Your Author’s Voice is Critical to Your Success as a Writer: Here’s How to Find It

There are few things you can call your own, more than your author’s voice. As an author it’s easy for others to compare your plot to other books, but there’s only one YOU — one voice like yours.

When I first started writing I did what most creatives do, I stole. I stole form, style, pacing, and word choice. I stole plotting and pacing, description and structure. This is how you learn the basics — through mirroring.

But stealing only gets you so far. Once you copy your favorite author long enough, a strange magic happens — your author’s voice emerges. There’s a slow evolution, with one trait stacked on the other. It will come with time.

There are only so many major book categories. New books will be compared to similar books, previously-published. This is where many authors stop. They want to be the next Rowling, King, or Patterson.

But here’s the fallacy of copying your mentors — there can only be one.

The best you’ll ever do, the absolute pinnacle you’ll achieve from copying your favorites, is that you’ll be labeled an also-ran. You’ll be branded a great likeness — a fantastic impersonator. And that’s where the line ends.

When you stand on your own writing, you step out from the crowd. You raise your hand and admit there’s only one YOU. You’re the voice of one. You’re not the NEXT anything. You become the FIRST you.

Five Steps to Find Your Author’s Voice

1. Combine the styles of 2–3 authors you love. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. No one’s a true unicorn. You can take little bits from this author and a piece from that author, combine them and build something unique.
2. Choose your niche. There are genre conventions you must follow, or you’ll lose readers. When you choose a niche you plant a flag and learn all you can about a genre. Your audience will expect a certain type of story from you. If your work is scattered across multiple niches, you’ll confuse people.
3. Listen and watch. Get outside and study people in their natural environment. If you want to write about police, listen to the way they speak. If you enjoy political fiction spend time around politicians. The little tics and language usage will help make your writing authentic.
4. Say it aloud. The voice in our head is not always in sync with the voice that comes out of our mouths. When you speak a passage aloud, you’ll notice where the reader will get stuck, or if a passage sounds less than authentic.
5. Read wide. Read beyond your niche. Read popular authors outside your comfort zone. Read non-fiction and incorporate their style into your pallet. The more you put into the system, the broader your pallet from which to paint. Writers are readers. If you want to develop your unique author’s voice, you need a constant stream of input.

You can use a different voice between characters

In one novel I might use 2–3 different voices. The writing method I chose is to write according to the person I describe. If the character is simple I’ll use chopped, simple terms. If the character is ominous I’ll use longer, darker sentence structure.

Your point of view (POV) matters too. Your author’s voice may be dependent on your choice of POV. A first-person account will sound much different than a third-person omniscient. When you choose first person you speak from inside the character’s head. I find there’s more personality in the character, but the perspective can put limits on the scope of your story.

You can use more than one point of view in the same novel

Sometimes I use first person POV for my antagonist and write the rest of the story in third person. This switch should be used sparingly, because it draws the reader from the story, but it’s another tool in your author’s voice toolbox.

Your POV choice becomes part of your signature. This can change over time, but be cautious. Your readers will come to expect a certain style with your books. The more style you can tack to your name, the more your author’s voice will be unique to you.

If you do your job right, the reader won’t notice the writing

The goal is total immersion. If your writing voice jars the reader in and out of the story, she’ll focus on your writing — reading a single passage multiple times to try and understand its meaning.

When the writing allows the reader to melt into the story, the style becomes secondary. The reader gets lost. She loses track of time. Some of the best writing I’ve read made me late for work and awake long-beyond my bedtime.

10 Ways to Keep the reader engaged

As a writer it’s your job to manipulate the reader to keep reading. We get this engagement by withholding information as long as possible. If you tell all the good parts up-front, the reader’s got no incentive to keep going.

1. End scenes with open-ended questions. Write a page-turner by ending each scene with an unanswered question. Open the book with an unanswered question and don’t answer it until the end.
2. Use different moments in time to tell the story from multiple angles.
3. Slowly unravel the thread of backstory. You don’t have to describe an entire character in chapter one. Give little pieces as you go. Tease the reader.
4. Keep your chapters short. We don’t like to leave things unfinished. It’s easier to stop a reading session at the end of a chapter. If you can design your work with shorter, open chapters, your reader will keep going longer than she planned.
5. Engage the five senses. Write about how things smell, sound, taste, and feel, not just how they look. When you anchor an image with multiple senses, your reader will experience the scene more vividly.
6. Don’t use five words when one will do. I like to write fiction closer to the way I speak. If you try to force your author’s voice to sound flowery or over-educated, you’ll alienate your reader. The writing may sound inauthentic. Your word choice is personal. My audience is different than your audience. But the less you confuse the reader the longer she’ll stay engaged.
7. Character over plot. The story is very important, but if you’ve got bland, shallow, unrelateable characters, the best plot in the world won’t save them. We read for many different reasons, but everyone puts themselves in the characters’ shoes. We can’t help it. We want to take something from the reading experience — to bring an experience back into the real world. We get that experience from well-developed characters.
8. Write authentic dialogue. Next time you talk to your friend pay attention to the word choice. Conversational language is more abbreviated than you think. We rarely address people by their name. We don’t speak in complete sentences, and we definitely don’t give definitions and descriptions inside our dialogue.
9. Don’t be too unique. Your book is for the reader. This is not an art piece. If you buck the writing conventions of your genre too far you’ll lose the reader. It’s easy to try and create a totally new writing voice, but if your voice is too disconnected from the rest of your genre, you’ll have a hard time finding readers happy with your work.
10. Choose a voice that makes you proud. If you don’t like your voice you won’t keep it consistent. It’s like public speaking as Kermit the Frog. Develop a voice and own it. Make something uniquely you, where your readers will mention your style in their next book review.