How do you find your writing style? What is your author voice? These two questions are crucial for any writer to answer.
Style, to me, is like an author’s fingerprint. My favorite books tend to be written by my favorite stylists. When I buy a novel from one of those writers, I’m buying the way they (and only they) tell a story.
Give me a random passage and don’t tell me the author’s name – I’ll be able to identify if one of these writers penned it.
An author’s voice comes from elements like word choice, themes, and attitude.
I can’t stress that last point enough – you have to have an attitude.
Great Author Voices in Crime Fiction
Elmore Leonard – I’ve cited him as a major influence of mine both on this site and in books. Part of what drew me into his fiction was the iconic style and voice he brought to the page. It’s sleazy and grimy and goes down like good bourbon.
George Pelecanos – a contemporary author with a style that merges hard-boiled, clipped speech with literary poeticism.
Stephen King – a natural storyteller, King has a warm, familiar voice that pulls you in, builds empathy with the characters (good and horrific), and makes you want to keep reading.
There are many more, but I hope you see the idea. Each of these writers conveys emotion through the way they tell stories. They let you connect with their senses of humor, their attitudes, their outlooks on life.
Readers buy their books to hear more stories told in those voices.
Why your writing style is important for your career as an author.
The best scenario for a long-term career as an author is to allow readers to connect with you, the person behind the stories. Your style conveys who you are.
How you see the world. When a reader identifies you as a kindred spirit, through your style, they can become an engaged fan.
This is what happened when I first read the aforementioned authors. Beyond the entertainment, educational, and emotional value I found in their work, I knew they were my people.
I got to know them, which made me want to keep getting to know them. Now, I’m a diehard fan. Diehard enough to mention them over and over in articles like this.
The more people enjoy your writing style, the more they’ll read your books. The more they connect with you, the longer they’ll stay a reader.
Your writing style links your books to each other.
Genre authors will be used to writing series, in which a character or setting connects the stories. But voice can also accomplish that task, even for standalone books.
Here, we’ll return to Stephen King. Not all his titles are in a series (though he does connect them all in elaborate ways). But pick up any individual novel of his, and you’ll hear his author voice.
How do you find your writing style?
Read.
No, really. The best way to find your author voice is to read a lot. While you read, analyze the styles and storytelling techniques of the writers.
Do you like when they do x? Why? Do you hate when they do z? Why?
What creates the ideal reading experience for you?
I still haven’t read that long passage of description on page 2 of my copy of The Big Sleep. I skip it every time. But I really enjoy Dashiell Hammett’s sparse description, focusing on just the important bits and letting my imagination come up with the rest.
Then, try to write something. Emulate a writer whose style resonates with you. Learn their rhythms, their attitude. Likely, it is not so different from your own attitude.
You’ll find that your voice will develop from that exercise of reading, writing, and repeating. Let your own individuality come through the language. Make it yours.
Always, always begin with reading.
There’s no right and wrong in the arts. But there is right and wrong for you.
Subjectivity is everything in creative disciplines. Sure, there are best practices in the craft, standards of professionalism, all of that. But in terms of the “rules” of writing, every time someone prescribes one, a talented writer finds a way to successfully break it.
Don’t ask, “Is this right?” Ask, “Is this right for me?”
This is what I mean when I advise you to find the reading experience you prefer. Which writing techniques produce it? Who are the authors from whom you could learn those techniques? For that matter, who are some authors who do the opposite, and what effect do their approaches have on the reading experience?
That is your starting point. Your writing style and the way you enjoy telling stories can be found in that knowledge. Do your homework by reading and evaluating.
It’s the most fun you’ll ever have with homework. And I once had a physics assignment to drop buttered toast off the side of a table in the dining hall to see if it would land buttered side down. That was fun. Reading is more fun.
How I found my writing style.
I read those great stylists and studied my reactions to their work. Here is what I learned about the way I like to read:
- Dialogue over narration. I prefer authors who let the characters drive the story by acting and reacting to each other, the same way that stage play scenes are built from lines of speech.
- I like rotating third point of view, because it allows me to feel close to multiple characters, even supporting cast members. Often, I enjoy the supporting personalities the most.
- I like free indirect discourse, a method of close third narration that involves no separation between the character’s voice and the narrator’s voice. When you’re in the POV of one character, the narration is written in that person’s voice, not the authors. It sounds like dialogue. If you rotate POVs, then the next scene will be in a different character’s perspective and voice.
- All those previous points create more immersion for me, because the author is concealed behind the characters. As a reader, I’m left to be with the people in the story, experiencing their world in real time, with no middleman between us.
- A slightly irreverent, dry-humored wit never hurts with me.
That’s how I prefer to read stories, so I gravitated to authors who write that way. And, my own writing style accomplishes the same objectives.
I found my style by understanding how I like to read and then writing stories in kind.
You’ll also notice that my nonfiction voice (on display in these articles) is different from my approach to fiction. But that is a subject for another post.
This also isn’t to say you must write in the same style always and forever. People change, and our author voices change along with us. It’s best not to fight that.
But this is the best way I have found to get started.
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Storytelling can be accomplished through a wide variety of media, and technological advances make that more true with every passing year.
The characters “speak” their thoughts directly to the reader in the narration. Instead of the author’s voice on the page, the reader hears the characters’ voices.
Here’s a passage from my second novel, Mr. Moneybags. It is set in the viewpoint of a character named Reggie, a twenty-four-year-old car thief. Note that the narration is in his voice. It utilizes his rhythms of speech, his ideas of correct grammar, and his turns of phrase…not mine.
Authors who prefer present tense often say that it creates high immediacy. Present tense makes it feel like the story is happening “right now.” The effect is magnified when you combine present tense with first person narration, which also heightens immediacy.
In this point of view, the story is told by the narrator, a character who is deeply involved in the story and relays their perspective with “I”.
In the moment, John can’t possibly know what will happen ten years from the time he uses that knife to kill someone. But the all-knowing narrator does, and can include that little teaser for the reader without breaking the rules of third omniscient.
When I edit a manuscript (and before I send a manuscript to my editor) I spend most of my time analyzing every scene in the novel.
I’ll use my first novel, 
Here’s a trick to help you. If you’re a commercial fiction author writing in a popular genre, chances are your climax will focus on the external narrative. In a murder mystery, it will be the epic conclusion of the investigation, as the detective confronts the perpetrator in a life and death struggle.
Meanwhile, literary fiction prioritizes the internal narrative. The main attraction for a literary reader is the character’s change over the course of the novel. The external narrative provides the context and catalyst for that change.
However, if you look at John Grisham’s thriller A Time to Kill, you’ll find that the protagonist, Jake Brigance, is a defense attorney at the center of the major external conflict of the book. The central questions of the novel revolve around his court case, so Jake’s perspective is the most interesting for the reader.
Everything. A mystery novel is really a game between the reader and the writer, and the mechanics of the gameplay are built from an analogy.
Additionally, because mystery novels are most often set in the point of view of the investigator character, the reader typically receives that information at the same pace and from the same perspective as their fictional counterpart.
I recommend going back and reading the Sherlock Holmes stories. It’s no coincidence that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had his hero say, “The game is afoot!” He used these mechanics to perfection, and it’s the reason his fiction remains the model for popular mysteries today, from books to TV crime dramas.
Another example…