Is that YOUR voice that I hear? Some thoughts on the writers voice

By Terrie Leigh Relf

I remember when I first started taking writing classes and the discussion would inevitably turn to writers voice.   "You need to develop your voice," they'd say, or "here is a writer whose voice isn't consistent," or "this writer has obviously not developed her voice yet."   I haven't heard much discussion about this lately, even though the web is strewn with commentary about it.   All you have to do is google "writers voice," and you'll discover the requisite five-to-ten steps for the development thereof.

Remember the book, The Many Faces of Eve?   It was about a woman with MPD, or multiple personality disorder.   While this syndrome is rare, hearing multiple voices in your head, and then transferring them to paper, is how I've come to humorously refer to my own writer's voice.   I've often thought of myself as a chameleon as well. While there is obvious overlap, the proverbial "context dictates form" adage is also true with voice, I believe.

When I was at Naropa Institute (now Naropa University), I took a course titled, "Mind in Literature."   As psych students, we were set the task of examining how mind is portrayed in fiction. As "creative" writers, we were also required to show how mind manifests in our own fiction--through setting, plot, character development, dialogue, etc. By way of illustration, the professor played a game with the class.   I don't remember what the specific assignment was, but after we'd turned it in, the professor read them, then asked the class to make an educated guess as to who wrote which one.

Finally, she came to my piece.   No one guessed it was mine, and when she told them it was, they were aghast.   Why is this significant?   Because no one recognized what they assumed was my voice--as if writer's voice was solely dictated by personality. Isn't it often a "mood thing" as well?   I've often heard writers talk about the personality or mood of a poem, short story, or article, etc.   This is what creates that unique voice, perhaps.   Speech style and patterns, word and phrase repetitions, word choices and other language level issues, and style of humor--or the lack thereof--are only a few factors that create a distinctive personality.

On another occasion, and this several years later, I work-shopped a short story that several people didn't believe I wrote.   "A man wrote that," was the consensus.   "You couldn't have that sort of insight into a man's psyche," said one of my supposed friends. Fortunately, another man in the workshop came to my rescue.   He'd seen an earlier draft and had been as impressed that I could "come off as a man."

Are you noticing a pattern here?   Is it yours as well?

If you laid out your body of work--columns, articles, poems, short stories, screenplays, and novels--and took the name off, would your friends, workshop members, or readers be able to determine that they were "all" yours?

No doubt some will respond, "see--she hasn't developed her voice yet!"   But others will respond as a former mentor once did, with: " That is your voice."

Now that I am a more experienced writer--as well as a writing teacher/coach--I know more about voice.   Especially my own.   Voice emerges from our experience as writers.   It is invoked by who we read, perhaps, as much as by what we write--and for whom.

Advice abounds; so, too, do exercises to assist with the process of recognizing and creating voice in writing. You can also create your own exercises.   Here are a few that I use:

1. Write about what you don't know.   Writing is also about discovery...

2. Develop your contemporary cultural anthropology skills: hang out in cafes--and other public places.   Observe.   Take notes.   Who are the characters?   What stories do they tell?

3. Pay particular attention to "real-life" dialogues--and monologues. What do they reveal about the person speaking?   What does this reveal about you, the listener?

4. Trust your inner voices...When lines, images, topics, and so forth enter your mind, write them down.   Explore accordingly.

5. Invoke alternate audiences.   Revise your poem, short story, article, etc. from several different perspectives.

Since you're still reading, I'd like to let you in on the secret to developing a unique writers voice...

Keep writing!

Terrie Leigh Relf lives with her many "inner voices" in the arty community of South Park in San Diego, CA.   In addition to teaching English Composition and Critical Thinking at San Diego City College, Relf is a free-lance writing coach, writer and editor. She pens "The Mistress of Rhetoric" column for The Espresso, San Diego's Newspaper for Coffee and Café Culture , and has recently moved her "Poet's Workshop" column from writersmonthly.us (which closed its cyber doors) to MindFire Renewed, where she also edits FireWeed, a mini-newsletter. Relf is also the poetry editor, etc. for WORD San Diego (a new print zine from the former publisher of writersmonthly.us) and the "deputy" poetry editor for NFG--Writing with Attitude . The Muse has her on a very short leash...