Is that My Voice? How to Tell if Your Writing Is Flat

Transcript

Some writing leaps off the page and embeds itself into your mind long after you've finished reading it. Other writing, maybe not so much.

How do we create a strong authorial voice? And how do we make sure our writing can keep a reader’s interest and not risk putting them to sleep?

I'm Mary Brydon-Kehoe, writer and owner of Elixir Editorial. Divine the secrets of the written word together with me in The Laboratory.

Style is really the place where we get to decide whether or not our readers are going to be engaged with our story. Outside of the fact that the plot itself can be quite interesting, our style is how we actually say the words to our readers and make sure that they're paying attention. It's incredibly important and it's something that we can't really risk ignoring.

If you're keyed up from writing something, you might find you kind of slip into the two different camps of either you're really excited about it or you might immediately hate it, so you need to give yourself some distance between it and yourself. Put your writing aside for a moment and you're going to get a little bit clearer of an idea of what it needs and what you can do to maybe fix and spot some of the issues that are going to plague writing that is a little bit flatter than something more engaging, maybe more exciting, more interesting, something that draws our readers in.

One of the big tips that we see out there a lot of the time is to read your writing aloud. You want to consider if there's actually a natural ebb and flow to the language. I have a scripted intro for each of these podcasts but for the most part I'm sticking to an outline that I have and I'm just kind of speaking to these. You can kind of tell when I'm going off script, when I'm going a little bit closer to my points, I think, if you were to look back, because one of those is maybe a little bit more rigidly defined. I'm not necessarily saying that one is better over the other. There are definitely suitable times to use each, but something to take into consideration is when we are a little bit more natural there is that ebb and that flow. We can kind of get into a little bit more of our own voice.

The other thing is that when we're less restrictive about these types of things we tend to have a little bit more variation in what we're saying. I've talked before about varying up the lengths of sentences, the lengths of the words themselves, just to kind of give your readers something to hook into as a pattern. Something else to consider is, is your cadence too fast? Is it too slow? If it's either one of those things your writing can sometimes come across as a little bit stilted and unnatural feeling, which can throw people off.

As a writer if you're putting these words down on a page you don't necessarily have the same benefit of seeing them for the first time that your readers will. There's this closeness that exists between you as the author and the words that you put down that doesn't exist for readers. Reading aloud might be a little bit different for people and it kind of gives you that space to actually see what this is going to sound like. Sometimes we glance over things a little bit too easily when we're reading the words on the page in our heads, and as authors when we put those words down we know what we mean so it can be a little bit harder for us to create that distance between us and the text.

Reading it aloud might give you that opportunity to see, “Okay, does this trip me up? Is it overly complex? Is it too many syllables? Am I kind of tripping over my words?” If you're using overly complex language it can make it difficult to follow, which can actually end up being a big turn-off for readers as well. They can lose interest if something is too hard to get into.

The other big thing is, does it put you to sleep? Is it too easy to slip into kind of a monotone voice? It can be quite telling, especially if we’re the ones who actually wrote the thing in the first place.

Once you've had that opportunity to actually assess your writing, hear it aloud, do a quick exercise. How would you actually describe your style? Not the style that you're hoping to get to, but what does your style actually sound like to your ear? Flat writing can feel kind of humdrum, it can kind of feel like it doesn't properly convey your personality or the personality of the narrator or the narrative itself that you're trying to create. How would you characterize it? Are there five to ten descriptors that you could use to describe it to someone? Imagine you're doing an elevator pitch for your actual style and how you write. What are those descriptive words that you would use? Is it punchy, heavy, jaunty?

Another thing you can do to kind of enhance this exercise is have someone else read your work or have it read to you specifically—aloud. Listen for the parts that catch them. What are the parts that they trip over? It's not necessarily an indicator of what you need to immediately go out and fix, but there can be patterns that you pick up when hearing it in someone else's voice. You're the author of this work—you're going to understand how it should be read, quote-unquote, whereas somebody else reading it for the first time maybe is going to catch on things that you wouldn't catch on. They're going to trip maybe or stumble a little bit, or hearing in their voice might be able to point out where you're using some of the same language over and over, if you're favoring one word too specifically or certain types of phrasing. You can make notes as you go.

I've done this actually fairly recently. I really appreciate when people are able to read my work—not only read it, but also read it aloud when I'm there. It gives me an inside view that I don't normally have when I'm just sitting there by myself writing.

And you can do that same descriptive exercise with the person. Ask them how you would describe that voice that you're creating. If they kind of struggle with a way to describe the writing, you might actually need to work a little bit more at developing more of a distinct style and punching up your writing, making it more exciting. Those are indicators to tell whether it's actually working or not.

