Apologies in advance. Today’s article is longer than I normally like, but it didn’t lend itself to splitting into two parts.
Introduction
Your individual writing style and authorial voice are uniquely yours.
It’s a combination of how you think, how your brain processes words, and how your mind processes imagery and emotions into words.
But it’s also a matter of practice and repetition.
NOTE: This article is a summarized version of an earlier seven-part series. For a deeper dive into developing your unique writing style and voice, click here.
I don’t believe any instructor can teach style and voice. It’s something you develop within yourself. That development occurs a bit at a time.
The more you write, the more it develops. It’s not usually an “ah-ha” moment where you suddenly discover your voice. Your voice is already within you.
It’s just a matter of time and practice until eventually that voice starts to emerge on the page. You may not even notice at first.
But your readers will notice, even if subconsciously.
The term ‘voice’ is used in different ways to refer to different aspects of writing that are quite different. Let’s review:
Narrative voice: a story is told in first-person or third-person voice.
Character voice: how the character sounds and speaks in dialogue and in internal thoughts.
Authorial voice (today’s subject): the unique writing style of the author
Voice is what you hear when you read
If you’re into rock music and famous guitarists, that makes for a great example of voice.
You can probably hear three or four guitar notes and immediately recognize if it’s Santana, Clapton, Hendrix, Page, or Van Halen. They’re all playing rock music. They’re all playing electric guitar. Yet the sounds they create are not only quite different, they’re instantly recognizable.
There are also clear examples of voice in writers.
If you’ve read a few books by Ernest Hemingway, then pick up another book without knowing who wrote it, you might immediately recognize it as Hemingway due to his writing style and voice. The cadence, the sentence structure, how he describes things, people, events, and emotions.
Likewise with F. Scott Fitzgerald.
It’s the same experience if you’re reading any of the greatest authors, or any excellent writers you may never have heard of before.
You might not stop in the middle of the page and think, “Wow, what a great voice and style this author has.” It’s much more subliminal than that in most cases.
The story just carries you away. You get lost in the moments. The scenes come alive and you feel like you’re there. The character comes alive and you feel like you know her personally, or that you are her.
Voice and style separate the good books from the great books, the ones that stick with us years after we’ve read them.
Voice is what the readers hear in their heads as they read your words.
Elements of voice and style
So what exactly is voice and style? And if it can’t be taught, what’s the point of this article?
We can break down some of the elements of voice and style. There are things we can do in our writing that will assist in developing that individual flair.
Here’s a quick summary of the key aspects that contribute to voice and style:
Word choice
Sentence structure and composition
Sentence variety
Descriptive terms
Mix of narrative style (narration, exposition, dialogue, action)
Rhythm (of sentences and of story pace)
Author Dan Simmons has the best summation of style I’ve come across.
Style is diction; style is cadence; style is syntax; style is word choice and the spectrum of a writer’s vocabulary; style is length of sentences and the careful placement of different length sentences into a paragraph in the way a master stonemason would set stones into an unmortared wall meant to last for centuries; style is repetition and knowing when not to repeat; style is omission; style is misdirection and subliminal suggestion; style is specificity set into deliberate vagueness; style is crafty vagueness set amidst a forest of specificity; style is the motion of the mind at work; style is the pulse and heartbeat of the narrative sensibility; style is balance; style is the projective will of the writer creating a portal of access to the receptive will of the discerning reader; style is the sound our words make on paper. Style is goddamned hard.
Let’s go back to the style comparison between Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Here’s a passage from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises:
In the morning I walked down the Boulevard to the rue Soufflot for coffee and brioche. It was a fine morning. The horse-chestnut trees in the Luxembourg gardens were in bloom. There was the pleasant early-morning feeling of a hot day. I read the papers with the coffee and then smoked a cigarette. The flower-women were coming up from the market and arranging their daily stock. Students went by going up to the law school, or down to the Sorbonne. The Boulevard was busy with trams and people going to work.
Notice the short, simple sentences and structure. In many cases, the sentences might feel a bit “telling” rather than “showing” (I did this; trees were in bloom; a hot day; the women did this; the students did that).
But each sentence focuses on one tiny moment or idea, and each following sentence builds on it. By the end, he’s painted a very detailed scene and placed the reader in the cafe watching the world go by. But there’s nothing flowery about it. There is also a rhythm, a cadence, as the scene is laid out for the reader.
Now, let’s look at a passage from Fitzgerald for comparison.
Our thoughts were frosty mist along the eaves; our two ghosts kissed, high on the long, mazed wires—eerie half-laughter echoes here and leaves only a fatuous sigh for young desires; regret has followed after things she loved, leaving the great husk.
