Writing is therapeutic

I’ve been thinking about voice – again, and what makes my work different from the zillions of other mystery books that have been – are being – written? It comes down to voice. Only I have “my” thoughts, “my” feelings, “my” take on life. And that’s how An Unexpected Death, my first Caitlyn Jamison mystery came about. It wasn’t because I wanted to be a writer!  It was because I was upset and frustrated with what was happening in our country. I needed to express myself. But how?

Writing is therapeutic became my mantra. It helps us make sense of situations. And that’s how the story began. What was discovered after the fact was through the writing process my voice appeared. I was able to share my thoughts and feelings through my characters. And readers, I subsequently learned, love the characters.

Writer Meg Rosoff states, “…In our voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.” That is each writer’s challenge. Be true to yourself.

Finding my Voice

As I begin the second Caitlyn Jamison mystery I started to think more about voice. What is it exactly? What should it be? Is it something I have to learn, practice, develop? In a September 2013 Writer’s Digest article, Cris Freese states:

“To set your voice free, set your words free. Set your characters free. Most important, set your heart free. It is from the unknowable shadows of your subconscious that your stories will find their drive and from which they will draw their meaning. No one can loan that or teach you that. Your voice is your self in the story.”

The article confirmed what I believed, which is that my writing voice is mine alone, my personality coming through, and in that sense unique. It only alters when I get so “in the groove” that the characters take over, and that’s okay.

So where does writing style come in? Style is your particular use of sentence structure - long, short, complex, simple, imagery, conversational, etc. And that is what I need to work on in this next book. Developing a style that fits my voice, my personality, and is in a way uniquely me.