And a last thing to kind of get yourself into the space of looking at style, maybe read a few passages from other writers that you really admire or who have a really distinct style. Even if you don't necessarily like their writing, it can be interesting to kind of see how somebody who's not you would go about writing a certain thing. It's part of why authors are encouraged to read widely. In their genre, outside of the genre—I say the more the merrier. You'll want to look for those patterns and see how somebody else might tackle the same kind of problem. And those problems might just be, “How do I make this engaging? How do I draw people in?”

You don't have to imitate somebody else's writing either—that's part of the beauty of picking somebody who maybe is a little bit different than you—but it can get you thinking in a way that sort of breaks the box that you've put yourself in, maybe, let's say. You'll definitely find your own way of saying things, but it could be interesting to see—you know, if I was writing about the same subject, how would so-and-so choose to do this?

There are a lot of possibilities out there. I mean, you could pick someone like Ernest Hemingway, who has a very staccato, very short, very brief—you know, “Brevity is the soul of wit” kind of style to his writing that is very evident, and it suits the kinds of stories that he's telling most often. But he also sounds an awful lot different from somebody who's maybe a little bit more meandering, maybe a little bit more whimsical, like Lewis Carroll. I wouldn't exactly say that there's whimsy in Ernest Hemingway, but he still has his own distinct way of putting words to the page.

If you want a little bit more of a modern take on this, Suzanne Collins is going to sound different from either of them. Partly it's going to be because of the genre, but also because that's just how these three authors have chosen to portray the ideas that they're trying to get across.

There are a few things as well that you can look out for that contribute to flat writing. I kind of indicated some before, but over-reliance on telling instead of showing is one that shows up a lot in, let's say, a writer who maybe hasn't quite narrowed down their style yet. I would actually argue that the opposite is true as well. If it's somebody who is spelling out every little detail that we don't necessarily need to see like it's an instruction manual or if it's a technical guide to something. Especially if you're in narrative fiction, you're not going to be spelling out things like you would in, let's say, a medical document. You're not prepping them for surgery, you're not prepping them for that kind of thing. You're trying to get an idea across, and it's going to have its nuances. It's going to have those moments where you need to delve in a little bit deeper. But if you rely too heavily on telling or showing, it can get quite samey. It can get very difficult for people to find a place to latch in.

Telling might put too much distance between the text and the reader, and too much showing could actually make it tedious to read something. There's a sweet spot between letting the reader imagine something happening on their own and guiding us through maybe more of the emotional side of things that we really want to explore. Again, without necessarily hitting us over the head with “This person felt this,” for example.

Another sign is that there are too many adjectives and adverbs. This doesn't just apply, I think, to people who want to create that really punchy, sort of brief style. Verbs just tend to be the stronger words to use in any of these given situations. You can still get very poetic with the way that the characters interact with each other, with themselves, or reflect on things, or that the landscape kind of interplays there.

Adjectives and adverbs tend to slow down what you're trying to say. They can weaken the writing because they're putting too much of a barrier between what you're actually trying to say. We only have so much time in a day. If you're reading a book, for example, you might have a specific reading time carved out. If it takes a while to get to a certain point, it better be because it's worth it.

So, adjectives and adverbs—it can reduce some of that purple prose that we see a lot of the time with… maybe not exactly completely new writers, but writers who are really trying to find their style and what that actually looks like. You want to think very carefully about what you're actually committing to the page—you only have your reader's attention for so long, I think is what I really am trying to say. And if you put too many adjectives and adverbs—adverbs especially, but adjectives too—they can kind of pile up unnecessarily. And you have to really consider, are you using your reader's time well while you have them there?

I think another thing that tends to jump out to me about a voice that maybe needs a little bit more developing is: not exploring the impact of the situation on the characters. The plot might be there, the characters are there, but sometimes people have a tendency to want to glaze over these things, skip them over. I'd actually say that that tends to be a first draft problem more than anything because we're just trying to put words to the page, we're just trying to get to the end before we can look back and actually do something about it. But the risk in committing that to the page and that being the end result and hand it off to the reader is that if you don't slow down and flesh things out along the way, you're kind of missing that connection point.

You don't have to hit people over the head—like I say, you don't have to spell out every little tiny detail. You don't have to be looking for an emotional response in the reader necessarily. But trying to convey your character's feelings on the subject—again, kind of trending more towards showing rather than telling in that situation—spending that time is well worth it, as opposed to something like adjectives, adverbs, that are going to kind of slow things down unnecessarily when you need it to maybe speed up a little bit.

