How can I improve my writer’s voice?
“How can I improve my voice, the way I tell and show things in my writing? Is there a good method for it?”
Finding your voice as a writer can feel like searching for something you’re not quite sure exists yet. It’s a problem I understand all too well. I’ve been a ghostwriter for years, and the reason I’m hired is that I’ve very good at preserving the authorial voice of the credited author, but it does mean that I’ve struggled over the years to really find my own.
While your writer’s voice doesn’t always come naturally, it is a skill that can be honed. It’s all about understanding yourself as a writer, and what you want to say through your work. Your voice is how you tell stories; the unique combination of word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, and perspective that makes your work uniquely yours.
Methods for developing your voice
Read widely and critically
You can develop your own voice through exposure to other voices. Read across genres, time periods, and styles. Pay attention to what resonates with you. The media you consume and the styles of writing you enjoy the most will go a long way in finding out the styles that speak to you.
Ask yourself: What makes this author’s work so interesting? How does this author create atmosphere? What sentence rhythms appeal to me? What word choices and passages do I find particularly beautiful?
You need to read like a writer, and really pay attention to how something is written. Try to notice the details an author will linger on, how they handle dialogue, description, and pacing. Let yourself learn from other writers so that it can inform and improve your own. It’s not about copying, but about taking inspiration and learning from the ones who have already put in the hard work.
Write regularly without self-censorship
There’s really no better way to develop a voice than just writing. Without a plan or a project, putting some words down on the page with absolutely no agenda will help you see how you naturally write.
Try freewriting sessions where you write continuously for 10-15 minutes without editing or stopping. This can help you bypass your internal critic and access your natural rhythm and word choice.
What really helped me was a now-defunct website called Write or Die. It was simple: you set a sprint timer, and couldn’t stop typing for the duration of the sprint or it would delete your words. No thinking, no pausing, just writing. You can learn a lot about the way you write and the voice that emerges if you don’t let yourself think too long about what you’re actually writing.
Pay attention to your natural speech patterns
How do you tell stories to friends? What kinds of details do you naturally emphasise? Your conversational voice often holds clues to your writing voice, even if it’s not as smooth or your ideas as clear as they might be if you wrote them down.
Record yourself talking about your day out loud, then transcribe it. You’ll notice patterns in your phrasing, your sense of humour, and what you find important to mention. You’ll also notice the gaps in the retelling where written elaboration might be useful. Ultimately, it’s a new way to frame your voice that might help inform the way you write.
Revise with intention
The first draft will never sound the way you want to sound. Your voice strengthens in revision. This is where you make deliberate choices about which details to include, which words create the precise effect you want, and where to speed up or slow down.
Read parts of your work aloud. Does it sound like you? Does the rhythm feel natural? Are you using words you’d actually use, or words you think you should use? Your writer’s voice isn’t something that just emerges the second you put pen to paper. It’s something that you hone and make conscious choices on, and that doesn’t happen until later in the process.
Common obstacles and how to overcome them
Trying too hard to sound “literary”
Your voice shouldn’t feel like a costume you’re wearing. If you’re using elaborate vocabulary or complex sentence structures that don’t feel natural, you’re imitating rather than expressing yourself. Clarity is the most important thing to readers, so don’t sacrifice clarity in an effort to make your writing sound a certain way.
Fear of being “too simple”
A lot of writers fall into the trap of trying to sound too “literary” because they worry about their work coming across as too simple. Some of the most powerful prose is remarkably simple, and more effective for it.
Short sentences can often hit harder than elaborate ones, and common words often communicate more clearly than obscure and complicated alternatives. Again, clarity is the most important part of any writing project.
Worrying too much about inconsistency
Your voice might shift between chapters or even scenes as you’re finding it. This is part of the discovery process. You get to try on different hats in a first draft to see how they fit and what works for you.
Write through the inconsistencies, then edit them in revision. As you become more conscious of what you want your voice to sound like, you’ll naturally smooth out those inconsistencies.
