The Writer’s Voice: An Unconventional Definition

A writer’s voice is that often intangible yet unmistakable something that defines the author’s work. Like literary DNA, it is as unique and complex as a fingerprint. Syntax, diction, dialog, and punctuation are combined with characterization techniques, scene delivery, and other stylistic elements and then distilled into an elixir that lets us see the world through the writer’s eyes.

But there is more to it than that.

The way a writer uses words to shape a story is only the tip of the iceberg. The true essence of a writer’s voice lies far beneath the surface. It is less craft and more courage – less ink and more blood. The text on the page is nothing more than the corporeal manifestation of the very spirit that drives the writer to write. The true voice of a writer is the nameless fire that burns inside, turning up the heat, licking at mind and heart until it becomes unbearable to wait even a single moment longer before putting pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard.

This.

This is the voice you need to listen to.

This is the voice you need to release into the world.

Like your words on the page, this inner voice, this internal fire is yours and yours alone. It may share certain aspects of other writers’ voices, but its particular alchemy cannot be replicated. It came into the world with you and was shaped – violently, subtly, irrevocably – by the journey of your life. Every story you consumed, every experience you enjoyed or endured, every doubt and dream and question became part of your writer’s voice.

Like the audible voice of a singer, a writer’s voice can lie silent for a long time before bursting into the world. And like the singer’s instrument, the writer’s voice must be trained. It must be opened up. Before a singer can perform, she must ground herself, find her stance, and learn to breathe properly. She must be practiced in the art of listening, and willing to spend hours rehearsing a single note, over and over again. Before a singer can let loose with her song, she must find clarity and develop confidence. She must learn the art of interpretation so that she can make every song her own.

So it is with a writer’s voice.

Your voice is not only how you tell your story, it is the story you choose tell. The story you must tell. It is the reason you write. It is the fiery truth that burns in your heart. Your writer’s voice is not merely a matter of grammar and word choice. It is the ache to know, to understand, and to connect. It is, perhaps, the reason you are here at all. Each of us has something to say, something to share. Each of us has a piece of the puzzle that is life. Dancers dance, singers sing, painters paint, parents parent, lovers love, and you – you write with your irrepressible, inimitable writer’s voice.

This is your story. This is your responsibility. Do not stay silent for too long.

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If you’d like to, you can listen to this post.

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Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

Image Credit: Navy Blue Stripes

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Why we write – a novel answer

Do you know why you write?

Not the tactical, logical, left-brain reason; but the deep down, can’t-ignore-this-thing, totally irrational reason.

Do you?

Perhaps you don’t need to know why you write. Maybe you are content to take direction from your muse without questioning her motives. You may find exploration of the driving forces behind your work irrelevant.

That’s your prerogative, BUT …

If you unearth the underlying energy that fuels your need to put words down, you can harness that power to infuse your writing with more passion and purpose. Understanding why you are compelled to pick up a pen or set your fingers racing across the keyboard can bring you a higher level of clarity and confidence. It can help you define and prioritize your writing. It can give you direction.

I have often wondered about the “why” behind my own urge to write. I’ve constructed several hypotheses, but have never found the answer that settled into place with a satisfactory ‘click.’

Until now.

I found my click in Letters to a Young Novelist – a slim tome that had crossed my radar a few times, but never piqued my interest enough to prompt a purchase. Instead, it languished on my Amazon Wishlist as a possible future read. However, while Christmas shopping at my favorite indie bookstore, a paperback copy of this unassuming little book found its way into my stack of gifts. It was the last copy, and it was on sale. Merry Christmas to me.

In the days following the holiday chaos, I managed to carve out a few hours of peaceful solitude. Curling up on my couch with a mug of herbal tea and the twinkling tree lights for company, I began to read. As you might imagine, Letters to a Young Novelist is written as a series of letters from a fictional author to an aspiring young novelist. Mario Vargas Llosa’s imagined correspondence attempts to convey the inner workings of the literary novel, imparting wisdom one idea and one letter at a time. The various concepts are illustrated by a great many examples (many of which, I must admit, flew high over my head).

