PACK YOUR BAGS
Uncover Your Authentic Writer's Voice With This Do-Anywhere Exercise
There are two kinds of writers: those who want to publish and those who don’t.
You may never wish to publish but want to practice and improve your craft or learn more about the industry and how to find the best way to see your work in print. This blog is for everyone looking to take the necessary steps toward authenticity—those desiring anonymity and those eager to share their creative selves.
Authenticity is key.
Authenticity is key and we’ll use this word often. At Tattered Script Publishing we strive to create books that speak to the authentic self. And in this blog, we would like to help facilitate what charting that course might look like.
The authentic self is the healed self. It is the emotionally balanced self. Our books are windows that open readers toward that self, for we are crafting ways to help heal not only the inner child, the wounded warrior, or the divine feminine aspects of Earth herself, as examples, but also the treasured parts of ourselves that have not yet been found.
Therefore, it is critical that you think in terms of authenticity as your truth.
Any writer will tell you that crafting a story is difficult. Many points along the line must be met before an idea can come out of the mind and be put down onto the page. And there’s no easy way to say this. It takes practice.
Practice aside, because this is a given, it takes a certain amount of understanding that we are not machines. We cannot write as a machine writes. We can implement the tools the machines offer, but the machines are not creative. The machines are the machines that, for now, are thinking only what we tell them to think.
Don’t be afraid to use tools. Think of the pen as a tool, the paper as a tool, the typewriter as a tool, and the machine as a tool. It just so happens that we are writing in an era of “the developing machine." We don’t want to ignore this tool, but we will be forthright and say that these machines are not creating authenticity. They are not shifting, exploring, traveling, or mapping the human mind. Not yet, anyway. And if they ever do, then they do, but for now, we will address creativity as coming from the human mind. Period.
We won’t rely on the machine, but we will acknowledge the benefits of artificial intelligence and we will work around and through and with it as we explore creativity.
Getting to your authentic writer’s voice isn’t difficult but it will take some work. Do you want this kind of work? If I told you it would improve your writing tremendously and make the creative journey more rewarding would you at least try some of these ideas? This is writing advice, but in truth, it’s life advice as it applies to writing.
At Tattered Script Publishing we look for writers who speak/write effortlessly. And what do we mean by speak/write? We can define it only as instinct. People speak as they speak, and they write as they write, but until the two are seamlessly woven as one in language, the writer will sound dismissed from the page.
Writing must convey an ownership of language, and the writer will have to find a way for their narration to resonate with the reader. Too much extraneous information and the reader will get bored. Too little and the reader won’t be drawn in. The speaking voice brings an aspect of colloquialism to the page just as the writing voice brings the beauty and formality of the written word. Together, the two become the writer’s voice.
With practice, you can work magic and give your writer’s voice a balanced blend of both the speaking and the writing voice. As a tool, AI hasn’t perfected the balance and this is why AI fiction sounds horrendous. To avoid relying on the machine to write for you, it’s going to be critical that you find your authentic voice by learning how to balance the speaker/writer. We can use AI in other ways, but that’s for another blog.
Using an all-speaking voice in your writing makes the text difficult to read because we’re not used to reading narration word for word in the same way that we talk. Writing that sounds “talked out" won’t glide easily over the page. And using strictly a formal writing voice will drag the narrative down into heavy-handedness. Therefore, it is the balance of the speaking/writing voice that allows one to find this sweet spot.
Writing style and writer's voice are not always the same.
We will talk about writing style in another blog entry, but for now, we will continue talking about the writer’s voice. This is the voice that dictates the energy of a piece of narration.
Style comes about because of word choice and placement, but to differentiate voice from style it's important to understand we’re talking about the energy of writing. The writer's voice is about pace, context, and craft, but it is first and foremost about how language moves. Does it clop? Glide? Hiccup? Or worse, fall flat? The writer’s voice is the heart, the soul, and the breath of a piece of writing.
No one writer should copy another’s voice. Many do. When learning to write we read and copy favorite authors, but trying to duplicate another's voice shouldn’t be done. We can learn many things from reading well-loved authors, but copying their voices should not be one of them. For one, it's exhausting to mimic; secondly, it's already been done. Why do you want to step in someone else’s boots? Can’t you make your own tracks?
Exercise
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Exercise 〰️
In this exercise, we’ll look at the most important step to take as you begin this journey toward discovering your authentic writer’s voice:
Close your eyes. When you open them again and you read these words you will know that at the end of this paragraph, we will ask you to close your eyes again and listen. With your eyes closed you will listen to your breath. To the sounds around you. To the birds chirping, the vacuum cleaner, the TV. These are not distractions. They are part of the language of your space. They belong just as you belong. Although these sounds may take up more mental room than you’d like, they occupy space and cannot be tuned out unless you go sit in a dark cave to escape. Therefore, you are what you hear. And your writing will become what you hear. Your writing needs motion. And sounds have motion. Please close your eyes and listen.
Once you have opened your eyes again, please write these sentences in three different ways implementing at least three of the “sounds” you just heard. We’ll do this with you.
Birds chirping: Strange is the Farmer’s Bank that once occupied the corner of Main and First Streets. Look. Gone are the stained glass windows, now stolen, the large oak door, and the corrugated metal roofing, flattened, peeling, and bent from the wind. Gone are the mementos of this beloved town when people strode along her cobblestone streets and stopped to talk to one another, tip their hats, and wave "hello."
Vacuum cleaner: Look at the Farmer’s Bank on the corner of First and Main Streets. Stain glass windows, stolen. Large oak door, gone. And the corrugated metal roofing that was all bent up, peeling, and flattened by the wind, well, that’s gone too. It's like all the mementos of this beloved town are gone. The people who strode about her cobblestone streets and stopped to talk to one another, wave “hello,” and tip their hats to one another—all gone. Strange.
TV: Look at the people strolling past the Farmer’s Bank on the corner of First and Main. Remember when they used to stop and talk to one another? They would tip their hats and wave hello. They’re busy going past but not remembering the corrugated metal roof--once bent, flattened, and peeling from the wind. They don’t even notice the missing oak door or the stolen stained glass windows. It's strange. They continue without even looking at the cobblestone street—the mementos of this beloved town.
The writer’s voice is personality.
There are only so many ways to construct a readable sentence, but it's possible that you can make these sentences yours by writing them to “sound" like the sounds you just heard. Or make up your own sentences and write those three ways. Try it! If anything, it might give you a creative opening for your next book. Maybe your writer’s voice will “sound” something like a train, a baseball game, or children playing hide and seek. But don’t be surprised when your writer's voice shifts, because it will often do this, for each new piece you write.
Remember: The writer’s voice is personality; it is wardrobe. It is the heart and soul of a narrative. No amount of generative AI can craft that kind of uniqueness!
Authenticity is key. We encourage you to find ways to develop yourself and your writing by listening to your unique self!
Keep writing!