Fitzgerald is much more descriptive, and is always wonderful at finding new, intriguing ways to describe something we all have experienced or even things we see every day. He often will let a single sentence grow until it blooms.
He viewed the world differently and was able to express it in a way the reader would say, “That’s perfect. I never thought of it that way before.”
From these two brief examples, you can easily compare and contrast the two voices of these two brilliant writers.
Rhythm
Musicality in writing is a highly overlooked but critical element of quality prose. It contributes to the pace and flow of every moment.
Rhythm is created by word choices, sentence structures, sentence length, and paragraph length.
Have you ever read something that starts to feel monotonous, like the writer is droning on and on? Your eyes glaze over, and your mind wanders off the page.
Then you have to skim back up and reread what your eyes had just gone over but your brain didn’t absorb. That can be caused by a lot of things, but a lack of rhythm in the writing is often the culprit.
Prose can have rhythm—it needs rhythm—just like poetry or a song. Rhythm helps the reader hear the voice in his head and keeps the mind engaged with the story.
The late Gary Provost was a writer and well-known writing instructor who used this brilliant example.
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.
Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals — sounds that say listen to this. It is important.
Other reasons to vary sentence length
In addition to creating that rhythm, there are other benefits and techniques for using sentences of varying length.
Shorter sentences increase the pace the pace of a scene. Use more short sentences in fast-paced or action scenes to create tension in the reader.
Longer sentences slow the pace of the reading and the scene. Use more longer sentences in sedate scenes, for restful interludes, for when the character is thinking, planning, assessing the situation, or in softer emotional moments.
In either case (fast-paced scene or slow-paced scene), you still want to use a mix of sentence lengths, not all short or all long. You still need that rhythm rather than monotony.
But your mix will lean more one way than the other depending on the pace of the scene you want to create.
Vary sentence construction
Watch for repetition of sentence construction such as starting too many sentences with introductory clauses, “I-bombs,” or midsentence clauses.
In my years of editing, I’ve run across many manuscripts where a writer relies too frequently on one particular sentence structure.
Simple sentence structure
I wake up in the morning. I dread the day at work. The boss glares at me every single day when I walk into the office. He looks at me like I’m late no matter what time I get there. I would walk right up to him and ask what’s wrong if I had the nerve to do so. The sun peeks through the window blinds. I climb out of bed and head to the shower.
Here the writer uses the same basic, straightforward construction for every sentence. There is a lack of rhythm. Everything sounds the same. Monotony sets in.
Introductory clause
The writer recognizes this monotony and decides to change up the construction by using an introductory clause for each sentence.
Waking up in the morning, I dread the day at work. Every single day, the boss glares at me when I walk into the office. No matter what time I get there, he looks at me like I’m late. If I had the nerve, I would walk right up to him and ask him what’s wrong. As the sun peeks through the window blinds, I climb out of bed and head to the shower.
The lack of rhythm and the monotony still exist. The sentence structure has changed, but they are all the same.
Midsentence clauses
So the writer tries again, thinking that midsentence clauses rather than introductory clauses will help create the rhythm she is trying to achieve.
I wake up, dreading the day at work, and lie in bed. The boss glares at me when I walk in, no matter what time I arrive, like he’s accusing me of being late. I should walk right up to him, if I had the nerve, which I don’t, and confront him. I climb out of bed, the sun peeking through the window blinds, and head to the shower.
The result is the same. Monotony sets in due to repetitive sentence structure.
With introductory or midsentence clauses being repeated each time, it calls even more attention to the monotonous sound in the reader’s mind.
Every sentence in these three examples follow the same structure, the same pattern. That is what creates the monotonous sound in the reader’s mind. There is no rhythm.
Mixing up sentence structures
Let’s see what happens when the writer uses a variety of sentence constructions:
I lie in bed, facing another dreadful day at work. The boss glares at me no matter what time I arrive at the office. Every single day. I should walk right up to him, if I had the nerve, and ask him what’s wrong. But no matter how I try, that level of bravery hasn’t appeared yet. The sun peeks through the window blinds. Time to shower and do it again.
Here, the writer has used a mix of simple sentences, introductory clauses, midsentence clauses, compound sentences, and sentence fragments.
It’s not just that some sentences are short and some are longer, but the structure of each sentence varies from the ones around it.
And just for good measure, she reduced the number of “I-bombs” from eight to three.
You can hear how the choice to mix up sentence structures in this one paragraph helps create a rhythm and enhances the voice of the writer and character. It goes a long way toward eliminating the monotony in the writing.
