You’ve written, and rewritten and now your work is grammatically correct, the prose is as close to perfect as it will ever be, but something is missing. Why doesn’t it sparkle the way it should? Why do readers react with less enthusiasm than you expected? Why doesn’t the work sing like the stories written by your favorite authors? Most likely, it’s because you haven’t found your true voice.

Voice is the one element no one can teach you. You won’t find any writing rules about voice, nor will you discover your voice by reading a book, or even in this article. However, there is help to streamline your journey of self-discovery. The tips below will guide you around muddy waters and keep you on course through your voyage.

Packing for the Trip

As you would prepare for any extended adventure, you must also prepare for this journey. Grammar, punctuation, the fundamentals of writing, must all be understood. Without these skills, the water will be very muddy indeed. Should you be a master? That depends on who you are and what you want to write, but a good working knowledge is a must. E.B. White and Strunk’s The Elements of Style is a wonderful resource and should be kept handy at all times.

Armed for your quest with these weapons, you can safely pass through the departure gates and begin serious pursuit of your elusive voice. Perhaps you’ll venture into the wold of critique groups or enter the arena of literary workshops and classes. No matter how you discover the craft or who teaches you, in the end, there is only you, the story, and the reader. Each is as important to the other.

Which Route Will You Travel?

To map your passage, you must first know where your talent lies. This can be found in the books on your keeper shelves. What do you like to read? Pick five of your favorite novels and copy the mini-synopsis from the jackets. As you work, look at the elements they share. Is there suspense in all five? Is there romance, fantasy, horror? Do the authors have more than one protagonist, more than one antagonist? Study these novels carefully, they are an important clue to your voice.

Next, check the writing itself. Do these authors write mostly in first, third, or the difficult second person? Chances are, whichever format you read, it’s an indication of what you’ll be comfortable writing. Now that you’ve found the themes that most appeal to you, the format in which you are most comfortable, and have a good basic understanding of the mechanics of writing, you’re ready to look at your audience.

Who do you write for? If the stories you’re interested in appeal to teen readers, then study recent releases targeted for that audience. If the novels you appreciate are targeted to a mainstream audience, study the upcoming authors in the genre you’ve designated as your own. A search of online book sellers will give you a wide variety of mini-synopses to study. By understanding who we are writing for, we can choose words and plots that appeal to those readers, and subsequently, ourselves.

We’ve now strengthened our armory to include genre, market, and style. Write a one sentence description of your results. “I write horror in the first person for teenagers.” Or, “I write romance in the third person for Christian adults.” Understanding who you are as a writer is one of the biggest step in finding your voice.

Plumbing Our Depths

The next leg of our journey will take you inside yourself. Stream-of-consciousness writing is a necessary exercise for any author who wishes to fully comprehend their voice. When we write without concern for the mechanics, we free the voice locked within us. As with a toddler, these first steps will be awkward, shaky, and we may land on our derrieres, but as with a child, the more often we use those muscles, the stronger we become.

Close your eyes while writing to resist the temptation to change your instinctual word flow. A person who is blind will develop their other senses to make up for the loss of sight. A writer who closes their eyes, will focus less on the words, and more on the content. This will help you dig deep within yourself and create characters who are vivid, emotionally complex, and believable.

Don’t be afraid to insert yourself into your writing. Your voice is a combination of skill, style, and the unique qualities only you can bring to the page. Every experience you’ve had, every memory percolating in your mind, is an unequaled gift which defines you as a writer. Fear of pouring yourself into a story will weaken the work, deprive it of the necessary oxygen to breathe, and leave the characters and plot flailing for substance.

Cruising with the Current

Each author has a rhythm, a beat, that accompanies what they write. This is usually called flow within the writing world. Your rhythm will be unique to you. If you find yourself drowning in a sea of doubt, this will throw you off beat. Listening to books on audio is an interesting way to find your own cadence. Your local library will likely have a wide variety of authors to choose from. Find a few which appeal to you, and if you can, find an audio version of one of the five books you chose above.

When you listen to the words read aloud, concentrate on the tempo, the cadence, for half an hour. Begin writing immediately. More often than not, you’ll start with the rhythm you just heard, but after a few minutes, your internal beat will take over. Now you’ve discovered your flow.

As we round the last bend in our journey, we must reflect on the souvenirs we’ve collected throughout the voyage. We know the themes, the style, the market, the beat in which we are most comfortable writing, and have learned how to free our voice by stream-of-consciousness writing. The end is in sight.

Believing the Compass

Our last major hurdle is confidence. Nothing detracts from our authorial self-esteem more than fearing rejection, and this obstacle is the hardest to overcome. A sailor navigates with a compass, either a mechanical device, or by the north star. He does not work on instinct alone. It is not “I think I am a writer, therefore I am,” it is, “I believe I am a writer, therefore I am.” Faith in your instincts and trusting your inner compass are your allies as we near the end of our voyage.

In the beginning I said you would not find your voice by reading a book, or this article. The only true way to discover your voice is by writing, writing, and writing more. Your challenge now, is to write a throw-away tale. Work fast and furiously on something you have no intention of publishing, or showing another soul. The longer this work is, the more you’ll discover about yourself and your abilities. Pour yourself into the work, use everything you know, take chances, take risks, but give yourself the freedom to be yourself.

Once finished, you may change your mind and decide it’s worthy of pursuing seriously, but for the interim, consider it your athletic club, someplace to exercise before a public appearance.

How will you know when you’ve found your voice? There isn’t any have-I-found-my-voice test you can take, but there is a saying that the process is like falling in love--when it happens, you’ll know. It is literally as if a switch is thrown inside you and voila!, you have a voice. Once discovered, your voice is a hardy thing, it will never leave you, only become stronger. This voyage to voice is by no means simple. The destination is only the beginning. Once there, a whole world will open to you. The possibilities are endless, and thrilling.