Finding your voice

Voice is the combination of your personal, character and narrator voices. It’s the sum of all the decisions you make – big or small, conscious or unconscious – when writing a story. For some writers, voice comes naturally. They have that rare gift of effortlessly creating a voice on the page. I don’t think they were born that way, though. I think they’ve filled their brains with beautiful music, books, poetry, art and life experiences. Like actors, these writers find it easy to assume a role or identity that is not their own and transcribe this character’s voice to the page. If you are one of these, I’m so happy for you. Am I jealous? Sure! The rest of us have to work for it.

The voice of each piece of writing should be different. My funny story for readers 7+ about training to be a fairy godmother should be noticeably different from my middle grade action-adventure book. However, our natural writing style is more difficult to change from piece to piece. I’m sure clever readers can spot my literary ticks and tricks in all of my books. For example, I love a dash and prefer shorter paragraphs. There’s a way I tell a story. I can’t completely change my background or personality, but I can lean into it and select stories that benefit from my style of writing.

With each new writing project, experiment with voice. Change the point of view or the tense of your story. If you are writing in first person, try a close third. If you naturally write in past tense, why not give present tense a go? Analyse your word choice, sentence structure and the literary devises you use. Review your protagonist background and all the lovely details you’ve imagined for your main character. Really consider how she/he/they would speak. What words would she/he/they choose? What metaphors?  

Study and analyse the voice of your story but don’t forget to play. Sometimes we take ourselves and our writing so seriously. (Yes, I’m the queen of analysing absolutely everything.) And yes, writing is a serious business. But sometimes what we need is to relax and play more. If you are struggling with voice, take a break from your serious self and experiment with your story. Do what I like to call off the page writing. This is writing that might not find its way into the final draft of your story, but which might shake some ideas free. Write diary extracts from your protagonist at different ages, for example. Make a list of what she/he/they carry in their backpack or keep hidden under their bed. Write a monologue where the character introduces her/his/their self to a group of strangers. Get your character to write down their biggest fears or secrets. Put your character in funny, scary or outrageous situations and see what happens.

Sound, rhythm, sentence structure, word choice and literary devices are the ingredients that create the voice of your piece. Spend time crafting the perfect voice for each story at this DNA level. A fresh, original voice brings a story to life and creates an experience that your readers won’t soon forget.  

Get your copy of the Children's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2027 at Bloomsbury.com.

Sara Grant writes and edits fiction for children and teens across a range of genres. Dark Parties, her first young adult novel, won the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Crystal Kite Award for Europe. She has taught master’s courses on writing for children/teens at Goldsmiths, University of London and at the University of Winchester and co-founded Undiscovered Voices, which has launched the writing careers of more than a hundred authors and illustrators. She is the author of The Ultimate Guide to Editing Your Novel (Bloomsbury 2025). www.sara-grant.com