Confession: I dread when I’m asked about author voice at writing conferences.

I always trip all over my words, and I usually find myself talking in circles. My answer is always convoluted with so many half-baked thoughts that I’m sure I’ve never brought much clarity to the topic.

Basically, this blog post is self-serving. I want to organize my thoughts so that next time I’m asked I can answer better.

When we talk about author voice, it’s easy to get confused by how character voice comes into play. We’ll get to that too, just not this week.

First of all, what do I mean by author voice?

I’m talking about your unique sound as a writer. Same as how musicians have a “sound,” that’s unique to them (or not-so-unique sometimes), and it’s more than just genre. Florence + The Machine sound different than Mumford and Sons, who sound different than Muse who sounds different than OK GO, even though you’ll hear all of those bands played on the same alternative radio stations and classified as the same genre of music.

In our early years as writers, we’re still searching for our own unique identity. We’re often mimicking authors around us, which is TOTALLY normal and, I would argue, a natural part of development. My three-year-old tells me “Merci” sometimes because he’s mimicking what he hears Fancy Nancy say in books or on TV. That’s how he learns, and it’s still how I learn as a writer! I’ll see another author do something cool in a story, and I’ll think of ways that I could do something similar, only unique to me.

What makes up your author voice?

Author voice is present in a single book or story, but it also transcends that. The more you write and the more things you try as a writer, the more you’ll recognize what fits you and what doesn’t.

Your author voice is a composite of:

  • The type of stories you like to write: I’m not talking just about genre, but genre is a part of it. Maybe you like to write fast-paced stories. Or stories that really make a reader think. Or stories that call attention to political issues. These preferences are a component of your author voice.
  • The tone you use when you write these stories: Are you the type of writer who always wants to break the tension with a joke, or who lets the reader sit in the ominous darkness of the plot? Do your stories have a tone of hopefulness, playfulness, or lightness? While each story you write might require a slightly different tone, whatever tone you favor will still come through. Say you tend to write stories with a lot of humor, but this time your main character has an eating disorder. Maybe this book won’t be as funny as your others because of the tragic topic, but if you’re a writer who values humor, it’s still going to come through. You will tell that story differently than a writer who tends to have a heavier, darker tone.
  • The narrative elements you use: By which I mean things like description, dialogue, POV, past/present tense. How much do you describe? Do you tend to write in first person? Omniscient? Are your stories dialogue heavy or no?
  • The language you pick: Do you favor big, complex words, or more simple phrasings? Are your descriptions poetic or straight-forward? Do you use swear words?
  • Your character tastes, favorite plot structures, and the scope of each of these: As artists, we love to mix up what we’re doing and try new things, but we still tend to have inescapable favorites. Shannon once told me that her story ideas don’t feel quite right to her unless she’s thrown in some kind of weird flying creature. She didn’t mean that literally, of course. She just meant that her story ideas always have an element of weird to them. That’s part of who she is as a writer. Or the tagline for novelist Angela Hunt is “expect the unexpected.” I’ve read at least six of her novels from various genres, and they do all have a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming. Some writers tend to write books that cover long spans of time, while others gravitate toward a specific season, like how the majority of Sarah Dessen’s novels happen during the summer. And some writers love to create big casts while others like smaller.
  • Common themes or messages: Another component of author voice is the themes you tend to talk about. Social justice, forgiveness, good versus evil, the value of friendship, etc. This list goes on and on, but as writers we usually have just a handful of themes or messages that we tackle again and again in our books.

How do you know if you have a unique author voice?

We all have an author voice, of course, but how do you know if you’ve developed a unique author voice? The kind that makes editors sit up and take notice? Or that has readers eagerly awaiting your next book?

While you might get clues along the way from writing friends, sadly it’s hard to know until an agent, editor, experienced author, or another industry professional tells you. The first time I knew I had a unique author voice was when an agent said, “Wow, you have such a great voice.” I managed to just say, “Thank you,” but I was really thinking, “I do? Finally!”

How do you make yours stronger?

For starters, you write. You write a lot.

And you read. When you read, you read like an author, and you learn what works for you and what doesn’t work for you.

Also, my honest opinion is that the fastest way to find your author voice is to get rid of the audience for a while. That’s my story, anyway. In high school, after a friend told me my stories sucked and that she didn’t think I would ever be a published author, I vowed to never again show anybody my stories. I didn’t want to be hurt like that ever again. And, I thought to myself, one day I would be published and my friend would know she was so wrong. (How I thought I was going to get published without showing anyone my writing is a mystery.)

But I’m so grateful for that hard season, because you know what happened when I closed my door and started writing just for me? I stopped worrying about what people would think, because nobody wast going to see it anyway. I stopped asking questions like, “Will people think this is funny? Will they think this problem is too trivial? Will they like my main character?”

Since the only audience was me, all that mattered was that I liked it. By doing that for a while, I learned a lot about who I was as a writer, and I emerged on the other side of that season with a much stronger author voice. (We also eventually repaired our friendship and we now enjoy each other quite a bit, so there was a happy ending all around!)

Who is an author with a voice that you greatly admire? What’s something they’re fantastic at that you could practice bringing into your own writing?