There are many gems to be mined from Letters, but it was this passage that made me say, “Oh!” out loud.

What is the origin of this early inclination, the source of the literary vocation, for inventing beings and stories? The answer, I think, is rebellion. I’m convinced that those who immerse themselves in the lucubration of lives different from their own demonstrate indirectly their rejection and criticism of life as it is, of the real world, and manifest their desire to substitute for it the creations of their imaginations and dreams.

 

Rebellion?

I had never thought about it that way, but when I did it made perfect sense. Llosa writes about a “basic questioning of reality.” I’ve always felt that one of the reasons I write is to figure things out, to learn. I’ve always known that insatiable curiosity is a must-have attribute for any writer, but I’d never made the connection between curious questioning and its obvious counterpart – an inability to accept things as they are.

Looking at my writing – both already penned and as yet unwritten – in the context of this idea, it was suddenly easy to pick out the recurring themes that threaded themselves through my story ideas. Likewise, a quick survey of the books nestled in my many bookcases revealed similarly obvious patterns. Eureka – I have found it!

As you embark on a new year of writing, let me ask you this: Do you know what your writing rebellion is about? 

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What your writing is missing and how to get it

Writers love to write. We love the idea of writing, the act of writing, and talking about writing. We love the instruments of writing – pens, notebooks, software, clickety-clackety keyboards. We love the history and ephemera of writing – pithy quotes from beloved authors, old-fashioned typewriters, and musty smelling books that stand as testament to the labors of writers who have gone before us. We love the process of writing, the dance with the muse, putting all the pieces together.

But, why do we write? 

This question keeps popping into my head as I sit in my writing class. Even as I savor the atmosphere and drink in delicious new ideas and insights, a small voice in the back of my head keeps asking, “Why?”

Perhaps this voice is speaking up on behalf of resistance. Though I am excited to be learning new things about the writing craft, this new knowledge is also daunting. It reveals to me the enormity of what I do not know – everything that sits below the waterline, hiding beneath the tip of the iceberg on which I perch with my pen and notebook. So, the little voice asks, “Why?” It whispers that I shouldn’t expend so much energy without knowing why I’m making such an effort – all those hours, all that study, all the work of getting it wrong, and wrong, and wrong, and finally somewhat right.

And I don’t have a ready answer.

Simon Sinek, in his now famous TED^x talk preaches that you must start with the why. According to his “golden circle,” “why” is at the center, followed by concentric rings of “how” and “what.” But, we writers often get caught up in the how (our craft) and the what (our book) and lose sight of our why – our purpose. Sinek says of purpose, “… a true sense of purpose is deeply emotional, it serves as a compass to guide us to act in a way completely consistent with our values and beliefs. Purpose does not need to involve calculations or numbers. Purpose is about the quality of life. Purpose is human, not economic.” He is usually talking in the context of business, but the same can apply to your writing. What is your deeply emotional “why?” What serves as your compass? How do your values and beliefs weave themselves into the fabric of your stories?

When you write with purpose, you are a better writer. 

I do many kinds of writing. I journal, blog, write marketing copy, and am starting to get more serious about my fiction practice. The work I am most proud of is the work that is driven by a purpose. I have written letters to the editor that I hold more dear than a forty-page ebook or a branding framework that took three months to develop. I wrote letters to the editor because I was on a mission for one thing or another. I was trying to take a stand, make something happen. I cared, deeply, about the outcome.

Do you care about the outcome of your writing? Do you even know what you want it to be?

Over on my business blog, I recently wrote a post called The real secret of doing what you love. I confessed that I don’t love my work. It’s true. I don’t. But, I do love the people I help through my work, and I love the outcome of our partnership. I get excited about the purpose my work serves. My friend and colleague Craig McBreen also recently wrote about this in his post, Passion ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. He also believes that having a purpose or a mission is more important than having passion.

