How You Say It

Shannon Dittemore is the author of the Angel Eyes trilogy. She has an overactive imagination and a passion for truth. Her lifelong journey to combine the two is responsible for a stint at Portland Bible College, performances with local theater companies, and a focus on youth and young adult ministry. For more about Shan, check out her website, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

I was a mouthy teenager, constantly getting myself into trouble. In truth, I was a know-it-all, something my poor mother tired of quickly.

In turn, she threw a phrase at me:

And while I didn't appreciate the admonition at the time, I heard it so often the words sewed themselves onto my brain. Now, when I sit down to write, I feel the pull of those stitches and I remember: It's not just the story that matters, but the tone and the words and the tenacity with with I combine them all. 

It's my voice.

Stick around the writing world long enough and you'll hear more talks on VOICE than you will just about any other subject. You'll sit there with your notepad and your pen, with your ears pricked and your heart thundering, and your fingers will be aching to scratch down that one piece of magical advice that will turn your froggish manuscript into a princely thing worthy of publication.

You know what I've found in those sessions? The thing I've noticed? Within the tantalizing words and the killer advice, there is a void. An empty space on the canvas of my creativity that refuses to be colored in by the thoughts of someone else. That guy up there, the one with the microphone and the fancy client-list, he can point you in the right direction and he can tell you what's worked for others, but the crafting of your voice is something only you can do.

And if you're to be a writer, you must take this seriously. Your voice matters. How you say whatever it is you have to say, matters.

Voice, I think, is the result of how you see the world, the books you've ingested, the vocabulary you've acquired and that intangible thing inside of you. The thing that makes you uniquely you. Your soul? Sure, let's call it your soul.

And your soul must be fed.

Go outside. Look at the world. Watch people. Talk to yourself about what you see and hear. Sketch it, if you're so inclined. Retell yourself life events. Tell them from different perspectives. Then write them. Play with metaphors. Change them. Make them your own.

And read. Read a lot. 

One of the compliments I appreciate most as a writer is when someone says they love my voice. It's HUGE. It's that thing, you know? The thing no one else can take credit for. They can teach me to plot and to plan and to develop my story world and my characters, but no one can take credit for my voice. 

It's mine.

It is constantly developing, ever-changing, and yet often familiar to those who follow my career. It is uniquely me.

And your voice is uniquely you. 

So when you sit down to write, I hope you hear my mother's words and you remember: it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

My hope for you today is that you say it well.

There are far too many writers with amazing voices for me to name all my favorites, but today I was thumbing through my old copy of Memoirs of a Geisha and I was reminded just how beautiful Arthur Golden's voice is. No one could have told that story the way he did.

Whose voice do you love? Which authors are on your auto-buy list? You know, the authors whose books you'll read regardless of the plot. The authors you read because their voice makes any story worth your time.