"I Just Wondered How You Got Started Writing? Tips in Your Pursuit of a Writing Career-Finding Your Writing Voice

     What is a writing voice you may ask?   It is you.  It is all your quirks, passions, desires, thoughts, feelings, strengths and weaknesses.  We all sound different when we talk and we should all sound different when we write.  I have written articles, a novel and a novella that are all totally different.  Reading them in a row, however, would help you to “hear” my voice.  There would be similarities in all that I write and those similarities would be my voice.

     There are certain phrases and words that I use more than others.  You will find my style to be comparable in each thing I write.  Though at times I try to stretch myself and write differently, maybe switching from second person to first and then to third, my style still stands out.  That is how it should be.

     How do you develop a writing voice?  I have found that over the years certain things have attributed to my style.  Certain aspects make my writing my own.

(1)   Reading.  I have always been a bookworm.  I have read everything from mysteries, science fiction, westerns, children’s books, series and non-fiction.  I go through periods of reading certain genres.  One such stage was reading biographies of historical figures in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.  I believe everything I have read and their differences have developed my voice.

(2)   Writing.  I am writing all the time and I write the way I read.  I go through times of writing where I write only non-fiction and then switch to fiction.  There was a poetry stage and even a greeting card stage.  Again, all this writing has made my voice what it is.

(3)   Experiences.  My childhood and adult experiences added to my education give me a unique perspective and voice that is unlike any other.  It might be comparable to some authors for I tend to read favorite authors more than others.  Still, they are my experiences and have given me my unique voice.

     The most important thing I can do to develop my own voice is to keep it real.  At one point in my early writing career, I was challenged to more honesty.  My writing coach told me I was keeping the deeper feelings in and writing shallowly.  People want to read something from the heart and the only way that can happen is to pour your heart out.  All the good and bad, kind and unkind, happy and sad go on the paper to create different characters, stories and plots.

     I told one of my friends that in some ways all the characters are me.  I pour my weaknesses and strengths into them, developing each according to me.  When I put myself in their shoes, I make them come alive and thus give them a voice, a unique voice that will keep people buying everything you write.  Next week we will end this series on pursuing a writing career with the thought…Just write…