Let’s Write – The Structural Edit: Voice & Style

We’re back with another addition to our series on How To Self-Edit. During the last handful of weeks, we’ve discussed:

Today, we’ll wrap up the structural edit by delving into authorial voice and style. Let’s go!

Voice and Style

We touched on voice while discussing character development, and many of the points raised there apply here, but on a personal level.

The writer’s voice and writing style are unique and relate to how an author tells a story.

A writer’s voice is a set of intimate markers, identifying us personally. It reads like a conversation between friends. Authors can’t help but sprinkle bits of ourselves into our writing voice because, at its core, our voice is a collection of our life experiences, beliefs, and values. Our writing voice is an extension of who we are that bleeds into our storytelling.

A writer’s style more closely concerns our use of metaphors, sentence structure, descriptive writing, and how we deliver information. Some authors employ beautifully lush prose, while others use clean, functional lines. Minimalistic, almost. Others get lost in sensory writing or rarely use descriptions in their work. We can also identify authors based on their style, but style isn’t as cosy as voice.

For example. Here on the blog, my voice is conversational and often bubbly—which is exactly how I sound IRL. I typically write in an instructional style, and (try to) keep every post concise. My voice in Fall of the Mantle is serious, and my real-life whimsy only shows in puns and one-liners. The style is grim with slower worldbuilding and old-timey epic fantasy feels. But I’ve been working on a modern paranormal romance written in the first person and simple present tense, and it reads way differently than FotM. Both the style and voice are more conversational, and easier to read than the classic fantasy storytelling of my other projects.

Most editors have been trained to see the individuality of voice and style, and will always strive to edit a manuscript in such a way as to preserve the individuality of the author.

So, your job while self-editing will be the same.

Editing Voice and Style:

Language

Though many argue we should fix language and grammar during the line edit, every author has quirks, influencing their voice.

Finding synonyms for repeated words, and removing quirks or pet phrases go a long way to presenting a more concise voice. We should also find and replace overused metaphors, modifiers, weak verbs, and passive voice.

Overusing the same actions is another culprit. When we can only show our character’s emotion by having them wring their hands, look away, or bite their tongue, we should find more interesting actions. The same goes for hearts, minds, and stomachs. If their heart is constantly skipping a beat, it’s time to find a synonym (and a heart surgeon because that stuff’s dangerous 😅).

Struggle with emotional descriptors? No worries, I’ve got you. Check out my Writing Emotions series, where I break down the body language, expressions, speech patterns, and physical sensations associated with various emotions.

On the sentence level, we can shorten sentences that are too long, find variations in a cluster of same-length sentences, or add words to sections where we’ve written too many short sentences. We can change the first word where several sentences start with the same pronouns, and so on.

Inconsistencies

We must spell made-up words, names, etc the same way throughout the manuscript. If we use UK spelling instead of US, we have to use it consistently. The same applies to scene breaks, internal monologue, italics, punctuation etc.

Keep it Unique

The urge to copy other authors is great, especially when we’re fledgeling writers. But the point of creating is to put our stamp on it. Thankfully, this is a self-resolving problem (conflict, even). The more we write, the more rooted we become in our unique voices, so write! Meanwhile, remove those sections of text that don’t sound like you.

And that’s today’s post. Do you have any tips about creating a unique voice and style? Let’s chat in the comments!

I’ll be back with the final post in this miniseries next week when we’ll talk about common mistakes in our manuscripts.

Until then.

Yolandie