Quit Looking for Your Voice, You’ll Never Find It
How to re-imagine the age-old advice and hone your craft.
The brush opens at the mouth of a meadow, and there — just before the sun-bathed horizon — you see the guru you’ve been searching for. His bare body is dressed in a kinky beard, wrapped tight in the half-lotus position. His whisper, carried in the wind, rests on your ears.
“What have you come for, young pupil?”
Your beaty eyes reel back like curtains exposing an exhibit*-+9 of wonder. Your lower lip quakes.
“Sensei Goins, I wish to be a great writer like you.”
He thinks for a moment, letting the dramatized pause pull you closer in suspense.
“You must…”
Your ears are now radio antennas, rocketing up toward the satellite that is his soul and you listen impatiently.
“You must find your voice, young one.”
The heart that once drummed like Lars Ulrich in your chest halts; you’re broken. Those years of searching, hunger, and restlessness yielded nothing.
You were given the worst writing advice ever spoken: find your voice.
Seth Goins isn’t the only writer who preaches such advice. Hundreds of celebrities and organizations are constantly touting the antiquated wisdom, like here, here, here, here, and so many others. But what does it mean to find your voice?
What Does it Mean to Find Your Voice?
When someone says, “find your voice,” they’re addressing the way you sound on paper. E.B. White’s essays show White as a witty, hopeful, and profound orator that tells stories in a way that touches our hearts. David Sedaris’ voice is sardonic, crude, and contemplative. He appears in his work as a fly on the wall character, making jeering observations of the people around him. They’re both hilarious, but in incredibly different ways.
Having a voice of any kind is imperative in writing that attracts an audience and maintains them. Many say, and I would agree, that it’s the most important attribute a writer can have. The words you choose and the way you choose to use them often says more about you and the story than the sentences themselves. In narrative essays this is critical, especially when striving toward an impact, whether humorous or empowering.
As a reader, the act of consuming what someone created is intimate. You invite them into your favorite spaces and engage in a multi-hour conversation with the writer. We’ve all heard the saying, “People may not remember what you did, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.” And in the same way, after the book or story is over, they may not remember the sentences you wrote but how you made them feel. Voice is half that battle.
“Here’s the greatest piece of writing advice: write very opportunity you have — hone your voice. In doing this, you won’t magically stumble across a unique voice, rather become more aware of yours in its unique, unadulterated beauty.”
So, What’s Bad About the Advice?
The inherent flaw with the advice is the insinuation that voice is something you can find when you already have one.
When you sit down to write, your words are representative of your thoughts, and therefore embody your voice the same way your speech does. Your voice exists, there is no conquest to discover it.
The issue I’ve come across when receiving the advice is my obsession with finding one. There is no voice forest where wild voices grow, and anyone can show up and pick one. No voice outlet that sells voices that meet our understanding of life and the experiences that have molded us.
My voice, our voices, cannot be replicated. They exist nowhere else but within us.
What’s the Alternative?
While the advice is good-natured, it’s spouted by those who have “made it”. To them, I’m sure it’s easy to see their path to success and recognize a point at which they found their voice, but it never happened that quick. There was never one moment where it all clicked and they said, “Oh!” It’s months, years, or decades of honing the only voice they’ve ever had. Ages of mastering their craft.
Here’s the greatest piece of writing advice: write very opportunity you have — hone your voice. In doing this, you won’t magically stumble across a unique voice, rather become more aware of yours in its unique, unadulterated beauty.
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