Finding Your Voice: How Your Writing Can Change

 

Photo by Jelena Kostic on Unsplash

When I sat down to write this post, I realized I had a lot to say. So hold on to your bootstraps! I am blessed to watch young writers develop their craft because I teach a senior creative writing seminar at my university. This experience has led me to think extensively about what young writers need to learn.

Some of the students have been writing for years: they've shared their work since high school, published poems and stories, and won awards. Others are brand new to sharing their writing with others and honing their craft. It's a lively environment, bubbling with talent and new ideas. And I am grateful to be a part of their journey. As we all evolve as writers, I have learned a few things about the process.

Hone Your Craft

If you haven't seen Pablo Picasso's early work, you need to do this right now: https://mymodernmet.com/picasso-early-work/. You can't skip working on your craft and understanding the fundamentals and technical aspects. 

In my seminar, there are common technical elements the newer writers are still learning: paragraphing, punctuation for quotations, deleting filter words, and moving from telling to showing, for example. Info-dumping, effective first chapters, and deeper pov are elements all of them are still developing. There are any number of craft books to help you work on these skills. Sharing your work with your peers is also a great way to learn from others.

After that essential piece of advice (which includes the important reminder to read, read, read), the biggest piece of wisdom I share with my students is to find your voice.

Easier said than done.

We are all influenced by the many books and stories we're read - and reading a lot is crucial to becoming a great writer. But it's more than imitating or synthesizing the stories we've imbibed. We have to embrace our individual perspective of the world. And we have to let go of the negative voices in our heads and listen to ourselves. 

Embrace your Unique Perspective

Embracing our quirky individuality is a courageous act. Social media and consumer capitalism work on us every day feeding us messages to conform to society's values: watch this tv show, buy this product, do this thing everyone else is doing on TikTok, you are never enough. How do we resist these forces if we can't hide in a hole by ourselves with on wifi?

Turn off your phone and tv. Think about your unique experiences and interests. Consider your learning style and how you interact with the world. Lean into that.

• Are you a cinematic writer who sees landscapes and colours first?
• Are you more of a director who can visualize dialogue and character movements?
• Do you feel everything intensely and write emotion-driven scenes?
• Do you value the pov of the underdog, or the villain, or the racialized characters?
• Do you see some injustices in the world that you'd like to change?
• What are the common themes in your writing?

One of my students was worried that her stories were too violent. But an underlying theme of her writing was telling stories about gender-based oppression from the survivor's point of view (and sometimes the survivors got justice or revenge). We know (cue the MeToo hashtag) that these stories are too often covered up or ignored. By bringing the subject to light, this writer showed us violence for a reason: to affirm the fictional experiences of her heroines. Social media or naysayers might say it's too violent. But tell that to the many, many survivors of gender-based violence and oppression who've been told they're wrong or they need to keep silent. 

This writer's courage to delve into difficult topics helps to challenge social norms and strives to make the world a better place. We need that.

Let Go and Listen

Your inner voice--your connection to the universe--is somewhere inside you. Maybe it's hiding or getting drowned out by all those social media and consumer capitalist messages, things your teachers and family told you, peer criticisms and bullies' words and actions, and all the other stuff that can hold us back and tell us our voice--our craft, our gift, our unique pov, the stuff that makes you an original--isn't good enough. My writer friend calls these the brain gremlins and they can be fierce! They are noisy. They can overpower the little voice inside you and make you doubt it's even there.

So how do we find it and listen to it? We need sensitive artist types to tell their stories and share their values. Empathy and humanity are key beliefs we share and transmit in our work. But we can often feel like they are being targeted and we're living in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower (oof, I just looked it up and the novel is set in 2024! Please, for the love of the goddess, will someone make it into a tv show! It's the Handmaid's Tale of the moment!)

There are not shortcuts to finding your voice. For me, it's a combination of lots of writing practice, a heap of therapy, and a good helping of my writers' group's support and encouragement. It boils down, in my mind, to believing in yourself and tuning into the experiences, values, and unique perspective you have, then channeling that into your writing. 

