Cow Manure and Gremlins: Why You Should Stop Writing for Trends and Trust Your Writing Voice

Dear You, Please Stop Trying to Sound Like Everyone Else

Ask any of my friends, and they will agree with a unanimous vote: I LOVE to troll everyone.

And I mean everyone, including my readers.

Nothing makes me happier than instilling sarcasm throughout my work whenever I can, because, well, it's me. My novel literally starts with a metaphor on cow manure.

The fear that writers often face (including myself) is whether our voice is too much, whether it's not enough, whether we're being too bold in a land of macho shadow men with their dainty-but-strong heroines. You might think, "Hey, that's how they're making the big bucks!"

Here's the big sloppy pickle juice of it all: you risk fading into the background if you tone down your own voice to fit the current mold of market trends. You become replaceable, a has-been without ever having been.

Or worse, you shapeshift your writing voice so much that you attract the wrong audience. If you start writing fast-paced adventure stories with too-serious characters, you could get stuck with an audience that expects that from you. And if you can't stand the thought of not tossing in a "hehe, cow poop," then I fear for the loss of your magnificent voice, because there is absolutely a hoot-and-a-half of an audience that wants to read that from you. Don't steal their future favorite book before they have the chance to read it! Your writing voice matters.

This Sounds Weird. What Exactly is a Writing Voice?

Ah, writing voices. This is the part where you're probably thinking, "Yes, Leah, please explain how I should get this legendary writing voice."

Unfortunately, your writing voice is not something you can copy. Why? Well, it's you. See the theme?

Think about the way you text your friends. Do you prefer a "haha" or an LOL? And even further, if you like a good laugh-out-loud, do you capitalize it or keep it lowercase (lol). Do you use emojis? And if you do, do you use the true laughing emoji or a skull face (e.g., I'm "dead")? Are you a punctuation person? Side note: Please don't actually tell me you're a fan of using periods in texts, or I will cry. Exclamation points, only.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even with those questions, you can already see how the way you text is completely unique from the way your friend texts or the way a family member texts. In fact, I bet your closest people would know if you were kidnapped based on the way your kidnapper texts them (aka, not the way you normally text).

Say it with me now: Because it's your VOICE!

The same idea applies to writing a novel. Your story might have a killer plot, but only you can tell it. Your manuscript is going to have bits of your soul dashed all throughout that epic tale about Gerald, the overlooked Dung Beetle, who saves the world with his poop pile. If you and I both wrote the story about Gerald, they would be completely different takes. It all depends on things like word choice, sentence structure, story pacing, and tone. Your unique formula of these writing style elements is how you stand out as a writer.

How to Find Your Writing Voice as a Writer

I wish I could say, "Hey, you! Your writing voice is underneath that rock over there!"

Spoiler: It's not. There's an old saying about leaving no stone unturned, but they didn't mean literally.

When it comes to finding your writing voice, you have to simply write. Write that story about Gerald without editing yourself, and see how you would tell the story. Get it all out on paper with every cow poop and wayward gremlin joke included (or if you prefer the all-serious characters, throw a ton of those in there to counter Gerald). Go with what feels natural, because that's where you are going to find: you.

When I started writing my first draft (many, many iterations ago), I brain dumped an entire scene onto paper the way I would normally say everything out loud. This eventually shaped my narrator voice. It also determined how I wanted to structure my novel and the overall pacing.

But you know what I didn't remove? The sarcastic retorts from my protagonist, the silly narrator interruptions, or even my use of "eff-ing." When I go back and read all of the weirdo elements of mine that I kept, it makes me so happy. I never want to trim or soften what I love most about my story, and neither should you.

In fact, when I recently let my best friends read the first 5,000 words of my novel, my voice was what they loved most. The things I kept—the things that I was most proud of—were exactly the things they pointed out.

And I come with receipts! Here are some of the texts I got back:

Go Write and Trust Your Writing Voice

My final parting words are to go out there, be messy, write the draft that makes you laugh, cry, and throw the computer across the room. Write YOUR story, the version only you can tell. And then send it to me, because I definitely want to read it.

xx LC