You know you have a passion for writing, but what’s your purpose for writing?

Think about your favorite fictional characters. They have amazing stories because they have a great sense of purpose or a mission to fulfill. Frodo in Lord of the Rings, Katniss in The Hunger Games, Harry Potter … they all have a reason – a “why” – behind what they do. The drive of that why, that purpose, creates the conflict that makes a good story.

Is there conflict in your life story?

What dragon are you fighting? What are you trying to prove? Who are you trying to rescue?

Writing is not easy work. If you are going to embark on this journey, pen in hand, you need something that will keep you going far along the road. You need something that will push you forward when you hit rock bottom, inspire you when you feel all is lost, pull you up when you just want to sink down and cry. You need a purpose – a why.

You have a deep, impassioned reason behind your desire to write. Find it.

• Ask yourself “why?” over and over again like a five year-old child. Be persistent. Dig for the real answer.
• Write the words “I believe…” on a piece of paper and then finish the sentence. Repeat the process until you hit on something that stops you in your tracks.
• Look at your heroes. What do they stand for? What are their whys?
• Read your own stories. What themes come up again and again?
• Think back to when you began writing. What inspired you to pick up the pen the first time?

Finding your why will change your writing. When you know why you write, you’ll know what to write and you’ll know how you want to write it. You’ll bring more of yourself to the page, so you’re writing will be more alive. You will inject your passion with purpose – and that, my friends, is an unstoppable combination.

So, why do you write? 

 

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

Image Credit: Mike Rastiello

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The business of writing

How do you start a writing career?

This was the question that inspired my recent interview with the wonderfully enthusiastic and ebullient Monica Magnetti of Luna Coaching. Monica has an online radio show on Voice America called Brand Your Fire – Get What You Want. She interviews a wide variety of guests, providing her listeners with a look inside the creative process, business acumen, and life philosophies of people who hail from all walks of life. I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by her along with my Savvy Sisters from Savvy B2B Marketing, so I was delighted when she asked me to come back for a solo interview on one of my favorite topics: writing.

In this one hour conversation, we talk about when to call yourself “writer,” how I got started, how I took my passion from hobby to career, the discipline of writing (what works for me anyway!), business development, and more. A chat with Monica is always full of fun and laughter, so there’s plenty of that as well.

I hope you’ll click on over and check it out. You can find the archived interview on Monica’s Voice America channel. You can listen online via a streaming feed, or download the MP3.

I hope you like it!

Listen Now. 

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

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A writer’s heart

Why do you write?

What small yet untamed beast lives inside you, driving you to put down the words?

I am a writer, but I am not the writer I want to be. Each time someone asks me what I do, my writer’s heart dies a little death when I answer that I am a writer, but then have to explain that I’m not that kind of writer. “No,” I say, “I don’t write books. I blog, publish the occasional print piece, and mostly make my living writing marketing copy.”

Of all the things you can do in this world, why write? Writing is not easy. It does not typically bring fame or fortune. People often look at you funny when you say you are a writer, and your brain is never truly at rest.

So, why write?

Simple.

Love.

Stop laughing and, please, no eye rolling.

Love is the only possible explanation. Not so much for commercial writing, but certainly for creative writing. Each word we write is an expression of our love for the world, life, nature, humanity. Whether we are writing an essay, a blog post, a poem, a story, or a novel – each piece we create is a proclamation, a confession of the heart.

And that’s why it’s so damn scary.

When you love something so much, there is a part of you that would rather see it dead, than subjected to cruelty, disappointment, or pain. There is a part of you that would prefer to keep your story pristinely unmade, rather than risk destroying its perfection by creating it.

I have been writing for my whole life. I began journaling when I was seven years old. Though my practice has fluctuated with the uneven rhythms of my life, I have never stopped putting words down. Three-and-a-half decades of words, but it is only in the past three years that I have shared any of them. Though I now earn my living as a professional writer, I am still only taking baby steps towards owning my work, my beast.