The medieval Christian mystics had a practice of self-annihilation, where they tried to rid themselves of all the external noise and devote themselves solely to the will of God. I see writing as a secular or agnostic form of this practice: you need to have faith in yourself and in the creative process, and to do this, you need to let go of all the noise and doubts and gremlins that try and separate you from this faith. Write from your heart, from your soul, and you will never go wrong.

Some of you might be wondering where the writing to market argument fits into this philosophy. I think you still can write to market while being true to yourself. But that is another story from the riverbank...

ALIGNING YOUR INNER READER WITH YOUR WRITER SELF

 AKA, It Took Me Seven Years To Figure Out I Was Writing The Wrong Niche

I grew up on Robin McKinley and Patricia C. Wrede. Tad Williams and Terry Goodkind. David Eddings and Anne McCaffrey. Later I discovered my two favorite authors ever, Michelle Sagara West and Anne Bishop.

Inspired, I began my author career in 2015. . . and in 2018 I burned out.
 
Part of that was due to external life circumstances, but part of that was due, I now understand in hindsight, to a lack of alignment. See, I was writing shifter romance, then later alien romance. And my alien romance in particular was always slightly off market. It occurred to me in late 2021 why that was.

I kept trying to write my science fiction romance like it was fantasy romance.

I devour Grace Draven and Bec McMaster. Laura Thalassa and Sarah J Maas. In the last year I’ve discovered Katherine Ann Kingsley and Quinn Blackbird and T.A. White, and . . . you get it. See a trend?

These are all authors of fantasy romance, and they are just the tip of my FaRo library.
What I was not reading was science fiction and shifter romance.

Back to #writerlife, it was taking me four months to write a 60,000 word book. To put this in context, once I finally began to write in the niche that I read and most love, I was dictating 4,000 to 5,000 word days. And though I enjoyed writing my paranormal and science fiction romance, it was the fantasy romance that sparked joy.

Suddenly, my productivity went through the roof. The comments I received from alpha readers and editors was that they felt the joy and alignment oozing through my manuscript. Because, duh, I was finally writing the kind of stories I devour on a daily basis.

Why hadn't I started out in fantasy romance?

The short answer is because of a plethora of well-meaning advice to write to market. And when I came into the indie author space, writing to market meant bear shifters. And wolf shifters. And dragon shifters. And every other shifter galore . . . plus vampires. I let myself get talked into writing stories that were adjacent to what I love, but not quite hitting the bullseye.

My current fae fantasy romance series was completely unplanned. I snapped one day at the end of November in 2021 and sat down at my laptop and began dictating a story that had been floating around in my head for several weeks. It was so vivid, the characters coming alive in my head in ways characters had never done so before.

I'm writing faster than I ever have while maintaining the complexity of character arcs, romance arc, opposing force, subplots, and prose.
 
Now, all of this isn't to say that I've dropped everything else. I am fortunate that I also write in a small niche with a rabid reader base and that niche is helping to support my catalog while I get my fantasy romance profitable, which I project will happen around Book 3.

Being an indie author is a long game. “Write to market” is solid advice, but I would caveat that with, “write to market in a niche you naturally read and love and devour.” In the end your stories will be better aligned with the reader, you'll produce faster (whatever faster means to you) and you'll have more joy, which is absolutely required because we all know this is a grind. Without joy, eventually even the most determined author will break.

Because this is a long game, money will come in time (if caveat: You Did Your Job with Cover/Blurb/Story.) What I have learned, is that for the sake of my business, it's better for me in the long run to write what I love instead of writing what I know will make money faster. I could churn out six to seven sci-fi romance books in a year and make good money . . . but I can't sustain that long term, as I’ve already proven to myself.

When I write what I love, carefully aligned to the tropes of that niche, then I can look down the tunnel of a 5- to 20-year career and look forward to the daily hard work rather than approach my laptop with low-level dread.

So I would leave you with some questions. What do you love to read? Who do you devour? Is your writer self aligned with your reader self? And if not, what plan can you put in place to shift your business slowly, without sacrificing income, in a direction that is sustainable for you long term?

