198: Finding Your Voice as a Writer
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Finding Your Voice as a Writer
Hello, welcome back to Your Big Creative Life. Where am I looking… this way? Okay. I am looking, yeah. Sorry, I had a moment of getting confused about where I was looking on my phone. Just a reminder, if you want to watch the episodes instead of listen to them, you can do so on YouTube at KatieWolfWrites and you'll be able to see the video of the episode. Or if you're watching on YouTube, the episodes are also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts if you prefer to listen in a podcast format with just the audio. Okay. Let me see if I have any announcements for y'all before we dive into the content for this week. I think my only announcement is I have one coaching spot open right now in my six-month program. This is for any writer who wants support in editing and accountability in the process of writing their novel. So how it works is we work together one-on-one for six months, and I review pages along the way as you're writing. We have coaching calls. I do a full round of editing, a full manuscript evaluation that gives you feedback on things like plot, characters, pacing, conflict, et cetera. And then we also have access to this app that I use with my clients called Voxer, where you get to check in with me once a day, Monday through Friday, if you want to, ask any questions, to get help with brainstorming, for accountability purposes. Basically, whatever you need, it's there for you to use as much, as little as you would like.
So I have one spot available for that. And this is ideal for anyone who is either like, you’ve got a rough idea of the book you want to write, but you haven't started writing. Or this could even work for someone if you have a few chapters, even up to like half a novel written, but you just want some support because you're having a tough time or you want some editorial feedback along the way so that you don't have to wait until the full draft is done to get feedback. Either way, this could work because what's great about coaching is it's one-on-one, so we can customize where we're at and where we start and what our focus is for the six months that we work together. So it's $4,500 for the full six-month program that works out to $750 a month. And if you want to get more information on exactly what's included and who this is for, you can head to the link in the show notes that has all the ways to work with me, editing the new first chapter review, and then coaching as well. So you can check that out. And if I have filled that spot. On the coaching page, there's a little button you click that's like, I'm ready, get more information, something like that. And it takes you to a little form that you fill out. And I always update that. So if I have filled a spot, I'll let you know when the next open spot is. But you can fill out that form with telling me a little bit about your book and your goals, and then we'll schedule a shortened Zoom chat to talk about working together. So yeah, that is open if you're interested in coaching.
Okay. I want to talk about finding your voice as a writer because this for me personally is something that I really struggled with in the beginning when I was starting to write. And it's something that took up a lot of brain space. Like I was just very concerned about this. And to be honest, it is not something I've really thought about much since then. But I realize we haven't really done a deep dive on voice or writing voice writing style on the podcast. I want to touch on it in case you are also worried about finding your voice as a writer. Meaning, what is your style? What is your tone? What are you known for as a writer? Kind of like your author voice and style. I think this is something that's going to get even more important when so many quote unquote writers, I mean, they're not real writers, are using ChatGPT to churn out books and just spit out AI generated books. I think this is going to be even more important because at least right now, AI books are it's easy to tell AI writing. So, but who knows what the capabilities of something like ChatGPT will be in the future. So I just think this is something that's important. But really, it's a lot simpler than you might be thinking about it. So anyways, I want to talk about a couple of recommendations about how to find your voice as an author in this episode, but really, just reassure, I want to just reassure you that it's a lot simpler than you think it is. And I wish I could go back and tell my past self, like, stop stressing about voice, stop stressing about style. It's okay. All right.
So #1, how to find your voice as a writer. Shocker. My first tip is going to be shocking is to write. You can't find what your voice is without allowing yourself an opportunity to write. If you have only ever written a page of a novel and you are stressing about finding what your author voice is, well, you're going to have to write more than that. You are actually going to have to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard and write because that's how you get better as a writer. I mean, we talk about that all the time. That's how you improve as a writer. But that's also how you learn. what your style is as an author. So that's like most important is you have to actually give yourself an opportunity to discover what your author voice is by putting words on the page. Because otherwise it's like a theoretical exercise. It's almost like a hypothetical, well, if I were to write, what would my voice sound like? Which is a pointless exercise because if you're not actually writing, then yeah, why do that?
Number 2, the second tip for finding your author voice is to read in your genre and outside of it. You will start to notice common... tones and vibes and voices in your genre, but then also outside of it. So just as an example, I'm writing, I write thrillers, okay? And there are some common styles, there are kind of common vibes that happen in thrillers, right? Which makes sense because you're going for those ominous vibes, you're going for the suspenseful vibes and the twisty vibes and the something sinister's lurking just beneath the surface. Those vibes are very common in thrillers. If you are writing, writing, I said that weird. If you're writing romance, for example, you are gonna, and you read a lot of romance you will start to notice that there are a lot of commonalities in the way that different romances are written. And that's not a bad thing. I'm not saying that. It's just kind of a neutral thing. I think it's like important to get your head around genre, first of all, because if you are, let's say, let's use those two examples. Let's say you're writing a romance, but your tone and your style is very thriller-ish, but you're not intending that, you're not, you're not like, your plot isn't twisty or suspenseful at all, then that's going to be a mismatch and maybe feel a little bit tonally sort of odd. But then also I just think that's something I talk about all the time is improving as a writer. Like, yes, it's writing because that's the most important, but also reading like a writer.
