Kimber Simpkins, Author of the Nautilus Award-Winning Book, Full: How one woman found yoga, eased her inner hunger, and started loving herself (pub date March 2015 with New Harbinger Publications) offers this tip:

“Green Light, Red Light, Green Light: Read tons of books, find authors whose voices are similar to yours, then stop reading while you write! In writing my book, I took a long sabbatical from reading other writers’ work in order to turn the volume up on my own unique voice.

Many years of devoted reading and absorbing other writers’ styles paid off well for me: I found two writers whose voices had similarities to my own, and I took a great deal of reassurance in the fact that they were published authors, which meant that my voice was likely publishable too.  While analyzing their voices, I noticed where my voice differed from theirs with its own distinctive tone and style.

When I felt during the writing process that my voice had gone into hiding, I would read a few paragraphs of their writing and a few paragraphs of my own, like tossing little breadcrumbs out to lure it back in into the light where I could follow it again.  Just in the last few months, I found that I’m ready to curl up on the couch and read books similar to my own again… green light!”

“Someone once said to me, ‘Imagine you’re talking to someone you’ve just met in the pub while passing the time of day. What are the conversations you have over a glass of wine or a pint of beer?’

“Also, before you begin to write, go for a walk and take in the wonder of nature and the world around you. It’s even better with a four-legged companion as walking my dog opens up my creative exploring mind as I often wonder how he sees the world from his dog-perspective when we’re out,  because every blade of grass is interesting and needs sniffing, every cat is a fluffy animal to be chased, and every squirrel up a tree is exciting – in fact, everything is always new and exciting. That’s how you want the chapters in your book to be.”

Susan Rizzo Vincent, author of Dreas’ Dream: An Unfinished Dance, shares, “Reading my pieces out loud (in private) and pretending I was talking to a good friend on the phone helped me to find my voice. I tried to imagine what would hold my friend’s attention – and also make my friend feel as though I was confiding  in her.

Bruce Dow, MD is a psychiatrist. Like many of the doctors and therapists I work with, his writing exhibited a fairly academic quality—fine for academics but not ideal for a more general audience, in his case, people suffering from PTSD nightmares.

In writing Dream Therapy for PTSD: The Proven System for Ending Your Nightmares and Recovering from Trauma, Bruce had to overcome the academic voice and get back in touch with the voice of the English Major he’d been in his college days–only now more mature and experienced.

Bruce said, “Before I became a writer, I was a scientist and then a clinician. In writing a scientific or clinical article, you make a tightly reasoned argument to support a claim. You describe observations that justify a conclusion or clinical treatment.

“In writing about my patients for the general public, I had to become a story teller, helping the reader imagine and relate to some people I know very well. I had to bring each person to life for the reader.

“Now, as I read over my manuscript after many revisions, I can see it taking on more of a relaxed conversational tone. The reader and I are out for a stroll through the woods, and I am telling a story about my patient.”

I especially love the image Bruce provides when discussing voice—a good example of what he’s learned to do so well!

One author’s search for voice especially stands out for me. Martha Rhodes came to my Bring Your Book to Life® Book-Writing Program several years ago. Despite her subject’s difficult nature (depression), she managed to have us laughing from the very first time she shared her writing. Clearly, humor was part of her voice from the start. Her observation of detail was superb as well. Yet, what seemed to be missing from the first few pieces she read was an intimate sense of the author.

I sensed that Martha needed to ease into that. She wrote  a layer at a time. After the first draft, she could return to earlier chapters and provide more of a sense of the inner landscape she traversed. It worked. Her book, 3,000 Pulses Later: A Memoir of Surviving Depression Without Medication, is in its third printing. There are almost 3,000 copies circulating throughout the world. It has been cited in The New York Times, Psychology Today, and on all social media channels.

I asked Martha to share her advice on finding one’s voice. Martha said, “Since I’d never written a book before, much less a deeply personal memoir, finding my voice was almost a mystery to me. I didn’t even know I had one, or was supposed to have one. However, I admired Mary Karr’s and Jeannette Walls’ work as memoirists and relished how their voices resonated for me as a reader, so I shamelessly strove to emulate the familiarity, authenticity, and cinematic qualities they so beautifully conveyed. They became my virtual mentors.

“Once I hit my own creative stride during the second draft, I noticed that every time I meditated before sitting down at my computer to write, my heart felt more open. The scenes, dialogue and narrative flowed much more freely. Whenever I’d hit a dry spell and meditation didn’t seem to cut it, I’d have a mental conversation with my muse and enlisted Lisa’s ‘Writing in the Zone’ methodology. Then I’d step away, detach myself mentally and emotionally, knowing that my voice would re-emerge stronger and clearer. It always did.”

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Interested in exploring your writing voice? Here are three more posts where writers share their tips for: blogging, fiction and nonfiction writing.