Blogging

How Does a Blogger Find His Writer’s Voice?

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A writer’s voice is the writer’s individual style of combining vocabulary, syntax, diction, punctuation, structure, angles, approach, and various other storytelling techniques to convey his thoughts.

When it comes to finding one’s writer’s voice, how does a blogger do it?

There’s really only one way: to write. Often. And as regularly as possible.

I’ve seen many discussions about writer’s voice when it comes to blogging and what all of those discussions seem to have in common is a search for some long process, in as few steps as possible, of course, to “find” that voice.

But consider the artist: he can be influenced by other artists and even emulate some of his favorites as he applies brush to canvas. But until he begins doing so, his own artistic style won’t emerge because it isn’t defined without having been used in a composition.

It’s the same thing for writing: until you write, you don’t have a voice. Until you write often enough over a period of time to develop patterns that you feel work for you (and that hopefully work for your audience), you don’t have a voice.

To put it another way:

Your writer’s voice isn’t something you find. It’s something you develop.

Voice is something that you create as you go. Some opportunities for writing don’t necessarily lend themselves to the writer having a strong individual voice; if you’re writing for someone else, you may find yourself obliged to follow rigid guidelines about the presentation.

But your blog is a great opportunity to cultivate your voice, since it’s a place that’s uniquely you. (That’s assuming, incidentally, that you take another common piece of blogging advice: Your blog should be authentically you.)

A simple Google search produces plenty of suggestions on how to develop your writer’s voice. But they all boil down to one basic commonality: whatever little trick you employ, you still have to start writing to benefit from it.

So picture it like this: you’re having a telephone conversation with your best friend, a person you are truly “you” around, and you’re relaying a story about something that happened to you or something you’re passionate about.

If you were listening to a recording of what you were saying, what would you hear? How would you have said what you said? Would you have been straight to the point? Entertaining? Dry? Witty? Blunt?

If you could hear such a recording made when you didn’t know it was being made, how would you sound?

However you’d sound, that’s your writer’s voice.

Granted, with a blog, you have to decide how much of yourself you choose to filter, since you’re talking to friends and strangers alike. But as close as you can get to how you’d say it to a friend you value, whose presence you hope to keep and whom you hope to entertain in exchange for their having spent time with you, is how you’d write.

So don’t stress over it.

Stick with that simple plan and your voice will develop before you even realize it. And you’ll be able to sit down to write and manage authenticity with your voice before you even realize you’re doing it!

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.