Let your writing Voice tell your story and others!
By Jennifer Lindberg www.thinkingfromhope.com When I went to work at a mid-size paper the managing editor was our writing coach. He came from a publishing family and many larger newspapers at the time had editors doubling as writing coaches. He was brutal. I went home in tears for two weeks straight. I thought I’d picked the wrong career, had zero talent, and wouldn’t survive the year.
He made me a better writer and he taught me to find my writing voice. He made me re-write everything from the lede—what journalist’s call the first 25 words or so of the story—to the body of the entire piece!
Sometimes, he made me re-write it twice and on deadline! It was agonizing. He saw something in me, telling me I had good instinct but no flow. He didn’t fire me. No one had ever criticized my writing that way. After I calmed down and stopped crying, I began to listen to his advice. I thought he was trying to make me write like him. He was trying to get me to find my unique writing voice. He wanted me to hit my stride.
What is this writing voice? Back then it was called your style. It was the tone you set with your articles and how you conveyed facts. I like voice better. Voice goes deeper. It resonates and sends a message. It’s about conveying your deepest thoughts while letting other people’s ideas, plots, or designs shine. It’s making your thoughts valid and authentic when you are trying to persuade someone to your ideas. It is story-telling at its best. You grip the reader with your story, they like your voice, and they read more. You are giving them something. Your writing has meaning. It should be authentic, help others, and invoke some sentiment whether it’s defending life, inspiring hope, or stating interesting information about travel, the faith, health, employee relations, and more. Knowing your writing voice can also translate into communicating your business mission or ministry goals. If you don’t know your own voice and what you want to convey, no one else will either. How would you describe your unique writing voice? Pick up a John Steinbeck novel or Ernest Hemingway book and you know who is writing it. We all remember certain advertising slogans by the way they were written and stuck in our head. A writing voice is throughout any story. It doesn’t get in the way of the characters– who have their own voice. The writer’s voice still allows the story to set its own pace and unfold its own drama. Great story-teller’s prod. They seek to understand some topic, be it hope or religion or car-buying habits, and transform you by giving you information you want to ponder, initiate, or relish. Finding your writing voice is important to you and others. You have something to give whole heartedly and God loves a generous heart. It takes some soul-searching to define your writing voice. It can also change over the course of our life. For example, when I was a full-time newspaper journalist, I would have described my writing style as Hard-hitting, Relevant and Punchy. Today, I would describe my writing style as Sincere, Moving, and Soulful. Because that’s what I want to convey. I want to move hearts for Christ. I want people to think about their dreams and their well-being and I want to be sincere and provide hope in all aspects of life. I still seek to be relevant and accurate but it’s not my writing voice. Those are required elements to any story. To find your writing voice you have to know what you want to convey and who you are. How would you describe your writing voice in three words? Write them down and keep them close. Unfurl them and become a better writer at your core. Leave your writing voice description on the comments. Also, where do you post these three words? I put them at the top of my calendar every month.
God has a bucketful of Hope for You everyday! Just look at the ocean. How can we not believe in hope when God made that!
I’m a Mid-Western girl more comfortable in seas of blue sky and views of green cornfields on my horizon instead of ships. I like sand at my feet but prefer farm dirt and leaves squishing through my toes.
Those ocean waves of blue can still open up any land-locked heart. The waves lap up hope, healing, and deep messages. Christ calmed the seas, setting out on them to give Hope of Salvation. Hope pushes into your depth bobbing through your pain until you buoy with confidence because you have found your anchor forged with faith.
Looking at the ocean, I see bucket’s full of hope. Those millions of drops of water add up to hope. It also represents my writing. I want to pour out my words like water, letting them gush into my life, and drown it with joy.
I laid my writing down for a long time. I was an award-winning journalist taking pictures of the stars like Cindy Crawford when she came to town, interviewing country-music star Sammy Kershaw on the phone, and telling stories of regular people doing good deeds. Switching to the Catholic Press, I interviewed Cardinals and traveled abroad. I had a really fun life. I laid it all down when I had six beautiful babies and a sick mom who was bed-ridden. It was easy at first to stop writing. I’d had a great career. When number three came along and I was changing his diaper while interviewing a cardinal on the phone, I knew it was time. I couldn’t juggle it all anymore. It was OK. I was relieved. There wasn’t enough me to go around. I am not a great multi-tasker and I’m hands-on. I didn’t want to miss a thing with my little ones. I wanted to be able to hold my babies as long as I wanted. I didn’t want to worry about deadlines or phone interviews. I didn’t want any one else depending on me, just my babies and my husband. It was beautiful. It’s still beautiful.
All writer’s know that writing is a large part of your heart. It can lay fallow for awhile, but it starts wanting to push back up to the surface. I had to keep pushing it back down, especially when my beautiful mom got sick with COPD and her lungs gave out with the disease. She suffered heroically before she died. She couldn’t breathe but she still smiled. I was in tears and she told me I was beautiful and not to worry about her. I cried harder. I was exhausted with trips to see her and raising little kids. I didn’t write much, if at all. I started to miss this expression of myself.
Now, I see how God was working. He was letting my writing lay fallow to grow. I suffered a lot during this time. It made me better. I had a lot of time to ponder things rocking all those babies–the youngest is five now. I had a lot of time to let hope grow. I had a lot of time to pray in emergency rooms and hospital rooms with my mom. My aunt–who had taken over grandma duties–surprised us all and died six weeks before my mom. I was pregnant with number six and my gallbladder was failing. I buried the women I loved the most in the world. The dirt was still fresh on my aunt’s grave when I buried my mother. I am an only child. My entire family lies in the same cemetery one headstone after another. It was a hard time that made me reach for Hope. Hope, faith and love have a name: Jesus Christ. My suffering of seeing my loved one’s die made me rely more on Mother Mary and all the saints. My tears watered my faith as I cried out to God and it sprouted hope. I miss my mom and my aunt. I miss that they didn’t get to hold my babies. Hope grows in the worst circumstances and it inspires in the best of circumstances. I learned that the hard way, but I’m still grateful to have learned it at all.
Thanks for thinking and reading about hope. Give it to others!
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