Thursday, December 01, 2005
What is your voice?
How many times have we heard people in the publishing industry talk about how they love an author’s voice? For the longest time, I didn’t understand what that meant.
Now, ten books later, I’ve learned to honor my voice… but the question is… what actually IS your writing voice?
Webster's Dictionary has 5 different definitions of voice...
Main Entry: voice
1 sound produced by vertebrates by means of lungs, larynx
2 a sound resembling or suggesting vocal utterance
3 an instrument or medium of expression
4 wish, choice, or opinion openly or formally expressed
5 distinction of form or a system of inflections of a verb to indicate the relation of the subject of the verb to the action which the verb expresses
Wow, that’s a lot to swallow. Can I break that down?
Simply put, I believe your voice is you; how you think, how you feel, and how those emotions are weaved into your writing. I think this is probably why most of us are so insecure once we put our work out there for review, because, deep down, that book, is about us, and written with our voice and our emotions. It’s a piece of us.
I remember my first re-write letter from my agent. It was six pages long. I scoured through it, underlined, bolded, tried to wrap my head around how I was going to change the book to please and satisfy her and give the publishing industry what I thought it wanted. After much magical musing, I found, there were just things about my book I didn’t want to change; things I considered… my voice, so I didn’t. I changed what I could and sent a letter explain why I wasn’t changing the remaining. It worked fine.
So what is your voice? You tell me. What makes your writing unique? How do you describe an author’s voice?
Now, ten books later, I’ve learned to honor my voice… but the question is… what actually IS your writing voice?
Webster's Dictionary has 5 different definitions of voice...
Main Entry: voice
1 sound produced by vertebrates by means of lungs, larynx
2 a sound resembling or suggesting vocal utterance
3 an instrument or medium of expression
4 wish, choice, or opinion openly or formally expressed
5 distinction of form or a system of inflections of a verb to indicate the relation of the subject of the verb to the action which the verb expresses
Wow, that’s a lot to swallow. Can I break that down?
Simply put, I believe your voice is you; how you think, how you feel, and how those emotions are weaved into your writing. I think this is probably why most of us are so insecure once we put our work out there for review, because, deep down, that book, is about us, and written with our voice and our emotions. It’s a piece of us.
I remember my first re-write letter from my agent. It was six pages long. I scoured through it, underlined, bolded, tried to wrap my head around how I was going to change the book to please and satisfy her and give the publishing industry what I thought it wanted. After much magical musing, I found, there were just things about my book I didn’t want to change; things I considered… my voice, so I didn’t. I changed what I could and sent a letter explain why I wasn’t changing the remaining. It worked fine.
So what is your voice? You tell me. What makes your writing unique? How do you describe an author’s voice?
