Everyone Has a Voice

Fact: everyone has a unique voice. By "voice," I mean the way one speaks or writes. How many words they use; what words they use (this is called "diction"); how high or low or loud or quiet they are; how respectful or disrespectful they are; how grammatical they are; what punctuation they use (Dash or ellipsis? Comma or semicolon?); what allusions, references, and jokes they use; what their sense of humor is like and if they have one - all of it. Simply put, voice is the personality of one's writing or speech. And yes, your voice when you talk may be different than your voice when you write.

You've encountered voice in your reading. Many authors have a very distinct voice, such as Roald Dahl or Rudyard Kipling. You can't their stories and not recognize the author. There are more subtle voices, too, as evident in the Psalms. David's psalms are different from Asaph's, which are different from the Sons of Korah's. You probably wouldn't notice that unless you spent a lot of time reading the Psalms, though.

Here's a fun activity: you and your writer-friends (Hopefully you have some. Writer-friends are a blessing.) each write a paragraph or so about a character, preferably one they make up on the spot so that no one can identify it as theirs. This character can do or think or say whatever they want. Have everyone type their paragraph, because I don't know about you, but everyone in my writing group knows everyone else's handwriting. Now, mix them up in a hat or bag. Read them all. Can you identify the writer by their voice?