How Do You Find Your Writing Voice?

You read a lot, find out what you like and don’t like. Read what fires you up and makes you cry and fills you with hope… or dread. Read what surprises you and excites you. Read more. Read everything in your genre. Read outside of your genre. Read history. Read science. Read the classics. Read pulps. Read the bestsellers list. Read Dr Seuss. Read Chaucer (they’re not that far apart.) Read the heavy stuff and the light weight and the Nobel Prize winners and fanfiction. Read. Read. Read. 

Write a lot. Write as much as you can, across genres. Write fiction and non fiction, write essays, write poetry, write incoherent journals and finely sculpted prose. Write it all. Try on different styles. Copy the writers you love. Try to fix the writing you hate. Use lots of adjectives. Make it PURPLE. Now use none. Write the sparest words you can find to tell the most affecting story. Try it all. Carry a journal so you can write it all, whenever, wherever. Write. Write. Write.

Learn the rules. Get the grammar down. Get the structure down. Try out all those “don’ts” and “nevers” and “alwayses.” Write with a thesaurus. Write with the MLA guide. Get a degree. Take a class. or don’t. Read a how-to. Read ALL the how-tos. Join a writing group. Listen to critiques. Learn how to critique. Turn that critique on your own writing. Question. Answer. Listen. Learn. Learn. Learn.

That all is step one. Read. Write. Learn.

Step two is next. 

Step two is when you forget about all that. Pay no attention to all the rules and everything people have already written and all the messes you have made with your own writing in the past.

Now it’s time to turn to your own self. To start listening to YOU. You’ve gone out and read the books and written everything you can and learned all the rules and now you’re going to break them. 

Who are you? What is your love? What are your fears? What stops you? What moves you forward. Follow it.

Start writing. Recognize that you are inside of your writing and it is inside you and it is yours.

And then when you inevitably look at what you’re doing and say, “but this isn’t good enough, it isn’t like this writer or that story,” then you answer. It’s good enough for me because it’s MY story, not theirs.

And when you are afraid that you aren’t experienced enough or smart enough or creative enough or strong enough or educated enough or in control enough, then you say: It’s good enough for me because it is my story and my story is what makes me special.  

And when you look at what other people have done and are doing and they are so much more powerful and talented and successful and knowledgeable and you don’t feel like you are enough, you say: I am good enough because I am me and my story matters as much as the ones already out there and I am the only one who can tell my story and it is different from theirs and it is worthy.  

Here’s the trick to finding your voice. It’s to learn all the rules so you have the technical chops to do what you want, and then to break them at will and follow your own heart, taste, and story. It is ALSO to believe in yourself and your worth, and commit fully to being yourself… not anyone else. (and that is the hardest part.)

[First published here on my writing tumblr, where I take writing questions, anonymous or not, collect inspiration, and get some ideas down.]