How to develop a writer's voice.
With some help from David Bowie.
Okay, so you want to write a book.
STOP THERE!
There’s one thing you must do first, but actually you do it naturally whilst writing so
I’M SORRY PLEASE CONTINUE.
As you’ll see by the enormous textpost above, a shorter, less detailed (but more catchy) version of this blog exists over at SCIENCEFICTIONBOOKS and my personal instagram, PAISLEYPRINTAUTHOR (warning, the memes over at PPA can get pretty spicy). But please do read this blog first, as it’s very good. I’m proud of it anyway.
I wrote the intro to this blog like that because I know most fledgling writers carry around a lot of anxiety, and I thought I’d trigger that early, then wash it away. Now you can just chill out, unless I post a list. Lists are scary.
OH NO A LIST!!!
You already have a writer’s voice.
Realising this is the first step.
Discovering the voice, its angles and intricacies, is the hard part, which is why I wrote this blog.
Hello, I’m Phillip. I have two degrees in Creative Writing, so you don’t have to. That said, there weren’t many classes that were explicitly about voice, it was more something we had to consider in the background, which is pretty natural as that’s where it is. I’m training my writer’s voice right now, and by reading this, you are training yours too.
You see, I’ve been using my writer’s voice this whole time. The placement of commas, the jokey introduction, the subversion of expectations and blog subtitle. All of these come together to form my writer’s voice. It is my voice so it comes naturally. It is the same voice I use when talking, in fact I often read my blogs and books and poems out loud to see if they are any good, which this one was, so I posted it. I am now writing to you from the past, spooky.
SO WHAT IS A VOICE?
A story’s voice can be loosely described as a combination of the tone of narrative in a particular work, the vocabulary, the style and attitude.
A writer’s voice can be described as all of these things, plus all of those things in any other works by the same author, then combined together into an experience. That final experience no doubt varies between readers, but there is a general consensus of the writer’s overall voice. If you put a fan club together, most of you would agree upon the author’s general tone over all of their works.
They don’t tend to vary much, even across disparate genres. And if they do vary, writers (such as myself) often feel inclined to hide their second and third voices under pen names, so as not to alienate an audience which is already familiar with their first voice. In some cases, these pen names can be in competition with each other in the market, which isn’t relevant to this blog but it is funny to think about, which is why I included it.
SO HOW DO I DEVELOP MY VOICE?
It’s as easy as writing. Writing more often would be nice if you have the time, but don’t burn yourself out, I have a theory most creative “blocks” are just burnout.
IS READING IMPORTANT?
Not as massively as some might think. A lot of tutors and classes push for you to read so many books a year, or know certain authors intimately1 and I know from firsthand experience that this just instills a tremendous anxiety in people.
I know I struggled with it at university. I ran my own Creative Writing society and I had one moment where I was sat in the classroom waiting for my students/friends/enemies to show up, and I felt physically sick thinking about the enormity of things ahead and behind. I described it in a poem:
“The sheer weight of the time behind
unspent and unread, a dragging thing”
and I forgot the rest.
The point being that to mindlessly trawl through the bestsellers, to pick up the “Best of British Stories written by People called Dave who once drove through Cheshire to pick up a Cabinet from eBay” isn’t always the best way to gain inspiration. What if none of the classics resonate with you? What if you prefer Rap lyrics to old poetry? What if you think David Bowie was a literary genius and a few arrogant words from someone might be enough to make you realise that you are very alone in your tastes and admirations?
The answer is of course, all of these are fine. You’re an individual, and that means you already have a pretty good voice.
So reading is important, but only to a point. You can also overindulge in it. I love David Bowie so much that I can recite a lot of his songs from memory. There are only two downsides to this.
My ex-girlfriend did not like me singing TIS A PITY2 at 3am when drunk
I can’t write novels when listening to Bowie, because he takes over my brain and I start writing lyrics. I can however write short stories and poems, which is weird, so we’ll get into that soon
HOW DO I KNOW IF I HAVE OVERINDULGED?
If you’re reading this, you are probably okay. Right now you are in a neat little space I have set out for you. I am hopefully helping you untangle the riddle of a writer’s voice you have stuck in your head. You can return to your reading or watching and know that afterwards you have some writing to do.
It’s about the creator/consumer balance. This is something I think about often, and it is the balance between consuming art and creating it. Of course we need inspiration, and of course we need to create, but how to we balance these?
For me it is a personal question. I enjoy writing my novel THE STEPHANIE GLITCH so I find it very easy to turn off Netflix to go and do it. It also helps that most of Netflix is boring. The sci-fi movies are good half of the time, and I really enjoy finding gems on there. Sputnik is a recent favourite. Utterly fantastic film.
I found that film very inspiring. I didn’t actually want to write a story that was similar to it, but to structure a story in a similar way. I guess this is one way to take inspiration from something without just stealing its ideas. I enjoy looking at how stories work in different mediums, why a novel is a novel and not a movie, and why a short film is better off being short. This is the stuff that inspires my writing and inspires my voice.
SO WILL MY WRITER’S VOICE IMPROVE JUST BY WRITING?
Yes, but you must also seek discomfort. Write new things, write jokes about things you barely understand. Cause offense to yourself and others around you (but not too deliberately because sometimes that’s mean, do it for artistic reasons, for scientific reasons. Probe things, discover stuff).
Your writer’s voice should improve over time, and you will have a deeper understanding of writing and of yourself if you keep track of this improvement. What I used to do is save drafts of old poems and compare them to new poems. When I was at university, I would often print multiple drafts out and annotate them, hoping to come towards a hybrid of past and present, because I found that I either undercooked or overcooked a poem.
What I think we can do by remembering our processes, is plot a line from past through to present, that should aim to the future. That future is the voice you want. Discover it and aim for it.
Will you be funny? Silly or darkly comedic?
Will you be serious?
Will your voice inspire people, or will it serve to lightly guide story events from the background?
Will your narrator be involved in the story? How much?
Does your writer’s voice have an accent?
Which celebrity, actor or voice actor would you like to voice your writer’s voice?
Why?
All of these questions will help.
I fully believe that by reading this blog, you have shown a commitment to improving your writer’s voice, and that therefore you will go and improve it now. But before you go, check out this brief interview with David Bowie about knowing where you are, and writing around and through the world you are experiencing.
We can’t remove ourselves from reality, but we can cut it up and use it for art.
A whole other issue we can talk about some other time is how the old classics may sometimes get in the way of newer work which is more culturally relevant to modern students, and which would certainly aid in representation, the importance of which I personally believe is underrated.
I also performed renditions of THURSDAY’S CHILD, DAY IN DAY OUT, LOVE IS LOST, SUE, and KILLING A LITTLE TIME.