What Does “Finding Your Voice” Really Mean?

The problem with ambiguous phrases is that nobody can really tell you what they actually mean. They cannot be pinned down, and the writer is left wondering what meaning readers will extract. “Finding your voice” is just one of the many wishy-washy concepts floating about.

If it wasn’t for the many respectable writers who keep bringing it up, this would normally be reason enough to dismiss the concept. But they do keep bringing it up. So against the advice of my internal bullshit detector, I’m going to consider the phrase.

My Objection

My problem with “finding your voice” is that it means many different things to many different people.

Is it “found” when a writer can communicate clearly? Or when their writing flows with ease? Is there an actual moment in time when it is “found”?

Ultimately, there is no answer.

Let’s say that you “find your voice” when your writing becomes individual and distinctive. I think that is a good place to start. It is achieved when readers feel that there is a real flesh-and-blood human behind the words, with arms, legs, a personality, and everything.

What Is A Written Voice?

In face-to-face communication, every person has a distinctive-sounding voice, their own accent. While a reader, reading your written words, may assume that you have a particular accent given the words and phrases that you use, they cannot know for certain. The fact is that the sound of your voice isn’t communicated in writing.

So what makes someone’s writing distinctive?

It’s the words they choose. It’s the way they use punctuation. It’s not the message itself, but the way that they communicate that message.

There are thousands of ways to say the same thing with written language. Person X’s writing is recognizable because of the way they communicate their message.

When Is This Voice Found?

You could say that all writers have already found their voices. However, that is completely unhelpful.

I think a writer finds their voice when there is a consistency to their writing.

New writers are unsure how to communicate their message. This often means that there is nothing consistently distinctive in their writing, no features that make their writing recognizable.

It’s not that there is nothing distinctive in their writing, but that the distinctive features aren’t used often enough and consistently enough to be recognized as part of a “voice”. The writings of an established writer will have common characteristics and traits that make it recognizable.

What Does This All Mean?

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. Does it really help for your writing to be distinctive? I cover this in my next post: Why Should I “Find My Voice”?