The Voice

Happy Monday to you all!

As a quick note I want to thank Anne C. for welcoming me to the blogging world! Thank you very much for visiting my blog, Anne. I read the Canadian Writers' Collective every day and enjoy hearing about and sharing the experiences of other writers.

I thought I would talk about the writer's voice today.

All writers sound different and approach their work differently and that's what makes writing so fascinating.

And it never fails to impress me how versatile writers can be. Writers can go from creating government documents to short fiction to poetry without missing a beat. It's true that every writer has their strengths and weaknesses as far as certain writing styles, but I am still amazed at how different the same writer can sound.

I write high tech documents, children's fiction, poetry, short stories and I'm hoping to break into the magazine writing world as well. I thoroughly enjoy writing for all of these different industries and I think writing for diverse clients makes me a better writer overall.

But my voice is still prevalent in all of my work and I have certainly seen this with other authors as well.

I can tell, for example, that J.K Rowling wrote all of her Harry Potter series. There is a certain style that is throughout her writing that is unmistakable (and I find her writing skill impressive to say the least!). So despite the fact that writers need to be flexible there is also a voice that remains true throughout their work.

I liken it to painters and their styles. Picasso, for example, may have painted a realistic or abstract form, but he would have chosen certain colours and used certain brush strokes that were characteristic of him and no one else. His style would have come through no matter what type of work he was doing.

Writers do the same with words. Sentence construction, phrases and terminology all leave an essence of the mind behind the work. This is all unconscious of course and the voice comes with experience and time and confidence.

I will continue this discussion next Monday and explore the voice that emerges in a mature writer.

I will leave you all with this quote which is one of my personal favourites, "Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark place where it leads," Erica Jong.