Thursday, May 6, 2010

I has a Voice


One of the things agents and publishers look for in writing samples is the writer’s unique “voice” or style. It’s one of those things that can be summed up as, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

I just wrote the conclusion to my book, “The Pizza Diaries” which I was really a little worried wouldn’t work. I had my main character go through a lot of different genres, Horror, Fantasy, Quantum Physics Science Fiction, Time Travel Science Fiction, and Romance. When I combined them all at the end they merged with incredible ease, I was I little surprised.

It turns out I have developed my own distinctive voice that runs through my writing no matter what genre I’m writing in and that ties it all together. Even more surprising, for a few of the stories in the book I consciously tried to avoid writing in the style I had gotten used to and my “voice” was even stronger in that chapter.

It’s almost like writing several hours a day for the last couple years really improved my writing style and voice, go figure.

Darrell B Nelson author of Invasive Thoughts

1 comment:

Stephanie Barr said...

I always have my voice, too. I've had people comment that many of my stories are widely different but all unmistakably me. I had a creative writing teacher say it, too, once, but I'm not sure he meant it in a good way.

Oh, well. I'm glad it all came together for you.