Writing Voice: Finding Yours and Loosening Up When Your Writing Seems Stilted or Dry

In this year’s Aliventures survey, one person wrote:

“When I decide to write for public consumption, my writing becomes stilted and didactic.  I write much more loosely and enjoy it much more when it’s just for myself.  This became such a big hurdle for me last year that I ended up deciding I wasn’t going to be able to make writing a career.”

Finding your voice as a writer can be a challenge – especially if (like this writer) you’re thinking of having a career in writing.

Some writers, both of fiction and non-fiction, have a much stronger voice than others. They write in a unique, distinctive style, and that’s one of the things readers love about them. Think P.G. Wodehouse, for instance, whose stories wouldn’t be nearly so memorable without Bertie Wooster’s narrative style.

But other writers struggle to find their writing voice. That could be because, like the person in the survey, they find themselves writing easily and naturally when they don’t have any audience in mind … but they freeze up when writing for public consumption.

Other writers (and I’d include myself here) have the ability to easily adapt their voice. That can be a real advantage as a freelancer or ghostwriter – but it can also leave you wondering if you really have a unique voice at all, or if you’re instead a kind of chameleon writer, constantly adapting to suit your surroundings.

What Exactly Is Your Writing Voice?

Sometimes, we might use “tone” or “style” to be synonymous with “voice” in writing … but I think voice encompasses a bit more than these.

Your writing voice isn’t simply about the tone you use – whether that’s serious or playful, formal or laid-back. It also incorporates things like:

• What you choose to write about. 
• The vocabulary you use
• Choices about syntax and grammar

All of these factors work together, of course, and they’ll usually fit together consistently.

For instance, in a blog post on Aliventures, my overall writing voice is friendly, encouraging, and informative. At least, that’s what I’m aiming for! 

My style is conversational and informal. I might use fairly advanced vocabulary, but I’m not going to throw in lots of academic or overly formal words like moreover or thereby.

Simple Ways to Explore Your Writing Voice, Before Writing for an Audience

If you don’t feel you have much sense of a voice coming across in your writing, it can be helpful to take a step back from writing for public consumption.

Instead of trying to write a blog post or a short story, write something that’s just for you. That might mean:

• Keeping a journal: about your day, about your goals, about whatever’s on your mind.
• Tackling a writing prompt (I have a set of free writing prompts you can download when you join the Aliventures newsletter).
• Writing “morning pages”—this is a technique from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way that some writers love.
• Playing around with writing and simply having fun, without any expectation that you’ll produce something “finished” or even coherent.

As you try some of these ideas, you might find a sense of your own voice emerging. Perhaps there’s a wry humour in your writing, or a love of word-play, or a crystal clarity. 

To go further in developing your voice, and in “speaking out loud” for an audience, you might want to try some of the following ideas.

Look at What Other Writers Are Doing … In Detail

As a reader, what writers do you admire? Which writers might you recognise purely by their writing voice?

I know it’s easy to read something you love and feel daunted by how good it is. But however incredible the writer is, they’re using specific words, phrases, and punctuation to achieve an effect. It’s your job to figure out how they’re doing it.

Take a piece of their writing and print it out or copy it into a document so you can annotate it. You could even write it out by hand (a technique called copywork) to help you connect more deeply with the text.

Here’s a passage from a blog post by the inimitable Naomi Dunford, a fantastic writer whose voice comes across loud and clear in her work.

Back in the day, when content creation was largely an individual pursuit, creators went to great lengths to keep up certain appearances. One of them was the pretence of, “Oh, gee! I just happened to turn the video recorder on this morning after my five-mile run and kale smoothie! LOOK HOW CHUMMY AND SPONTANEOUS I AM!”

Those days are still alive and well for certain creators, but those creators tend to skew very young. Creation, in certain circles, is still very much about popularity, personal branding, and coolness.

In other circles, though, all pretence of spontaneity has been abandoned. Production values are up across the board, and audience members know that content marketing is part of a business strategy, not hip exhibitionism.

