Why Voice is Important

Voice. The way your writing speaks. It's what agents all say they want. An authentic, strong voice. But how do you 'get' voice? How do you learn to imbue your writing with voice?

I don't have a clue.

I've been told my writing has a strong voice, and I'm happy about that, because to me voice is like being told you have pretty eyes. Thanks, dude, but they showed up when I did. I didn't have to go looking for it. (Now, plotting and pacing? I'm out looking for those guys every day.)

So, can voice be taught? And what's the difference between good voice and bad voice and weak voice? Again, I'm so not helpful here. It's one of those things I know when I see it/hear it. (Like, in the movie Reality Bites, when Winona Ryder is on a job interview and she struggles to answer the question, What is irony? She says she knows when she hears it. Crap. Just dated myself.)

But in my other, copywriting life, I've been working on explainer videos and this has given me insight to voice. An explainer video is exactly what it sounds like, a video that explains what a company does. This video is uploaded on to the company's site or Youtube and hopefully generates enough buzz to help get the word out and eventually get sales.

Below are two explainer videos for products that I think are successful all because of voice. They are both hard sells: Disposable razors and (I swear it's true) deodorant you spray into your toilet so your poop doesn't smell (so many issues with this product, so many ways it is wrong.)

Disposable razors are cheap and easy to come by - so why mail order them? This video answers that question.


A product called Poop-Pourri. In a sanitized world, we now have to sanitize our poop? This product is not for me...however. This explainer video made me curious, and more importantly it made the ridiculousness of the product funny - like I was in on the joke. It's really effective.



So, how do you work on voice in your writing?

G is for Grace

And for Grizzly Bear

Are you are old enough to remember the movie Reality Bites? I was in my early 20's when it came out and I was so excited to see it. I had a girl crush on Winona Ryder and had actually met Ethan (Oh Capitan, My Capitan!) Hawke in Washington Square Park.

I felt grubby when I got out of the theatre, realizing that for the first time in my life I had been directly marketed to - me, with my Bauhaus and Love & Rockets be-stickered car and pre-Chanel black nail polish. Mainstream, meet Alternative, now get cozy and have lots of babies. Yuck.

But there is one part of that movie that stays with me. Winona Ryder's character goes to a job interview, which doesn't go well when Anne Meara asks her to define irony. Winona hems and haws a bit then says, "I know it when I see it!"

I feel that way about the word 'grace' I can look it up a million times, and feel like I have. But it's a slippery, teflon kind of word that, for me, doesn't 'do' definition well. It's got multiple meanings that lay like nesting dolls, one within the other. Grace is experiential, sure, but it's also fluid. It means so many things, and if you stretch the word to represent something it 'almost' means, it brings a certain flavor that's above and beyond it's definition. It's a word that resonates, literally spilling out concentric meanings, seemingly into infinity.

Is that completely daft? (that's a rhetorical question)
Do you have a word that does that for you, transcends definition?