Posted by “I was wondering if you do any exercises to find and develop your author voice? I’m just beginning to find mine, but then get confused at how much of it should remain consistent or change with different manuscripts. After all, we want to keep evolving and we don’t want each manuscript to sound the same, yet we want our voice to be recognizable.”
Lydia Lukidis, KidLit411 Facebook Post,
There are a lot of things you can do to plug into your authorial voice. You can scan your writing for common phrases or repeated themes. You can ask your writing partners. You can even listen to what your children parrot (as your situation allows). I suggested folks check out this article by NYBookEditors because of the questions writers can reflect on at any point in the writing process. But in the end, I think you have to write from heart and experience, then it will be all you!
Additional Voice Resources
Here are some resources others posted in KidLit411 Facebook thread response to Lydia’s fabulous questions:
➡️ KidLit411: Voice articles are about halfway down. [Submitted by Sylvia Liu]
➡️ Voice Choice: a brief video by Melissa Stewart with some practical tips on voice and sentence level analyses. [Submitted by Kirsten Larson]
➡️ Voice – Your Picture Book Sounds Too Old: Johnell Dewitt discusses how voice changes by reader age category. [Submitted by Johnell Dewitt]
➡️ Surefire Technique For Finding Your Voice: Gotham Writers suggest writing about something you hate. [Submitted by Sylvia Liu]
➡️ My Best Friend [Book Review]: If you have ever seen Best Bird talk about books, having time to read a review is even better. She does a deep dive into the amazing picture book by Julie Fogliano and art by Jillian Tamaki. [Submitted by AJ Irving]
For more discussion, check out Part 1 of this post.