Writing Voice

Writing Voice, from Writer’s Digest, tackles an elusive and endlessly discussed quality in writing: voice, the distinctive quality that makes a writer’s work recognizably their own and captures a reader’s attention. It gathers guidance on developing and strengthening a writer’s individual voice. What it addresses is the thing that distinguishes one author from another. The signature of style, perspective, and personality on the page, and how a writer can build it.

Most advice on voice boils down to telling a writer to go find it. That advice is worthless. A book that approaches voice as something a writer can deliberately develop is a welcome change. As a focused treatment of this elusive subject, it does a worthwhile job and gets a solid rating. Voice is notoriously hard to teach because it’s hard to define, so the book’s main service is making something writers usually wave at feel approachable and developable.

Making voice teachable

The book’s value is in treating voice as something a writer can develop instead of a mysterious gift one either has or lacks.

Voice is the quality that makes writing recognizably one author’s. It’s among the most prized and least concretely taught aspects of craft, usually discussed in vague and mystifying terms. A book that breaks it down into developable elements, the choices of style, rhythm, perspective, and personality that combine into a voice, offers real practical help.

It treats voice as something built through deliberate attention and practice instead of something innate. That gives a writer a way to work on something they’re usually just told to find. That demystifying, developmental approach to an elusive quality is the book’s main contribution.

The signature that holds attention

The deeper point the book serves is that voice is much of what captures and holds a reader’s attention and distinguishes memorable writing from competent but anonymous prose. Many writers can produce technically correct work, but it’s a distinctive voice that makes writing absorbing and recognizable, that gives it personality and draws a reader in, so developing one’s voice isn’t a finishing touch but a central element of becoming a writer worth reading.

The book’s focus on building that distinctive signature addresses something fundamental to a writer’s development and identity, helping a writer move beyond competent anonymity toward work that’s unmistakably and engagingly their own. That’s a worthwhile and important aim.

What are the weaknesses of Writing Voice?

The caveats reflect the difficulty of the subject. Voice is hard to teach, and even a good book on it can only do so much, since voice emerges from a writer’s own development, reading, and extensive practice more than from instruction; the book can guide and accelerate the process but can’t hand a writer a voice. Its treatment, like much writing about voice, also necessarily deals in somewhat abstract qualities that resist concrete rules, so it offers orientation and exercises more than formulas.

And as a focused guide, it covers voice and not the broader craft. I can’t fault it for that. Most guides skip voice entirely or wave at it for a page. This one does the hard work.

Is Writing Voice worth reading?

It’s a worthwhile, useful guide to one of writing’s most elusive and prized qualities: voice, the distinctive signature that makes a writer’s work recognizably their own and holds a reader’s attention. It gets a solid rating for treating voice as something a writer can deliberately develop instead of a mysterious innate gift, breaking it into teachable elements of style, perspective, and personality, and addressing something fundamental to a writer’s development that most guides barely touch.

It’s held from higher by the inherent difficulty of the subject, voice emerges largely from a writer’s own practice and reading more than from instruction, by the necessarily abstract nature of the material, and by its focus on voice alone. For a writer wanting to develop a distinctive voice instead of waiting to find one, it’s a helpful, demystifying guide. A book that admits voice is hard and still tries to teach it beats a dozen that pretend it’s magic.

Frequently Asked Questions