Emma Alysin is a 40 mumble mumble bi-racial American Muslim mom of five who writes SFR, PNR & Fantasy Romance.

Her dragons, fae, and bears will most interest readers who like their alphas strong, protective, and smokin’ hot; their heroines feisty, brainy, too grown to give a *uck, and over the age of 30.

Her stories feature men and women of diverse backgrounds.

Covering All That

Book covers are as much art as they are science and I mean that beyond the images. It's an art I'm not that good at. For that reason, I engage people who know more about book covers than I do - particularly people who know what questions to ask to elicit the most helpful (some might say most marketable) aspects of the story. Jeffe mentioned that the point of the cover is to catch the eye and to convey genre as quickly and completely as possible. If you can work story images into whatever ends up on that cover? Bonus. But more than once I've had to have a cover artist talk me down from the tree where I insist that some image from the plot needs to go on the cover. I never insist on having my way on covers - I hire professionals and then I listen to them. It's their livelihood. They know better than i what the trends are - but honestly, chasing trends is a fool's mission - the real issue is that the cover artists I hire have the experience to understand what a reader expects to see in a cover for a science fiction romance novel. Or an urban fantasy novel.

When I finally finish the SFR series, I'll have an opportunity to cover the books. I won't bother with trends. I will do my darnedest to make sure the covers for the two new books look as much like the previous three covers as possible. My goal will be to keep the branding visually similar. I want people to be able to look these books up on whichever online story they prefer and know just by looking that these stories belong together.

If I had the mental bandwidth to put a new cover on the incubus book, Damned if He Does, I'd work hard to get rid of ambiguous symbolism on the cover. Right now, the existing cover does a fine job of conveying that the story is a romance. But the cover includes all those flames. Lots of them. There's a plot reason for that - the incubus is in thrall to Satan and Hell. Unfortunately, in a romance cover, flames can also mean that the story is hot - erotic. In the case of this book, it was supposed to convey those fires of Hell. You can see how that image on the cover could be confusing. I'm concerned that readers might pick it up thinking it's a sexy read when it isn't. The heroine is Ace. The smexy just isn't as hot and heavy as those darned flames might mistakenly convey. In a perfect world, I'd have the bandwidth to update the cover. I just don't at the moment.

Book covers can be a great asset to a book and across the publishing world, you'll find all kinds of check lists and points to consider as you work on building a visual package to represent your story. They're worth glancing at. It's always worth glancing at what other authors in your genre are doing with covers as you think about yours. But it pays to remember that the cover has one job - get someone to crack open your story. That's it. And yes. It's a lot to ask of a static image. Buy maybe that awareness can help you take a step back. Sure. We all want our covers to be perfect. We worked so hard on the story, we want it dressed to the nines, dang it. Just consider what kind of audience you're going to attract if you dress your book like Wednesday Adams versus dressing it like a Kardashian or like Annie Oakley or like Madam Curie. Very different looks. Very different moods. Very different audiences. It's one of the tricks a cover artist taught me. Pan out a little. Consider the voice of the story. Then match the feel of the cover to that voice if you can.

That's the piece I'll add to Jeffe's advice of focusing on eye catching and genre. Figure out the voice of the story and lean into it in the cover.

Cover Reveal, the RITA® Awards and Boring the Reader

Cover Reveal!!

So, my novella, THE DRAGONS OF SUMMER, which first appeared (and still appears) in the SEASONS OF SORCERY anthology is a finalist in the RITA® Awards! The amazing Ravven had only just completed the cover - and we'd been planning to release the standalone story in April - but we seized the opportunity to put that shiny silver Finalist medallion on the cover and we'll be releasing the stand alone story any minute now. I'm even doing a print edition for you paper purists. 

Since our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the open "On My Mind," I feel like I should say, also, that I share the concern about the RITA Awards recognizing diverse authors. It's a difficult place to be - wanting to celebrate that this story, which I truly love, received this wonderful recognition - while being aware that the finalists include only four authors of color (AOC) and no Black authors.

