One the challenges of accepting critiques and edits on your writing is the possibility that the feedback will rub out your writer’s voice along with your mistakes. Many times, feedback focuses less on weaknesses and errors, and more on the critique partners preferences. “This is how I’d do it,” isn’t a useful criticism. In an article for Writer’s Digest, Anat Deracine offers advice for how we can remain open to feedback and critiques, while still maintaining our unique voices.
What is your voice? “Not grammatical idiosyncrasies or sarcastic tone, but the sense of intimacy, of knowing that there’s someone behind these words on the page, someone who will tear off their mask and lay themselves bare,” Deracine says. That’s not something you want to silence. Here are her tips for finding and keeping your voice:
- To find your voice you need a child’s imagination. Create like you truly believe what you’re writing. “Voice allows you to suck a reader into a different world and keep them there,” Deracine says.
- Write as if everyone you know is dead. Accept feedback, but figure out the solution in your own way. “Every writer needs the sanctuary equivalent of singing in the shower,” Deracine writes. “If you’re too focused on publishing your work, writing becomes performance rather than expression.”
- Don’t avoid influence, just be intentional about it. You can’t avoid the writers and art that have influenced you, but you should recognize what you’re doing and make intentional choices. Pick the elements that inspire you and use them your own way. “If you don’t allow yourself to be influenced intentionally, you will be imitating unintentionally,” Deracine explains.
- You have more than one voice. “Practice writing in different voices, from various points of view,” Deracine suggests. “Read authors who have truly unique voices and try to continue scenes or write epilogues in that writer’s style. Expand your repertoire.”
- Focus on the character’s voice, not your own. Be sure you speak with your character’s voice, using language and concepts they would know and understand.
- Not every voice can survive a novel’s length. If you have characters who speak in an unusual way or with a distinct accent or dialect, consider adding other characters who are more accessible to your reader.
- Voice is about the truth. Don’t shy away from revealing your own experiences, history, and pain through your characters.
- Get out of the way. “Be the conduit for your characters, not their savior or translator,” Deracine says.
