Finding my writer’s voice

I have lost my voice. Yep, quite literally. I woke up this morning to discover I can’t talk in anything above a whisper. (My three little kids think it’s fantastic! It’s very easy to ignore Mum when she can’t be heard.) It has got me thinking about my writer’s voice, however, and what it is about my writing that makes it quintessentially ‘me’.

I’m new to the technical stuff, so there’s a lot of people with a lot more knowledge than me who could give you a better definition of writer’s voice. But it’s my blog, so I get to decide what it is, OK? I think of ‘writer’s voice’ as the combination of style, word choice, sentence structure, pace and a myriad of other aspects that give a book a distinctive flavour. One of the best examples I can think of is Christian author, Max Lucado. I love Max’s books (so much so that I feel like I’m licensed to call him by his first name. We’re buddies, Max and me.) He writes in such a distinct way and has an uncanny knack of making me feel like we’re sitting on the verandah having a chat. Regardless of whether I read the by-line first or not, I’m usually pretty good at picking up a Lucado piece. That says to me that he has a very strong, very identifiable writer’s voice.

So what is my voice? What sets me apart from other writers? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I’m still growing and learning and mastering techniques, so it may take a little while for my style to fully develop. I will say this, however. I tend to write a lot of short, snappy sentences. I tend to avoid flowery stuff. I like to write in threes. I use quite a bit of carefully placed repetition. I use quite a bit of carefully placed repetition. I use quite a bit of carefully placed repetition. (Sorry, I’ll be serious again now ) I like to think my writing has rhythm and melody, much like one of my songs. I use commas too often and tend to start sentences with ‘but’ and ‘and’. I will often use a fragment of a sentence, especially when I’m well inside my POV character’s head. I write like I talk, I suppose, which is a lot, not necessarily ordered and with lots of half-ideas floating around. I like to think my writing is honest and unpretentious, that it invites people to come and sit beside me and join in the story, just like Max. Maybe that’s why I like Max Lucado’s style so much – I think it resonates with me because I imagine that when I’m a few more laps down the track than I am now, I too will end up with a warm, cosy, intimate relationship with my readers, just like him.

How about you? Have you found your writer’s voice yet? And if so, what makes you, you?