There is, without a doubt, bias in judging. Reading is always subjective to begin with. Worse, within RWA and the judging pool, there are judges with conscious and unconscious biases. Racism and homophobia absolutely come into play. From personal experience, I can confirm that THE EDGE OF THE BLADE, my book with a dark-skinned pansexual heroine, received a 4/10 from one RITA judge - the lowest score any of my books has ever received from any judge in this contest. This book is the sequel to THE PAGES OF THE MIND, which finaled for an won a RITA that year. I seriously doubt the judge who gave the book a 4 found that it was badly written compared to the others. Sure, that lowest score got dropped. (Five judges read and rank each book; the highest and lowest scores are dropped.) But if two judges impose that kind of bias, that can severely sabotage a book's overall score. Even the "I just didn't connect with the characters" syndrome can lower a book's score by a critical 1 point.

So, what do we do? A lot of people are working on this. I absolutely support the RWA Board's continued efforts to rectify this problem. The current Board of Directors is a diverse - color, gender, and orientation - and committed group who absolutely want to solve this problem. They have been working on it. Unfortunately, correcting this kind of systemic bias occur on the societal equivalent of geologic time. There are a lot of moving parts and ingrained attitudes that need correcting. I'm hearing a lot of "burn the RITAs to the ground" and even "burn RWA to the ground," and I don't agree with either solution. When you burn things to the ground you get a lot of scorched earth. I fully believe we can make this change - and the fire of all this passionate involvement can be rocket fuel rather than lighter fluid. 

On another note, because I promised a few people, I want to follow up on my post from last week on what I think is bad writing advice: "If you're bored, the reader will be, too." James said the following day that he disagreed, but he also didn't understand my point. He said he hates being bored as a reader. Well, of course! I never said it was okay to bore the reader.

What I said was that it's not valid to conflate the author experience with the reader one. 

The reverse situation proves this point: that what the author finds fascinating is not necessarily what will fascinate the reader. Witness the common mistake where a writer does a bunch of in-depth research - and then can't resist throwing it all into the book. This is such a pervasive phenomenon that "the overly researched historical novel" has been a category in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for an atrocious opening sentence to a hypothetical bad novel. 

That's part of why I think "If the writer is bored, the reader will be, too" is such bad advice, because it implies that as long as the writer is having fun, so will the reader.

And this is SO NOT TRUE.

Of course no writer wants to bore the reader - and a great deal of craft goes into ensuring this doesn't happen. How can an author know? Experience, refining the craft, listening to valid feedback. (The valid part is really important - you have to learn who to take seriously.) But a writer cannot assume that their subjective writing experience will translate to the reader's experience. 

Learning to communicate our stories so the reader receives something of what we hope to tell is a lifelong effort in refining voice and craft. 

Should Authors Comment on Politics?

This photo didn't come out in focus - too dark - but I'm sharing it anyway because the moment of this full supermoon rising through clouds in Santa Fe during a penumbral eclipse was absolutely incredible to see. My wonderful friend, Anne Calhoun, was visiting. We climbed up onto the roof and watched the sun set and the moon rise. Neither of us got great photographs.

Too much magic, maybe,

But you're not here to listen to me talk about friendship, moonrises and magic. Or maybe you are. If you know me or follow me on social media, you'll expect this sort of thing. If you clicked on a link because you found the topic interesting, you're maybe wondering when I'll get to the point.

Eventually, my new visitor!

Because this week's subject is Hot Topics & the Author's Social Media Voice, it seems the perfect time to point out that the these three things - voice, social media, and an author's response to hot topics - are inextricable. Let me unpack that a bit.

Voice

The best explanation of "voice" that I've ever heard - that is, the one that made me understand what an author's voice is - is that it stems from our beliefs.

In the writing world we spend a lot of time discussing voice. Readers recognize it, even if they can't articulate how or why. Industry folks will almost uniformly agree that it's an author's voice that keeps readers coming back for more. Authors, especially beginning ones, work to refine their personal voice. Which isn't easy, since it's not simple to explain, define or teach. Daunting for an element so critical to being a successful author.

