Harmonize, Don’t Echo

Using your literary heroes to find your writing voice

When I was in college starting to take my writing more seriously, I held Pat Conroy up as the author I wanted to imitate. I thought if I could string together beautiful words and phrases like him, tell stories of such emotional-depth and poignancy, that I’d really be achieving something. So, I gave it a go. Tried to sound like Pat—but only ended up sounding like me. And you know what? Thank goodness for that.

This idea that you’ll find your own, distinct writing voice is tossed about and told to young writers, and it’s a bit of a frustrating thing, right? Because more experienced writers talk about it like it’s no sweat and something that everyone gets to, at some point. But there’s not an equation for figuring out how long it’ll take before you feel like you’ve discovered yours or for understanding just what it will sound like. You’re told to just keep writing and, eventually, you’ll find it. 

And, recently when I was brainstorming blog content, boysy brought this up to me because his question is: How do you just not become your favorite author and only emulate who you admire instead of being you?

Which is a fear, right? That you’ll be no more than a copy-cat or a knock-off writer because your beats or cadences or structure are similar to those authors who inspire you. That you won’t be original. That you won’t be able to do your own thing.

Let me reassure you that, when you’re starting out, mimicking your favorite author is one of the best ways to get yourself going. It’s like following the example set down by your teacher until you’ve practiced enough to branch out to try something adjacent on your own. It’s like learning your letters. Do you remember what that was like? There were those workbooks or worksheets with the dotted lines for each letter, and you’d trace them because you’re learning. You’re a beginner and need that sort of help.

I bet, with that scenario, you don’t recollect the day you were able to graduate from those dotted lines to a worksheet that just had the blank rows you knew you needed to fill with capital and lowercase letters. Do you remember the day you outgrew those advanced worksheets? Do you remember when your handwriting suddenly started looking like yours? 

You may not remember it precisely, but knowing exactly when that distinction set in hasn’t kept the things that make you you from existing.

I’m going to say this, too: you might be starting out for a good while. Think of the amount of time it takes to complete a first draft. Think about how writing is a hobby you pick up and carry with you for years, for your whole life. If you start writing in your early twenties and get to spend decades working on your craft, don’t you think it sounds reasonable that the first few years of your development would be you working on settling out the matter of your writing voice? 

In the grand scheme of all the time you’ll spend working, it’s just a small portion of it that you’re starting out, so don’t get too caught up on it. Instead, let it encourage you. Let it be your reminder to take your time. Anyway, you must do that because that’s the nature of this craft you’ve decided to invest yourself in.

As far as imitating your favorites, go ahead and do that, too. Treat it as part of your writing practice. Let’s say you’re a Tolkien fan. What was he very skilled at? The answer to that is a lot of things, so pick one. We’ll go with how immersive his descriptions are. 

He also strikes a certain tone with narration, though he writes in plain English. That narration can feel historical or old-timey. It’s not so conversational or modern. So, you keep this in mind, too, going into your practice.

And here’s what you’ll do: you will apply these Tolkien-esque elements as you write about a room in the home you grew up in. That could be the kitchen in the apartment you lived in before your family moved. Could be the bedroom you go back to any time you’re visiting your parents. Could be a living room where important holiday traditions played out. You pick—and then you write about it as you imagine Tolkien might.

Here’s another example. Let’s say your favorite genre is horror, and you really like how Stephen King has mastered it. One of the ways he has done that is by tapping into his own fears or a general fear many people might relate to. Picking a fear of your own might be uncomfortable because you’re going to spend time thinking about it, but it could be a launching point. 

Once you’ve made that decision, give that fear to an original character, and don’t worry too much about fleshing that person out. This is still practice, for now. So, get that character going, and then, with whatever King novel you have in mind, ask, What does King make happen next?

Again, this doesn’t make you a copy-cat or something. Unless you’re rewriting The Lord of the Rings or The Green Mile and trying to pass them off as your own, you’re just practicing. Eventually, you’ll get to the point where you’ll read over what you’re writing and think, This is starting to sound less like Tolkien and more like someone else. You’ll get to a point where you won’t be wondering what King would make happen in the next scene; your characters will tell you, and you’ll have graduated from following the teacher’s example. 

It’s also okay, when you establish your voice and start cranking out stories that feel like you, if you look at your writing and can pick out certain elements that you learned from specific writers. There’s some ways in which I write that I know I picked up from trying to sound like Pat Conroy. I learned so much from studying his stories, and we all have to learn somewhere, from someone.

Just remember that development takes time. There’s no magic number of practice sessions before you unlock your writing voice. There’s no one book to read to learn everything there is to know about the craft, no one author who says everything in the best way. 

Yet, if you keep at it with earnestness and good faith, you’re going to make it past this imitation stage. Keep working, keep writing, and keep finding good authors who write so beautifully you can’t help but think, I wanna do that, too.

That’s all I’ve got to share with you today, but, if you have any advice to share on this subject, drop a comment below. I’d love to hear it! 

Catch ya back here next week, friends!