Because, you remember, I am not the writer I want to be. I hold her hostage, in a high tower of doubt and fear. And while the writer-I-would-be languishes in her protective prison, my feet-on-the-ground, commercial writer walks free. She crafts her product and collects her respectable paychecks. She is pragmatic and slightly smug. She is, after all, bringing home the bacon. She is pulling her weight. She is living in the real world.

And yet …

… and yet sometimes I feel an unbearable ache to tear all of this away, to stop inhabiting the skin of this almost-writer. I have an urge to recklessly lay it all on the line, gamble the whole thing. I want to stop contaminating the words of my heart with the words of commerce. I want to divert my life force back into the stories that sing through my mind, instead of siphoning that energy off to feed the machine of business.

But, I don’t.

It’s not just that I have a living to make and a daughter to provide for. It is my heart that stays my hand – my writer’s heart, full to overflowing with love for the world, the stories, and the craft. “What if you fail?” it asks. What if I fail? What if I cannot do justice to this love, but only mar it with imperfect words? Would the story be better off dead than maimed and mutilated in my inept hands?

No. Emphatically, no.

No one else can tell my story. No one else inhabits my world.  No one else can even dream of bringing this love into the light, except for me. If I stumble, I will find someone to help me back on my feet. If I lose my way, I will find someone to guide me back to the path. If I lose hope, I will find someone to believe in me more than I believe in myself.

That is what’s in the writer’s heart – a story all her own; the drive to bring it to life; and a sometimes fragile, sometimes ferocious hope that the journey will end with happily ever after.

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who, among other things, works as a marketing strategist and copywriter. She helps creative entrepreneurs (artists, writers, idea people, and creative consultants) discover their “natural” marketing groove so they can build their business with passion, story, and connection. She also blogs. A lot. She is a mom, a singer, and a dreamer who believes in small kindnesses, daily chocolate, and happy endings. Look her up on facebook or follow her on twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

Image Credit: Luke Hayfield

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Need to inject some passion into your writing? Slam, baby.

Fellow NHWNer, Wendy Thomas, recently shared a video on Facebook that came as close to literally knocking me off my feet as any video I’ve ever watched. In three-and-a-half minutes, one woman – alone on a stage, with nothing but her own words to sway me – drew me through most of the major emotions including anger, outrage, grief, and hope. I cried, I laughed, I stood up and cheered.

The artist was a woman by the name of Kate Makkai and the venue was the 2002 National Poetry Slam. The piece she performed was called “Pretty.” Prior to watching this video, I had never experienced slam poetry and was only marginally aware of this dynamic art form. Slam is a kind of “street” poetry that taps into the raw stuff of life in a way that can be shocking. Slam poets do not pull punches. There isn’t an Emily Dickenson in the lot. Slam poets go for the jugular every time – telling it like it is in words that strip away pretense and pride.

As writers, our goal is to connect with our readers. We use our words to manipulate emotions, broaden perspectives, and inspire change. To succeed, we have to bring our writing to life. Words that lie on the page like a catch of cold, dead fish aren’t going to cut it. If you want to touch your reader’s heart, your words need to plug directly into the central artery system. They need to be the right words, delivered in the right way.

If your writing needs an infusion, I recommend taking a journey into the world of slam poetry. Start with Kate’s piece and then see where it leads you. I know I was inspired to dig deeper after watching her work. I hope you are, too.

 
Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who, among other things, works as a marketing strategist and copywriter. She helps creative entrepreneurs (artists, writers, idea people, and creative consultants) discover their “natural” marketing groove so they can build their business with passion, story, and connection. She also blogs. A lot. She is a mom, a singer, and a dreamer who believes in small kindnesses, daily chocolate, and happy endings. Look her up on facebook or follow her on twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

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