Your Unique Voice
It can be hard to talk about feelings, but that’s what I love about writing. Sometimes it’s easier and free to talk with a blank page. I say with because writing reflects your own thoughts without the overlay or the well-intentioned sympathy of others. It’s pure. It’s simple. It’s intimate.
When you write, if you write intimately, I believe you find deep satisfaction in the art. It gives your words their own unique voice. What you write has originality and energy without trying to sound intelligent, creative, or poetic. It carries a feeling tone that easily transfers to the reader.
Many of my students and clients write memoirs. It’s often easy to tell the difference between those that have written about an experience from those who have written from within the experience.
When you write from an experience, it is more likely that your reader will feel what you felt as you experienced the event. It becomes more relatable. When you write about the experience, the reader will receive the same information, but more likely the read will have the same effect as reading an article in the paper that tells us what has happened. It loses intimacy and most of us, I believe, skim the article to find the juice.
Writing from the experience keeps your reader engaged. As is with a memoir, the same can be achieved when writing a novel. If you get into the character’s experience and write from that perspective, your reader gets drawn in and becomes involved in the character and wants to find out more – thus a page-turner is achieved.
Example:
About – I could feel the tension building in my arms and shoulders as conditions worsened. I felt completely out of control.
Or
From – The tension was building in my arms and shoulders as if I were lifting 50 lb. weights. As the boat rose and fell, my stomach clenched and churned. I held on to the railing for dear life.
In which phrase did you feel what the character felt? It’s a small shift in your writing that goes a long way and builds intimacy with the character and therefore with your reader. Try it!
Enjoy.
Jasmyne