Over-editing too early
If you revise every sentence as you write it, you’ll never build momentum or discover your natural flow. Your first draft is where you find your voice through experimentation. Your second draft is where you refine it.
Writing exercises to develop your voice
Exercise 1: The same scene, three ways
Take a simple scene like someone waiting for a bus, ordering coffee, or walking through a park. Write it three times:
- Pure telling: Summarise everything in the most direct way possible. Use simple declarative sentences and focus only on the essential information.
- Pure showing: Include sensory details, body language, and environmental description. Let readers infer what’s happening without explicitly stating emotions or thoughts.
- Balanced approach: Combine both techniques, using telling for some elements and showing for others.
Compare the three versions. Which feels most natural to you? Which serves the scene best? This exercise helps you understand your instincts and recognise how you approach each style.
Exercise 2: Revising the detail
Write a scene with way too much detail. Describe everything you can possibly notice. Then revise it as many times as you need until you’re left with only the elements that you think are most essential and impactful.
This will show you how to recognise which details feel necessary to your voice and which are filler. Some writers thrive on lush descriptions, while others prefer sharp, selected details. Neither is wrong, but you need to know which reflects your writer’s voice the best.
Exercise 3: The sensory scene
Describe a setting using one sense at a time. Write the same location five times, focusing mainly on sight, then sound, smell, touch, and taste in each version. When you re-read them, try to notice which sense you naturally gravitate toward and which descriptions feel most vivid.
Your voice often has a sensory preference. Some writers are highly visual, while others focus on sound or physical sensation. Understanding your natural inclination helps you lean into your strengths while seeing which area is weakest and could use more development.
Exercise 4: Voice variation
Write the same event from three different character perspectives. Let each character’s vocabulary, concerns, and observations shift based on who they are. If you don’t have a project on the go that you can use as a base, choose three characters from your favourite book so you already have a good sense of who those characters are.
This exercise will help you understand how voice adapts to character, and understand the difference between your voice as a writer, and the voice of a character you’re writing. The way a character speaks will differ from how you would, so the connective tissue between the three distinct characters should highlight your writer’s voice.
Exercise 5: The rhythm test
Take a page of your writing and highlight the sentence lengths in different colours. Long sentences, short sentences, medium sentences; do you have variety? Try rewriting with deliberate rhythm changes. Combine short sentences into longer, more complex ones. Break rambling sentences into punchy ones.
Read both versions aloud. Which rhythm feels more natural? Which better serves the mood of the scene? Your voice has a natural cadence, and understanding it helps you use rhythm intentionally rather than accidentally.
Exercise 6: A personal story
Write about an actual memory you hold. Tell it first as you would to a stranger at a party, keeping it brief and engaging. Then expand it with the kind of detail and reflection you’d include in a diary entry meant only for yourself.
Compare the two versions. The first likely contains your natural storytelling voice made up of the rhythm and word choice you use when speaking. The second might reveal your more introspective voice. Both are authentically you, and both have a place in your writing.
Exercise 7: Revision archaeology
Take an early draft of a piece you’ve since revised and finished. Revise a page of it now without rereading the completed version, then compare your original finished version to your new revision.
What changed? Did you add more showing or more telling? Did you simplify or complicate sentences? Use different vocabulary? This can reveal how your voice has developed over time and what direction it’s naturally moving in. The secondary benefit is that you’ll also be able to see how much you’ve improved as a writer generally. I always love seeing how far I’ve come from my early work.
Putting it all together
Developing your voice is about becoming conscious of your choices and making them intentionally. Your voice will continue developing throughout your writing life and will be shaped by what you write, read, and experience. Just like life, it’s never static.
Don’t fall into the trap of comparing your voice to others. While some writers might share similar styles, your voice is uniquely yours. It’s the way that you, and only you, would tell this story.
Trust that voice. Refine it. But above all, use it. Your voice grows stronger every time you write, every time you make a deliberate choice, and every time you revise with intention. The more you write, the more clearly your writer’s voice will emerge, and the more confident you’ll feel as a writer.
Write often. Read critically. Experiment freely. There is no substitute for just getting words on the page.