Word choices
If you paint, every brush stroke matters. If you sing or play an instrument, every note matters.
In writing, every word matters. Every punctuation mark matters.
My advice on choosing exactly the right word:
When the words flow, get the story down. Don’t stop that flow to fret over getting just the right word.
If it’s helpful, use the word that comes to you but that you know you might want to change, but highlight it or leave a comment in the margin to remind yourself to review it later.
In revisions and editing, review every single word, every sentence, every paragraph, every scene. Make sure every word does its job.
If you’re playing a piano concerto by Mozart in Carnegie Hall, and you play it almost perfectly, only hitting a bad note every five or ten minutes, would you consider that a success?
On the other hand, if you’re writing in a deliberate manner, take the time to see if you have the right word. Consider your choices.
On the “other” other hand, don’t write (or edit) with a thesaurus at your side, constantly looking for the unusual word. Nobody likes to read a thesaurus.
Choose verbs that don’t need adverbs and nouns that don’t need adjectives. Why use two words if one good one will do the job better?
He ran quickly vs. He sprinted.
Her eyes had a shiny look vs. Her eyes glimmered.
Use active sentence construction rather than passive:
Passive: The sandcastle was washed away by the waves.
Active: The waves washed away the sandcastle.
The 10,000-hour and million-word rules
If you’ve never painted before, you wouldn’t decide one day to go out and buy oils, brushes, and canvases, start painting, and then try to show your artwork at a high-end gallery and sell your pieces to the public next week.
But: “I’ve read and written English all my life. I’ve read novels. I have stories in my head, so I’m going to become a writer. What else could I possibly need to know?”
Ten thousand hours of practice is a good rule-of-thumb for almost any endeavor. That’s how long it takes to build natural muscle memory.
All the different factors that go into writing, or any artistic endeavor, are too numerous to try to memorize or keep a list to check off as you learn each one.
They must become ingrained in your creative mind as habit. That takes about 10,000 hours of writing, in addition to reading and studying about writing.
Ten thousand hours is equivalent to writing forty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, for five years.
Some other ways I’ve heard the same concept explained:
Write four novels. Throw away the first three.
Write one million words. That’s roughly equivalent to the 10,000-hour rule. After you’ve written a million words, the skills and habits will become ingrained.
Summary
The tips and techniques discussed in this session barely scratch the surface of developing your authorial voice and your writing style.
That comes with practice and with writing, with getting in touch with the voice in your creative mind and finding the words to express yourself.
Wrapping up the writing coach series
In these twenty-six writing coach sessions combined (starting way back on March 25), we’ve covered a lot of territory, but we’ve barely scratched the surface of the art and craft of writing fiction.
These sessions have just been an introduction to a few of the basics of writing quality fiction to help you get started.
There’s so much more to learn, to practice, to master. There always is.
You don’t have to learn all of this stuff before you start writing. Quite the opposite. Start writing. Write now, right now.
No matter how much you study the art and craft of writing, how many books about the craft you read, how many great novels you read, how many courses you take, you will never be able to write until you start writing.
You may be amazed as you write to find how much you instinctively know about writing, how much you’ve absorbed through years of reading.
All the things you’ve written in your life — poetry, essays, school papers, work reports, short stories — you’ve been picking up pieces along the way that you may not even realize.
You may have picked up some bad habits along the way as well. Not necessarily bad writing, but writing styles and techniques that work well in one setting (a corporate report or a memo) that don’t work well in creative writing.
Yes, there is a lot learn, but writing will help you absorb the things you’ve learned and convert them into muscle memory while you continue your journey and learn new things.
And it’s that cycle of writing, learning, absorbing, writing some more, and learning some more that will unleash your authorial voice and unique writing style.
I hope you’ve come away from this series with some new knowledge, new techniques, and will use this to jump start your journey to become the writer you want to be.
Thank you for trusting me with your time and with this small step on your journey.
Happy writing (and rewriting, revising, and editing)!
Final exam
No, not for you. For me. Let me know if you’ve found this helpful, and if so, please share it with other writers.
Leave your feedback in the comments below or message me privately if you prefer.
All the articles are on my Substack site forever (or however long Substack lasts, I suppose), so you can always go back to review anything you want, or new subscribers can start at the beginning any time they want.
Next up
For the next few weeks, we’ll dive into analyzing and critiquing some works of fiction by our members. Details on how to participate will follow shortly.
I hope you’ll keep coming back every week to discuss writing and fiction and editing and all the stuff that goes with it.
If you have specific topics or questions you’d like me to explore on A Writer’s Block, let me know.