Finding your writer's voice

What is a writer's voice?  I was reminded of this when editing my friend Carol Westron's novel About the  Children.  Her novels deal with difficult issues, but often with slices of what I'd describe as sly humour slid into them.  My own style is generally more serious, but characters can often have a wry take on life.  In Eyemind these are Triip, the telepath Intel officer, and Jarrin with her butterfly cheek tattoo to make her unattractive to men. But I'd never make an out and out comedy writer, I simply don't see the world in that sideways way.  But my friend Eileen Robertson does, and her books are some of the most amusing cosy comedy crime you will ever read.

What is it that makes us all so different?  At base, voice is about the things you choose to focus on in your stories, and the way you tell them.

Voice consists of a large number of things.  Some of these are:

- the words you choose: vocabulary, adjectives, degree of formality

- how sentences are structured : short/long, active/passive, choice of tense

- how images are used, including metaphors and similes

- the rhythm of the writing: punctuation, alliteration, sentence length 

- the tone of the writing : sad, droll, serious, funny.

With so many variables to choose from, it's no wonder that the same story told by two different writers turns out totally different.  It is what makes us unique and creative individuals, and it is a pity when publishers want a new author to be like some established writer.  The truth is we are each unique creative packages, and our quest must be to have our uniqueness honoured by the world.