Wednesday 4 September 2013

THE WRITING VOICE

                            
First off, the writing voice is a writer's persona. It's the unique tool of a writer that tells all about his style, diction, expression, and language use. It's what makes him stand out from the literary crowd. Without the writing voice, a writer cannot be identified. Say, you pick a random book and begin reading a part of it and it strikes you that you've read a piece so much similar to this: the same theme, style, language of expression and the lot. That's the writing voice.
  Make no mistake. A writing voice is quite different from the real voice and does not truly display the true nature of the writer. Hence it is elusive in nature. It doesn't exist and so do the characters, just like a euphoria.   
     Finding your writing voice is a milestone in the writing journey, a very significant one, and it takes a great deal of struggle to do this. With your own voice, you get to decide how to bring the characters to live and interact with one another.After you've found your voice, make sure to develop it with time, something that most writers never do. It helps unlock your creative potential which will go a long way to determining your success in the literary world.Your ideal voice helps you gain confidence. Taking braver steps and perfecting your skills over time. You could still vary your expressions a little going a little over the top but in a controlled manner. Finding your voice takes a lot of struggle. You have to go through lots of phases to do that. You don't need to force it at all. It comes with time. 
   Also, maybe you'd be thinking that you'd never find that voice because you keep on 'remixing' a part of other 'heard' authors' voices. That's cool! Besides if it weren't for them, you wouldn't have gotten inspired in the first place. So, taking out a page out of your mentor's playbook is not a crime. It helps mold you up into a brilliant writer until you find your own unique  voice.  Now that you know what a writing voice is, you'd be probably be asking 'how the hell do I find it?'. Well, there are a number of ways to do just that but i will just focus on the obvious:
     Always be confident and authentic. Never be to afraid to try out a different style to check if it suits you. Try defining your personality in various ways. For example: if you were a drink, which will you be? The soft and stinging type, or the  harsh type?
  Sometimes to find your voice, you just have to keep on shouting to hear it. By shouting, I mean, keep writing articles consistently till you figure out what you really like about those articles you write. Go through them just before you edit and ask yourself or your friends 'what are the qualities of these articles that define me?'
    Do exercise a little patience. And of course, hope for the best and expect the worst.

To know more about finding your writing voice, visit this site

Teddy Gaynes    

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