So starting to understand how different writers are creating characters and developing their plots and developing conflict and how they're structuring their dialogue and descriptions and all of those things. The more that you read and the more widely you read, you will start to be able to identify the voice of other writers. And if you can articulate the voice of other writers, that starts to train your eye so that you can maybe do the same thing with your own writing. So definitely read in your genre, but then outside of it. And a quick note, I mean, this should be obvious to say, but I just, I guess I should explicitly say it. When you're reading in your genre, it is never to get inspiration in the form of ideas or characters or anything like that. You're not reading for copying or ideas, it's just getting an idea of the vibes and what's out there, like knowing the market, but then also getting familiar with genre conventions, particularly if you're new, because it can be kind of hard to wrap your head around, like all of the different genre distinctions and conventions. Like for example, If you're a brand new writer, you might not know that romance, like standard kind of what we think of as a romance novel, there's a genre expectation from readers that the characters will get a happily ever after, that the characters will end up together at the end of the book.
But if you don't know that and you set out to write a classic kind of like romance novel, but there's heartbreak and they don't end up together, that's going to be a mismatch and readers are going to be turned off by that. So anyways, That was a bit of a tangent, but okay, next tip. Really, the secret to this is to just like allow yourself to write naturally. However, the words are coming out on the page. That's your voice. So don't force yourself to write in a certain way or a certain style. Now that might sound like a contradiction because I just said, you know, I talked about like tone and vibes and genre. So I'm not saying, like me writing thrillers, let's just use that as an example because there are such distinct vibes and kind of style of a thriller or a suspense or a mystery, something like that. Yes, you want to match the vibes of the genre, but I don't force myself to write in a very literary style with lots of beautiful prose, beautiful sentences, lots of flowery kind of like descriptions of things. I don't force myself to write that way or try to force myself to write that way because that is not my strength as a writer. That is just not my style.
So if I were to write a thriller, and agonize over it and force myself to sound more literary because I thought that's what I was supposed to do, it would be an exercise in frustration and stress and probably failure. I probably wouldn't be able to do it very well because that's just not my natural writing style. That's not, that's not my voice. And I've come to that realization after writing so much because in the beginning I did try to force it a little bit. I've was on this podcast before about... about how I came into writing with some horrible assumptions about like quality of literature and that genre literature wasn't, or genre fiction just wasn't as good as literary fiction because that's what I studied in college. That's just like, I don't know, I was dealing with a lot of like stuff that I had internalized about what makes good fiction. I'm putting that in quotes. And so I did, in the beginning, try to write something that skewed more towards literary fiction, but it was like pulling my hair out and it felt uncomfortable, it felt unnatural, and I just didn't enjoy the process that much. So when I leaned into just allowing the words to freely come out on the page and to make sure that I naturally have those vibes that you need for a thriller, right? The twisty vibes, the kind of mystery, the sense that something's, there's tension ********* beneath the surface, like all those genre things, allowing myself to embrace those elements. And then just in terms of my voice, just letting it be what it is. And that might sound overly simplistic, but that's actually what finding your voice is, allowing yourself to write the way that the words naturally come out. Now, one additional kind of thing I want to tack on to this is, so I am a firm believer in getting the rough draft out first, letting it be very messy before you go back to edit.
So for me, what this looks like in my own process is a lot of times, yeah, I have a bit of tension, a bit of suspense, a bit of those vibes, some twists in my first draft, but it's kind of flat because I'm just getting the story out. I'm figuring out the characters. I'm figuring out what happens. I'm figuring out dialogue. Like all that stuff is kind of a work in progress, right? So in editing, that's when I really go in and make sure that the sentences have those things that I want. Making sure that there is quick pacing, making sure that there is tension and all of those things that I want my writing to have. So some of this might come through in editing and that's okay. Yeah, it just is a matter of letting it be what it is and not trying to force yourself to write in the style of another author. I think that's one pitfall that new writers can have as well, is to look at a particular author who's very successful or who they love. Sometimes it's just out of being a fan for that person in the genre and thinking like, oh man, if only I could write like this person. And then they set out to try to write a book and they want to like kind of copy the style of that person. Sometimes that works. But in that case, you're not honoring your own voice, how things want to come out if you are just trying to mimic and copy exactly what someone else is doing.
