3 actionable systems for fiction writers to stop searching for their voice and start building it
3 very different writing systems from authors I admire.
There is no such thing as "finding your voice." At least not in the way you may think.
Writers spend years waiting to discover their unique voice, treating it like some magical revelation that will suddenly transform their writing. The truth is, your writing voice isn't something you find, it's something you deliberately build.
In this post, I'll share 3 concrete strategies that busy professionals can use to develop their authentic voice.
These techniques were taken from professional writers I admire. Rather than copying their technique, pick-and-choose what resonates with you the most.
What is voice anyways?
A consistent motivation for my writing has been finding my voice.
I wanted to see myself on the page, a unique style wholly my own. I believed my voice was like a raw diamond, an innate property I needed to polish and refine.
The reality is voice is something you do, more like a performance. Finding your voice requires figuring out what you can do and applying your abilities towards a goal guided by your tastes. What you can do will be personal to you, but it's less like finding a raw diamond, and more like building a house.
At first, It was difficult for me to understand that professional writers work intuitively. What we call style comes down to thousands of microdecisions the writer makes with their unconscious mind during the process of editing.
To operate intuitively requires dedicating yourself entirely to a particular method, entering a trancelike state where your unconscious mind has room to express itself.
System #1: The George Saunders Method (bottom-up)
George Saunders, the famous literary fiction author, on his Substack describes his writing process as thus:
Start by writing a draft of any length focusing on an idea that's interesting to you. It could be a character, a setting, a voice, whatever.
Don't edit any writing on the same day you've drafted it. The next day, print out the previous day's draft and edit it on paper with a pen.
Here George recommends beginner writers step away from the writing desk. To induce your mind into a calm diffusive state, he suggests washing the dishes as you gently consider the story.
Sit down at your computer, make a copy of your document and increment the version (for psychological safety). Now, get to work with your edits. He doesn't like to move on to the next section until the current section feels right.
Repeat until done.
George's technique is strongly connected to the work he produces.
His short stories are dense with meaning and style. You need to read them slowly in order to absorb it all. Because the meaning was put there by his unconscious mind, the reader must employ their unconscious mind to absorb it. It's only through literary analysis the conscious mind begins to understand what the subconscious has already felt during the reading of the story.
The editing process for him is completely intuitive. In his substack, he describes how the current draft needs to feel like it has causality and momentum before he adds a new section.
Essentially, he is building a story from the bottom-up, like lego blocks.
The bottom-up method will resonate with intuitive writers who seek literary accolades. Writers who derive enjoyment from editing and polishing the line-by-line experience of reading. The method will take time to work but it's certain to achieve results if applied consistently over a long period of time.
The "voice" will emerge as a preference at the line level for what sounds good.
System #2: The Brandon Sanderson Method (top-down)
Brandon Sanderson is a bestselling author most well-known for his epic fantasy series.
For example, the Stormlight Archives is a fantasy series with 10 planned novels with 5 released so far, with each book having over 1,000 pages. A project of this size requires a lot of effort to maintain continuity and a consistent magic system.
You should not be surprised to learn that Brandon Sanderson uses outlines to write his novels. His outlines span the entire series (at least in part), as character arcs will span multiple books with events being foreshadowed from one book to the next.
Like George, his books reflect his technique.
Brandon's books are often read quickly, commonly in audiobook form (probably at 2x speed), with the reader excitedly anticipating what will happen next. Literary analysis is not needed to understand why readers enjoy his stories. The characters are compelling, have real heart, and the world building is cool.
In his YouTube course, Brandon talks about how every story begins with a cool magic system.
The cool magic system gets expanded into an outline. It's similar to George with the difference being the whole story is designed from the top-down.
When it comes to making an outline, you make a conscious choice in terms of tone, atmosphere, theme, and voice. While in the bottom-up method these are emergent properties of revision. The major advantage is you can test your enthusiasm for several ideas by creating outlines for them, if something isn’t cool and exciting in the outline, it will be even worse as prose, trust me.
A good outline will make you excited to do the work needed to achieve the emotions you are targeting.
System #3: The Anne Lamott Method (half-and-half)
Most people will fall somewhere in between these two extremes.
Which is why I will give a notable mention to the "shitty first draft" technique. You write the entire story start to finish without editing.
The shitty first draft functions as an outline. Yet, is arrived at in an intuitive way. In a way, it splits the difference between the two techniques. Anne Lamott describes this method in her book Bird by Bird. Stephen King describes a similar method in his book On Writing.
What's appealing about this technique is you get the best of both worlds. The initial draft is treated like a received object from the subconscious. The next draft, written from memory, is guided by feedback, from others and yourself. Because each draft is done by memory, it’s still guided by the unconscious.
This technique encapsulates the reality of finding your voice. Writing must become an intuitive act guided by quick decisions without overthinking. But, we are not born as writers. The instincts are acquired through deliberate effort.
We arrive at the central paradox. How do you try not to try to write?
It's a paradox because it cannot be resolved.
It's telling how George Saunders's method of pure intuition is paired with decades of experience studying and teaching literature as a professor at Syracuse University. I believe George has internalized the rules of literature in a deep way.
For us mortals, we can only attempt an imperfect copy. Train your mind consciously to appreciate good writing, to think deeply about your work and the feedback you receive.
Then you hope like hell some of that will show up on the page.
P.S. I wrote a similar article on the subject here. I wanted to approach it from a slightly different angle and I do like this version a bit more. If you read the previous article, what do you think?