Writing Voices

If you write professionally, it’s not uncommon to develop different “voices” for different contexts.

When I’m writing nonfiction—for one of my own projects or books—I use a voice I’ve refined over the past decade-and-a-half of scribbling and publishing. It was originally informed by all the books I’d read, forged in the fires of journalism, honed by the frictions of column-writing, and remolded by the unfocused energy of the early blogosphere.

It’s a voice that sounds like me; it’s close to how I speak and is always evolving, just as I (and the way I communicate on a daily basis) evolve.

Oral communication is not the same as communicating via written language, though. When writing, the symbols we use to encode meaning is decoded by folks who don’t have a latent sense of our rhythms, verbal emphasis, body language, or other such things.

So when I’m writing words meant to be spoken (presentations or podcast scripts, for instance), the pace of sentences and language, my attention to things like alliteration and plosives, and even the words used (as people listening to our writing will process the words differently from folks reading them on a page or website) will be distinct from my written voice.

My usual goal in anything I produce is to be legible and readable, without being cold or faceless. I try to make things folks will enjoy reading, but also find valuable. And striking a balance between these goals can be tricky; even more so when using different linguistic tools (and mediums) to achieve them.

Beyond the basic audio vs. written spectrum of concerns, I also do a lot of journalistic writing, travelogues, scientific essays, and the periodic freelance gig.

Each of these contexts require a slightly or dramatically different voice, taking the intended audience (and/or client) into consideration. What’s most vital and worthy of focus also varies between mediums and genres.

Journalism usually invites concision and a simplified vocabulary, while travel writing demands more sensory information and metaphor.

Fiction is even more multifarious, allowing for the use of all sorts of writing styles, even within the same work. Different characters speak in distinct dialects, while also providing unique perspectives on what’s happening.

Even writers who have a preferred genre (or other focus) can benefit from experimenting with different voices. A more colorful use of language can help spice up otherwise dry, factual explications, and the ability to whittle and grind overly verbose gabble into coherence can tighten overloose authorship into something palatable (or even divine).