And the last tip to help with this, in case you're still like, yeah, that sounds good, but I still don't really know, is to get an outside perspective to help you identify what your writing voice is. And look, this is hard to do. And I don't know that Like, okay, I'll just give the example of editing clients. Like if I edit a client's manuscript and then I send them the notes and I send them the feedback or whatever, my suggestions, and then they wrote me an email back and were like, hey, Katie, thanks for all this. Can you tell me what my voice is as a writer? Like, I don't know that I would really be able to do that. I probably could come out with a couple of points or a couple of adjectives, but it's hard. And it's also like, I don't know. Unless there's a reason for that, I'm not sure that that's something you need to really be able to pinpoint because where a lot of that comes from is other people. So if you'll notice, like if we take a very successful author who's written a lot of books, who is widely read, the person's kind of known, a lot of the ways that people describe her style, it comes from other people. It comes from reviewers. It comes from people who've bought the book and are reviewing it. comes from press, like journalists who are reviewing the book and writing an article about it. Those are the people who are describing the author's writing voice and the writing style. It doesn't come from the author themselves.
So, I don't have to, for example, we, I feel like I've been saying this for like 3 months, but it's true that my agents and I are, I'm just waiting for my final check on my manuscript on my latest round of edits that I sent my agent before we send it out on submission. So it's getting ready to go out on submission soon. But it's not like I've had to come up with the descriptors of my author voice or style in order to send it out, and it's not like an author has to do that before they publish, right? So... You can get an outside perspective. And before publication, what that looks like is beta readers or critique partners or your friend who reads a lot and can give you some suggestions or an editor. Again, I don't know that like if an author, one of my clients were to ask me, what's my voice? Like, I... That might be hard. I mean, because when I give them developmental feedback, I'm just talking this out, I guess. I'm already kind of pointing out a couple of strengths in their manuscript already. So I don't know. Anyways, if this is something that you really, that really feels important to you and you feel like you just totally lack perspective on what your strengths are as an author, this is where outside feedback can be good. Just getting another set of eyes on it, because we can't be objective about our own work. We are never going to be able to see it clearly. it's just the nature of writing is that you have spent so much time with this story, with these pages, it's just not going to be possible for you to accurately digest everything and be able to pinpoint things always.
I mean, you can pinpoint some things. Like I, oh, let me, well, let me share this example first. or this not example, I guess, but I'll just share this. I think I've talked about this on the podcast before that when I was in Nashville, I was a member of a critique group and I brought an early chapter of a novel to the group. And there was someone in there who was like, okay, I can't really pinpoint how you're doing this, but there's a lot of like really good, there's this undercurrent of tension in all of these pages in this, in the scenes. It's like very tense. It feels like there's something big that's about to happen. And I think when I initially started writing the book, I wasn't totally committed on making it a full-on thriller at that point. But then hearing that was like, okay, that's something that comes easily to me. That is a strength of mine as a writer. So it makes sense to kind of lean into that because it's easy. Whereas if I had been a very different type of writer, let's say I was someone who was very literary, had absolutely freaking beautiful prose, someone could pinpoint that and be like, these sentences are incredible. Then I would lean into that because that might come easily to me. And there are some writers who can do that. And I always admire that in authors. So yeah, anyways, just getting an outside set of eyes to kind of point out your strengths can be helpful because there are some writers who have very short sentences, very minimal description, but it works perfectly for the type of book that they're writing. It is an identifiable part of their style. It's fantastic. Then there are authors who have lush description and very complicated, long sentences, and that works great for them.
So it's not a matter of 1 being better than the other because, yeah, it's just... They're different approaches, they're different tones, they're different styles. And I'm sure you can even pinpoint books that you love or books that you've read recently where the actual style of writing, how the author approached it, just felt very different for you. It was a different reading experience. And some of that just comes down to personal preference if we think about readers, you know, what you enjoy. So yeah, and that's something I see all the time with editing clients. Even though I'm not line editing in the sense that I'm giving them feedback on the actual prose and how to improve it, I'm still aware of it because I'm reading the manuscript and I'm reading the sentences. So I have some clients who are very minimal with things, but it just works well for them and some aren't, and it works well for them too. Yeah, getting that outside perspective can help. So I hope that's helpful. If you are stressed about voice, I guess I would just say, Don't stress.
The most basic tip, if I could distill it down, everything we talked about in this episode, one thing, it's that you have to just let the words come out the way that they come out on the page. And yes, of course, edit them. That's part of it. But what I mean by that is don't try to force yourself to sound like a certain person or to write a certain way that you think you should be, even though you're really not. And in editing, it's always a matter of improving the sentences and improving the writing. But the difference The difference there is that you're not forcing it to be in the style of someone else. It's just improving what's already there. Okay, I hope that was helpful. Don't stress too much about your voice, because I think when you put too much emphasis on it, it's almost like you can lose sight of the bigger picture things that are important in fiction, like the story, the conflict, the characters, the pacing, if you get so focused on how the writing's coming across. Okay, I'm actually going to do a writing sprint after this. I've just started writing a new book. I have like 500 words written, not much at all. And I did some outlining where I just made some bullet points about the first few chapters to get my head around it. And I'm going to do like a 20 minute writing sprint before lunch, which I'm excited about. So wish me luck and I will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening.