Like many writers, I fall into a rut and question my sense of voice. I am a big believer in "the medium is the message" rather than the importance coming from the message itself. And the medium of writing is so much more than the story or message being told, it's about the soul behind it and the way you convey that passion to others. Studying communications in university I've found that language goes so much farther than merely reporting on and depicting facts of a story. It's realizing your responsibility and power to create meanings by making words into worlds. It's thinking about how a story is changed by the means in which it is told.
And so in trying to give birth to my own voice, I look for inspiration by other greats. More often than not however this ends up turning sour as I merely end up duplicating their voice. And while imitating these styles is inspiring and helpful at times with stirring ideas, it is also rather destructive. Like actors who fall head first into their character role, as time goes on I have a hard time distinguishing my voice from that of my mentor and the setting I am creating. I begin to lose my sense of self. Coming out of this daze, I begin to feel self conscious that I wasn't meeting the standard of a great author because I was equating my worth to my ability to mimic. My ability to be like them. Slowly but surely I start to question my own abilities as a writer.
I know I'm not the only one out there who is hung up on writing because of lack of confidence. There are a lot of great writers out there, and these are competitive times we live in trying to get people to give a shit about your voice with all of the white noise novels coming out these days. But to to all of you out there struggling along like me in a generation full of so much brilliance: be conscious of why you write and how you write, but don't let that stop you from putting your soul into words that other people can read. Don't let early critical analysis nip you prematurely in the bud. Stop thinking and feel--because there are enough people out there over-thinking their work and trying to be like the greats and not enough people putting that raw energy into their writing. Just remember that your story is just as valid as Wilde's, Fitzgerald's, or Hemingway's and that they too had to follow in the footsteps of giants. Your story is valid--it's just in a different style. Keep plugging along and remember that someone out there is waiting for you to speak to them in a language they didn't know anyone else understood. They are waiting for your voice to speak through them. They are waiting to emulate you.
This actually reminds me of a conversation I had with my writing partner earlier last semester- I had finally convinced her to borrow one of my favorite books, and she read it, and she came back and told me, "It's very like you, Carina." My writing sounds a lot like David Eddings while hers sounds an awful lot like Brandon Sanderson.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about writing is that we all start out like that- mimicking and emulating the voices of people we read, whether we do that consciously or not. A person can only put out what they have put into themselves, which includes the words and voices of other writers.
Growing your own voice takes time and practice and pain. And rejection and editing and acceptance and all those other things. Mostly hard work and determination. If you feel enough about something and work hard enough at it, you'll find your own voice.