Your unique writing voice is what distinguishes your work from another author’s. It holds your perceptive, style, and storytelling choices, and keeps developing throughout your writing career with different influences, skills and experience honing it.
It’s your personal signature in a book that your readers can recognise and the writing style they enjoy and keep coming back for.
But how do you actually identify what makes up your unique voice? Especially over different novels and genres?
Well, there are two different parts that make up your voice, built of elements which can either adapt to each novel, change over time or stay consistent.
Part 1: What you choose to write about
On the surface, you might think this part is always changing and therefore can’t add to your unique writing voice, but writers often have elements of their work that are consistent in the creative choices they make.
These creative choices can be around common;
- Genres; Do you gravitate more to writing fantasy or supernatural, romance or erotica, thrillers or murder mysteries.
- Themes you explore in your narrative; Perhaps they are themes that are a part of your life, or those you want your readers to think on. They could be themes such as; Betrayal, found family, a mother’s love, queer acceptance etc.
- Relationships; Do you often include a mother-daughter relationship, or focus on platonic relationships or maybe romantic?
- Characters; What kind of characters do you often include in your stories? Could they often be the bottom feeder looking for a better life, or characters struggling with inner demons, or characters that hold everything in.
- Questions and topics; Are there common questions or topics you return to and explore? Larger questions about religion or God or human nature, or maybe personal questions around coming-of-age or dating.
As a writer, I can say that I write Romantasy novels with themes of betrayal and true love, which include platonic and romantic relationships, both heterosexual and queer. My stories also often include characters who have been knocked off their pedestal and need to fix their situation.
As with all the parts of a writing voice, it does develop and change overtime with different influences, but I find this part tends to gradually develop unless you are purposely trying to write completely different novels each time or experimenting.
This part of a writing voice is exploring your different interests and the challenges that you might have in yourself or see in the world. This leaves it open to change while also letting you consciously or subconsciously return to old themes and topics, or bring in new.
Part 2: The way you write
The second part is the way you write. These are the stylistic choices that come naturally to you when you write, which develop overtime as you learn more writing skills or incorporate different techniques into your work.
These stylistic choices could be;
- Sentence rhythm; How long or short your sentences tend to be and how to vary them to get your unique writing rhythm.
- Vocabulary; Are you a fan of flipping open a thesaurus when you write or do you use more general terms in your writing?
- Description; How you tend to describe settings or scenes. Do you linger on the details, use the different senses to make the scene come alive, or leave a lot of the details to the imagination of the reader?
- Tone; Are you quite serious, do you inject humour, or are you very cosy or romantic?
- Point of View and tense; This can change per book and per genre, to ensure the POV and tense being used is suitable, however, I find writers tend to favour specific types. For example, I am a fan of 3rd person limited, past tense writing. It’s what feels natural to write and when I’m writing in a different way I often accidently slide back into what’s natural.
- Other preferences; Do you use brackets or em dashes to insert snippets of information, do you love an adverb or maybe despise them, do you like to sink into inner monologue or keep everything in the dialogue.
A few of these elements link to the rules of writing, so it may feel like you have to write in a specific way in the beginning. However, as you come to understand the rules, you can then choose if and when to break them.
The best part of writing is, like every author having a unique voice, every reader has unique preferences. I know readers who refuse to read 1st person, and others who refuse to read 3rd. Some who love adverbs and some that roll their eyes at each one.
The beauty of knowing you won’t be able to please everyone is knowing you won’t be able to please everyone, so develop your writing voice based on what you want to write. You will find your readers out there.
So how do the two parts of this voice come together?
Combining the parts; your unique voice
Hopefully, by now you will be able to pick out a few elements of your current writing voice that feels unique to you and consistent in your writing. If not, or you’re still early on, think about some of your favourite authors. We’re not looking for individual details here but common patterns across the author’s work.
Here are some examples from my recent reads;
Brandon Sanderson, Epic Fantasy writer;
- Vast, logical, in-depth word building and creation.
- Unique and easily recognisable characters.
- Themes of religion, corruption, hope, responsibility.
- Multiple perspectives forming the larger picture.
- Slow building to big climaxes.
Rebecca Yarros, Romantasy writer;
- Easy-access world-building.
- Emotionally driven.
- Themes of chronic illness, resilience, responsibility, chosen family.
- Fast paced, intense and spice.
Rachel Reid, Queer, sports romance writer;
- Cosy, intimate, with spice.
- Slow-burn with a happily ever after.
- Themes of sexuality, queer discourse, identity, love conquering all.
- Lots of yearning and inner monologue through the conflict.
- Emotionally driven.
(I may be a wee bit obsessed with the Game Changer series at the moment)
Richard Osman, Murder mystery writer;
- Warm humour throughout.
- Interesting and unique characters.
- Explores themes of old-age, illness and friendship.
- Very readable and accessible.
- Short chapters.
These lists are in no way exhaustive, nor will they fit to every book each author has written, but of the books I’ve read from these authors, these are the elements that first come to mind as their unique voice and style.
However, it’s not to say that you could pick up a book with no named author and immediately know who wrote it, but if you read a book by an author you are familiar with you will see nods to their specific writing style and choices on the pages.
Conclusion
There are many elements that can make up a unique writing voice, but they come together to form an author’s signature style that their readers recognise and enjoy in their books. It can develop and change over time with the author finding new interests and influences, and learn new skills.
Knowing the elements of your unique voice can help authors find readers and also give them a more structure-based lens through which to view feedback. It can help you see if the feedback will strength your voice, or is trying to change it. This will be the topic of my next blog, so follow along with my blog or substack to read all about it.
FAQs
How do I know if feedback will strengthen or remove my voice from my writing? – An editor should be able to identify your voice in your work and provide suggestions on deepening your voice and stylistic choices in the narrative, unless they feel a better choice could improve your overall intention. It’s not an easy black and white answer, but I will be discussing it in my next blog.
What types of editing can I get done professionally? – There are 5 main types that I suggest looking at first if you are new to writing/editing. These are Developmental, Line, Copy, Proofreading and, of course, Self-editing too.
How do I edit my own writing? – Learning writing craft and breaking the editing into stages can really improve your self-editing skills. I’d also recommend getting feedback, from peers, a writer’s group or a professional to improve your writing further.
Do I need to hire a professional editor? – No, not at all. It is a necessity for publishing, but it has been seen to benefit books. Whether you want to work on your own book with the help of peer feedback, or get a professional’s opinion that is completely up to you. I would suggest asking yourself why you would or wouldn’t want to get it done. If it is the expense, check out ways to make editing more affordable, if it is a fear of feedback, learn some tips to ease these anxieties. If it is just a personal preference, then that’s okay too!
I am trying to write my novel, but I struggle to get the words down, what should I do? – This is writer’s block and it is common, but there’s good news – there are techniques to break through it. Start by identifying what you are stuck on and them try the different writing tips in my blog to find a solution that works for you.
