feelings they evoke. Describing profound personal creative connections unlocks vulnerable honesty.
Australian novelist Tim Winton often explores how music and art permeate memories of pivotal episodes in his life. Examining your own awe-inducing creative touchpoints similarly breaches dams of disclosure. Be fan first, artist second when articulating artistic obsessions.
Show Your Writing to a Trusted Critic
It’s invaluable to get a second set of eyes from someone familiar with your voice to review drafts. They can pinpoint areas that diverge from your true self or that ring false. Accept critique with gratitude no matter how brutal—it means tweaks necessary to amplify your signature style beckon. Prioritize feedback addressing voice over grammar corrections.
F. Scott Fitzgerald ruthlessly edited his wife Zelda’s novel Save Me the Waltz recognizing phrases seeming inauthentic to her perspective. “Scott corrected her writing exactly as if it were his own,” said biographer Nancy Milford. Let steadfast editing allies shield your voice’s crucial core too.
Embrace Elements From Your Cultural Background and Ethnicity
Your cultural heritage—including expressions, rituals, food, familial roles—forms huge influences on identity and worldview. Discussing ideas around writing voice frequently ignores these factors which shape fundamental perspectives. Yet sharing dimensions of your background adds invaluable authenticity and specificity.
Novelists like Amy Tan, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Sandra Cisneros embed cultural traditions, generational expectations, dialects, and customs into fiction spotlighting underrepresented communities. Your writing similarly gains power when baptized in details deriving from personal ancestry. Roast language slowly over simmering your distinctive roots.
Use Advanced Rhetorical Devices Deliberately
While elaborate rhetorical flourishing certainly shouldn’t dominate prose, when used purposefully it can amplify voice. Anaphora (repeat the same word at a sentence’s start), tricolon (three elements together as a phrase), polysyndeton (using “and” a lot), apposition (nouns side-by-side amplifying one another)… these fancy terms describe great techniques for occasions requiring cadence and persuasion.
Winston Churchill’s most rousing speeches armed repeating parallelism, direct address, rhetorical questioning, and other artful devices to hammer home intentions that changed history’s course. Write into the whirlwinds.
Find Poetry in the Everyday
Root writing voice explorations in your regular habitat and haunts. Catalog textural details of familiar spaces by focusing intently on tangible information. Notice deliciously odd moments oranges grow lonely dimples. Leaky faucets plinking syncopated late-night songs. Cherry trees with spindly witch-finger branches knuckling passersby’s noggins. Shine spotlight attention on the gracefully mundane.
Writer Gretel Erlich reflected:
“No place is boring if you’ve had an eye-opening experience there.”
Pen preternatural prose about private worlds you occupy by gazing with brand new eyes.
When All Else Fails, Revise Aloud!
If tweaking written pieces sentence by sentence still proves unsuccessful capturing a distinct authorial voice, shift tactics getting whole mouth muscles involved! Print entire drafts, then read aloud, prowling around revise red pen in hand. Circle disconnections hearing clunky. Underline activation energy sprints, quickening the pulse. It works magic, suddenly awkward coheres fluent. Feel it resonate face, this voice thing. Sound world’s judge.
E.E. Cummings summed up well the drastic metamorphosis reading work aloud can provide:
“Unless you love someone, nothing else makes sense.”
Fall newly in love with writing by serenading ideas into best-articulated existence. Through voice, writing adores you back.
I hope these tips help you find and strengthen your writing voice! Let your authentic style shine through.
