Life is a collection of experiences, and those experiences shape our voices. Our voice is our personality, our humor, and our relatability. This is everything in storytelling.
I find humor in life. When something can be seen through the lens of humor I will go there. If I have an experience that is embarrassing but can help tell the story I will put it in. This is my experience and understanding of myself.
What I can’t do is be someone else’s voice. My style isn’t going to mimic great writers from long ago. Although I have tried to do an impersonation of Shakespeare stubbing his toe. My audience was expecting an oratory of pain and discomfort. All I said was, “Ouch,” in a British accent.
On paper gimmicks like that don’t work. That’s an in-person joke. I doubt I would ever attempt to write a joke for publication that relied on my attempt to do an accent. What this does point out is that while writing we need to read aloud our words to hear how they sound. Zinsser says, “read what you’ve written aloud and see if you like the sound of your voice.”
This Shakespeare joke may be a bit of a stretch for hearing our writing voice. But not really. If you are a new writer putting pen to paper, or typing away on the keys of the keyboard, you need to hear what you sound like. Your internal voice sounds much different than that of your out loud voice.
Writing this I read through this piece no less than two times. Each time I said “ouch” with a British accent. But seriously, I found holes in my writing. I found mistakes that needed to be fixed. I found better words that gave my writing my personality.
Being able to recognize and write in our voice is, as Angira Dowerah says in 7 Best Social Media Skills That You Must Practice, “This is by far the significant trick to add to your social media writing skills.” I only have my voice to write in, I’m glad I hear it.
Reference
Dowerah, Angira (2024, February 1) 7 Best Social Media Writing Skills That You Must Practice https://iimskills.com/social-media-writing-skills/
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