Finding Your Voice: Refining Your Style

“Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess.” – Edna Woolman Chase (qtd in Bumgarner 17)

Stylist and media coach Lori Bumgarner uses the above quote from the former editor-in-chief of Vogue to begin her chapter on “Polishing Your Look” (17). Bumgarner explains, “Having style is more about possessing good taste and knowing what’s right for your body, your personality, and your lifestyle, regardless of the amount on the price tag” (17).

Just as your fashion style is the distinctive manner in which you use clothes (perhaps color, pattern, shape, texture, and other elements of design) to create your signature look, your writing style is how you use elements in writing to give your work a signature sound and look.

You just need to find your writer’s voice and refine your writer’s style. Harmon and Holman say style is “the idea to be expressed and the individuality of the author” (491). I would add that style is the manner in which the writer’s ideas are expressed. In their Handbook to Literature, the two select some of the following elements of style (with my explanations or additions in parenthesis):

Ø  Diction (vocabulary and choice of words)

Ø  Sentence structure and variety

Ø  (Punctuation)

Ø  Imagery

Ø  Rhythm (pacing)

Ø  Repetition

Ø  Coherence (level of consistency and clarity)

Ø  Emphasis (including use of symbols and themes)

Ø  Arrangement of ideas (491)

If you are on the search to find your voice and refine your style, several steps may help you:

Ø  Be sure you have a basic understanding of each of the style elements listed. Perhaps look them up in a dictionary or a literary handbook (such as Harmon and Holman’s guide).

Ø  Create a chart with the elements of style. Investigate a couple of short stories from your favorite authors. How do they handle these elements?

Ø  Look over some of your writing. Do you already see a pattern in your use of these elements?

Ø  Now be critical. Are there times when you poorly use some of these elements? Is your punctuation poor? Is your repetition tedious? Is your rhythm uncomfortably jolting?

Ø  Purchase a couple of writer’s tools, such as books from the top 5 list at the bottom of this entry. However, remember that, just as with fashion style, your writing style cannot be bought. Do not expect to write the next American classic novel just because you buy books or expensive word processing programs. But a couple of guiding books can help you on the path to self-discovery and self-refinery.

The hardest part of this journey will be the honesty: truly consider your style, and don’t be quick to toss it all aside. You have strengths and weaknesses: appreciate and develop your strengths as you overcome or bend your weaknesses into something unique to your writing.

Bumgarner, Lori. Advance Your Image. Franklin, Tennessee: O’More Publishing,

2011. (currently self published, coming soon to O’More Publishing)

Harmon, William and Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 9^th ed. Upper Saddle

River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.

Possible Writing Challenges
1) After you have identified some of your personal writing style elements, write a piece that plays around with the elements you feel are part of your signature voice. Then test some elements you use less. Do you think you want to incorporate something new into your style? What simply doesn't work, doesn't sound like you?

5 Helpful Writer Reads

1)   The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

2)   A Handbook to Literature by Harmon and Holman

3)   On Writing Well by William Zinsser

4)   On Writing by Eudora Welty

5)   Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark

a special thanks to Melissa Henson for designing this logo