This is a time where you can have people think about the things that have happened to them, the events that they've faced, the challenges that they've gone through. You can use imagery, you can use the actions of the characters to paint a more full picture. It's a great opportunity to really inject the feeling into the writing.

The other thing that can be kind of related to those other two points that I made about telling versus showing or kind of rushing those emotional moments in the story is that some writers won't leave enough room for speculation for their readers to really start to wonder about. Spelling too much of the plot out beforehand can really drive down a reader's interest because there's some element of mystery that I think all plots kind of rely on. You don't want to necessarily tip your hand right at the beginning. You want to tease those things out a little bit and let your readers kind of interact with the text a little bit more. They're going to develop their own analyses, their own theories, and things that are going to keep them there, that are going to keep them interested in coming back for more.

Alternatively, there's an issue with maybe being too coy about a situation. In situations that are really important for us to understand as readers, especially things like action sequences or if a particular character is doing something important to the plot, we're going to want to know what those things are. Unless, of course, it's something that's supposed to be shadowy in the background, but not all of that stuff has to necessarily take place there. There can be more overt things going on.

Foreshadowing is actually a great way to combat the first iteration of the issue, but it can contribute to the second. If you're kind of dangling that carrot, dangling that idea that there's something more impressive, more important going on, you really, really need to come back with a lot of payoff. Otherwise, if there's not a big payoff, why is there foreshadowing? Is it something that could potentially just be folded into the rest of the action of the story?

Finding that balance between hitting your reader over the head with what's happening or just not wanting to give them any information can actually be a little bit trickier than it sounds. You do have to develop some trust with the reader, and while you can still be a bit playful, ultimately the main thing is to focus on actually telling the story. Don't get caught up in thinking you're going to be—you know, I use the word “clever” sometimes when talking about this kind of issue. You don't want to trick your reader. In fact, if they're kind of following along with your foreshadowing and everything, if it's not a mystery, for example, and it's something that you want them to have figured out maybe earlier on, that can still set up a lot of dramatic irony.

As a last point, make sure that your writing is clear. I think that that gets overlooked a lot of the time when we're looking at style. Sometimes there's this preference for really heavy language, really complicated language, where simple and clear can actually convey those things a little bit better and still create a lot of character and strengthen that authorial voice for you.

You might be talking about some really interesting concepts, but if your readers aren't able to follow along with your ideas, they're going to start to tune out. They're going to potentially just not finish your story, which is obviously not what we want. It can be especially relevant for those under the speculative fiction genre—fantasy, science fiction, horror—but it does apply to others as well. It can happen anywhere.

Think about it: have there been times where you actually wish you knew what the author was trying to say, but the writing felt too dense to approach? Rather than try and feel bad for yourself as a reader and not understanding, I would actually say that that blame lays at the feet of the author, because it's their job to make sure that first and foremost, before you really start looking at making it more artful than that (and I would argue actually that writing in plain enough language to be understood is itself an art), you have to make sure that your readers can actually understand what you're trying to say.

So don't overlook clarity. Clarity is an essential part of your writing style. Some writers—I think Isaac Asimov was one of these, whose writing was either compared by him or others to a plain glass window because he was serving the story above all else. Of course, I'm sure he has a style distinct of his own, but if you want to think about it, you're not trying to create an opaque window.

If you want to play around with your voice, if you want to strengthen your narrative style, you want to think about it not necessarily in terms of a clear window—that can suit certain things, but it's not for everybody, of course—and you don't want to think about it like you're putting up boards in front of a house. You want to think about it in terms of maybe a stained glass window. Your writing should still be decipherable for what it's trying to convey, but you can play around a little bit with what that looks like—how people are seeing the story on the page, what are they looking through? After all, if a reader can't interpret what you're trying to say, are they going to notice how you're trying to say it?

With that, I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If you have any questions on the topic discussed, or if you'd like to suggest a future topic, please don't hesitate to reach out. Contact me through elixereditorial.com or find me on Instagram, Blue Sky, and LinkedIn @elixireditorial.

Intro and outro modified from Danse Macabre by Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com and licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License.

See you next time in The Laboratory.

Mary Kehoe provides structural, stylistic and copy editing services for a variety of written works through her agency, Elixir Editorial. From time to time she dabbles in her own writing projects which tend toward the speculative genre.

She is a member of both Editors Canada and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), as well as a founding member and former chair of the Toronto Arts & Letters Club writing group. A longtime lover of the English language, Mary is passionate about supporting writers on the journey to inspire the world.