I remember when I first started to write fiction, I didn’t know if I was writing properly but as fate/luck/whatever would have it I did a 10 week creative writing course. This was my first introduction to hearing different voices or styles of writing.
Now, I hear you say, duh, didn’t you read any fiction at all? Hello?!
Yes, I did but, call me slow, I didn’t make the connection. (Even though English is my primary language I barely scraped a pass at O Level English Language and failed – head held in shame – my O Level English Literature – I didn’t understand the books we had to read. Anyway, this was sometime last century and at last, anyway, back to what I was saying…)
Then I heard the writing voices of other writers in our creative writing group. Brain still clicking away there.
Bit by bit, I made the connection that each writer has a unique style of writing. And by a process of slow (years…) deduction began to realise that there, possibly, was nothing wrong with my own writing. Well, nothing that a little editing or tidying up (which I learnt on another course) wouldn’t make the writing look more professional.
In conclusion, your writing voice is perfect even if you don’t notice it when you start writing. In fact, the more you write, the clearer it becomes. You can see your own style, your unique writing voice, emerge. And when you read work you did sometime ago, you’ll find out that it was always there all along.