One thing is clear - voice cannot be faked. It takes sometimes years of writing, and likely publishing, to refine that voice to its purest form. I saw paintings the other day by a 78-year-old artist. Her recent work is distinctly hers, but she completes in a few brushstrokes what she did with thousands in her youth. I saw that and thought, wow - look at how she's honed her voice. I did a post a little while back that talks about voice more. (In looking it up, I'm amused to find a photo with it of another Santa Fe landscape. See? My voice.)

It was Jayne Ann Krentz who, in a workshop, said that voice arises from our beliefs, from who we most essentially are. She's interesting because she's reinvented herself as an author several times, and has written under several names, including that one, Jayne Castle, and Amanda Quick. Each name indicates a different genre, but many of her readers (including me) read all three because we love her voice. Many love "all three authors," not realizing they're the same person.

Hot Topics

Which leads us to what we each believe in. In talking about "hot topics," I'm not referring to the clothing store (though I totally bought the Loki dress) or about the latest celebrity gossip, I'm talking about the tremendous political upheaval we've been going through all around the world, but most pointedly for me, in the U.S. with the 2016 presidential election.

The standard social media advice for authors is to stay away from politics. And I have several friends who follow it assiduously. They never post anything publicly on which way they stand. The argument is that politics shouldn't enter into what is essentially a conversation with your readers about books. I can see that. In fact, I often follow it. For the most part I'm not all that interested in debating politics anyway.

But this last election put me to the test. I kept coming back to Edmund Burke's quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” That's something I believe to be true.

In a typical election, I'm not going to say much. I'm not an economist, so I don't have strong opinions on the federal deficit and so forth. To a great extent, I don't think it matters greatly if the Democrats or Republicans hold the White House, because they tend to balance each other out. I take a long view on these sorts of things. I still do.

However, I do have strongly held beliefs that are impacted by what's going on. I believe that women are people first and female second, and that the key to women having personal and financial independence and equality is access to birth control and abortion. In fact, I believe all people are people first, and the rest - gender, sexual orientation, skin color, social status - all comes after that. I believe all people deserve to be treated as people, that some people don't get better perks than others, simply because of what family or set of genes they were born into.

I also believe that power and the pursuit of power corrupts.

If you've read my books, I suspect you'll know all of this about me because my beliefs come out in my work. That's my voice.

Social Media

The thing about social media is, we're trying to do two things at once: be our authentic selves and also promote our books. So, the theory that authors should stay away from controversial topics comes from the concern that offending readers could impact the perception and sales of our books.

Which, it could. It happens all the time. I do it myself. If I fundamentally disagree with an artist's beliefs and actions - Woody Allen comes to mind - I won't support them with my money. That's my vote and I get to do that. We all do.

Particularly in this day and age, social media is one of the primary avenues for authors to reach readers. However, as one smart literary agent, Jennifer Udden, says, "Social media is for promoting authors, not books."

And that brings us back to the sticking point. If social media is about the author, and the author's books are about their voice, and voice is about our beliefs - how can our social media presence NOT involve our beliefs?

It can be done, sure. As I said, I know some who can do it. One author friend of mine who steadfastly refuses to reveal her politics online commented to me, "Anyone who reads my books should be able to figure out where I stand." Some people, like her, are able to maintain a greater division between their public and private presence.

After long thought on the matter, I finally came to terms with the fact that this isn't me. I started out as a writer of personal essays and I've long had a greater degree of sharing my personal life and thoughts through my work. That's who I am. And it's important to me to be honest about who I am - which includes my beliefs - in a congruent way. That means in public or in private. I'm not willing to disguise those beliefs, which is what not ever commenting would amount to for me, particularly in favor of marketing my books.

In standing by my beliefs, I also accept that some people won't agree, and that they'll express that with their monetary vote. Perfectly legit. Ultimately it all comes down to personal choice.

It's probably something that's obvious by now, but - Personal choice is something I strongly believe in.