Express Yourself
The Secret to Finding Your Voice
To avoid sounding like everyone else, focus on the details
Welcome to The Draft, an advice column about writing and life from Eileen Pollack, former director of the University of Michigan MFA Program. We’re here to answer your questions about storycraft, writing, and telling the truth in words.
Have a question? Share it with us.
Dear Draft,
Writers say you have to “find your voice.” But I sound like everyone else. Or no one. When I try to pump things up and sound like a WILD AND CRAZY GUY, I come off as a jerk. Besides, that feels fake, and aren’t you supposed to be your real self when you write nonfiction? The trouble is, I don’t know what my “real self” sounds like.
Signed,
Frog in My Throat
Dear Frog,
The voice that sounds like everyone else is the voice you developed when you learned to write essays in high school. The voice you thought would impress your teachers. Even as an adult, you might be trying to fit in with other people writing on the internet — by calling someone out or voicing an opinion. Too often, such essays speak in an abstract way, relying on phrases everyone has agreed to use to convey their communal outrage.
