Creative writing - From think to ink - Lindstrom Simeon 2015

Finding your own style and voice

It’s easy to recognize a young writer — they sound like someone else. Find a fledgling author, look at the books they’re busy reading at the moment and I can guarantee you their work will reflect that. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though.

Little children learn to speak from their parents, but eventually, they use that same language to express their own ideas. Writing is the same. It can be tricky to create something that is 100% unique and fresh, but again, this is not a problem. There are billions of people in the world, and only so many ways to say a thing, and frankly, all art is somewhere along the line “inspired” from other art.

Finding your own unique voice and style is not something that can be rushed. It’s something that you grow into slowly, with practice. In the meantime, use other authors for inspiration and direction. Many people do this the wrong way round: they realize they don’t have their own unique writing style, and so try to create one by deliberately tinkering with style elements until they can say, “there, that looks unique enough, I’ve never seen that before, I can claim this as my own now.”

Often, though, “unique” is just shorthand for “authentic”. An effective piece of writing is not merely a gimmick put together from a novel use of grammar and style. It’s a complex blend of content, style and intention. It all goes back, in other words, to the Big Why.

A slower (but more solid) way to unearth your own personal style is just to remove anything that’s getting in the way of your own natural expression. Tap into your real motivations for writing, get to the root of your message, and then write — your style will emerge on its own, if you let it.

In this chapter, we’ll look at a constructive way to start including elements from writers you admire without simply aping them and losing your own unique voice.

First, start out by identifying two or three writers that you admire. Pick someone you’ve read a lot or even better, someone who has a very distinctive style.

Ask yourself, what is it about this writing that appeals to you? Go into as much details as possible. For example, you could say something like, “this author uses technically simple language and very tight, concise sentences but somehow manages to talk about very big, abstract topics. He leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination. It’s informal writing, almost stream of consciousness. It’s got a bit of a nasty edge to it, like it comes from someone’s hidden, unspoken mind. It looks like it’s always in first person. It’s usually about topics like relationships and family. Whenever I read this author, I feel very sad and wistful, and the stories often have a bit of bitterness in them somehow, which I like…”

Now that you’ve identified some elements in the style (notice how I’ve included not just grammar but also tone, mood, content etc.), ask yourself if there’s anything in your writing that mirrors that. Look for similarities. For example, you may notice that both you and your favourite author like to dwell on the complexities of relationships, and that both have a bit of a sad tone to them. But you may also notice that where that author is curt and minimalist, you prefer writing longer, more descriptive sentences.

Do this with the other authors you’ve chosen.

The key here is to find out ways that other authors have already achieved something you’re trying to do yourself. Look at things that resonate and then look at the cold mechanics of the thing — when your author succeeds at writing in a way you’d like, ask exactly how they did it. Feel free to incorporate those elements into your writing.

You could also do this by asking yourself about the ways you are different from a particular author, and amplifying that. Do you know any authors who have a similar message to you but a completely different way of expressing their thoughts? Do you read a blogger who shares your style of writing but about completely different subjects?

Merely imitating other artists and writers is not as smart as looking carefully at why and how other creative people are doing their work, and what you can learn from them. Sometimes, getting your own voice is merely a question of reading something and thinking, “Man, I could do this better!”