So to answer your question directly, no, you don’t have to change your outfit. You go ahead and wear what you damn well please.

Here are a few things I’d pull out about Naomi’s voice, from this short excerpt:

• Part of her voice involves the way she looks at the world. She’s not afraid to call out silliness (or what Naomi might well call “bullshit”) – e..g her mocking of video content creators. 
• She’s happy to use strong-ish language. (In the early days of her blog, Naomi was particularly known for her “potty mouth”.) We have the word “damn” in the final sentence here.
• Her voice isn’t dumbed down, though. Take a look at the sentence “In other circles, though, all pretence of spontaneity has been abandoned.” The word choices (“pretence” and “spontaneity”) aren’t simplistic, and the structure of the sentence is fairly complex too.
• Naomi speaks very directly to the reader – in this case, to one single reader who’s asked a question, but with an awareness of a much bigger audience of blog readers.

Imagine You’re Writing to One Single Person

If I’m not sure how to phrase something in a post on Aliventures, I sometimes imagine I’m writing to one of my readers. (Sometimes I even picture a specific person – often a reader who’s contacted me or commented on the blog.)

This can make it easier to find the right balance of how much detail to give, how formal vs informal to be, and how to frame what I’m suggesting or discussing.

You don’t have to do this every time you write, and you may find it doesn’t fit the voice you want for your public-facing work, but it can be a good way to “loosen up” if it feels like your writing is becoming stilted.

Use Your First Draft Just for Content

Whether you’re writing a piece of fiction or nonfiction, you’re juggling a lot in draft one. 

With a story, you’re trying to convey characters, keep the action moving at the right place, balance dialogue and narrative, introduce tension, raise questions in the reader’s mind … and more. 

With an article, you’re getting a message across, making sure you’ve included all your key points, trying to decide how much to explain (and how much to leave out) … and more.

It’s no wonder that it’s really tricky to nail your writing voice at the same time.

You might want to try getting your first draft down without worrying about voice or style: just focus on the actual content of what you want to say. Perhaps it’ll seem a bit stilted, didactic, or even a little cringy. That’s okay!

As you redraft, you can edit out any false notes: sentences that don’t ring true, or phrases that don’t sound like you.

Consider Using AI to Play Around With Voice

If you want to experiment with voice and you don’t have a lot of time to rewrite and experiment, you might want to try tools like ChatGPT. 

These aren’t a replacement for you, the writer, and they also can’t replace the deep understanding you’ll get of your writing voice by doing the work yourself … but they can be a good starting point.

You might like to ask ChatGPT to analyze the writing voice in a passage you’ve already written. (Its insights won’t be perfect, but it might highlight something you hadn’t recognised about your existing voice.) 

Here’s part of the analysis it came up with when I asked it to analyze the previous section of this post:

This section has a warm, friendly, and encouraging writing voice that feels approachable and supportive. The writer uses a conversational tone, which is evident in the informal language (“a bit stilted,” “even a little cringy”) and direct, reader-focused language (“you’re juggling a lot,” “you might want to try”). This style helps readers feel seen and reassured, especially those who might feel self-conscious about their initial drafts.

You could then ask it to rewrite your text in a different voice. Here’s that section of my post rewritten by ChatGPT in a “direct, hard-hitting” voice. It covers the same content, but it’s more directive than I’d usually be!

In your first draft, you’re juggling a lot. With fiction, you’ve got to establish characters, keep the story moving, balance dialogue with narrative, build tension, raise questions—and more. Writing an article? You need to make your point, cover all the essentials, decide what to explain, and what to skip.

Don’t expect to perfect your voice at this stage. Focus on getting the content down. Yes, it might sound stiff or even awkward – that’s normal.

When you redraft, that’s when you can cut anything that doesn’t sound like you. Voice comes later; right now, just write.

Remember … Sometimes Blending In is Fine!

In my freelance work, it’s not generally an asset to have a strong and unique writing voice. 

Instead, clients want me to be able to adapt to their brand voice: taking it on as my own.

If you’re freelancing, it can help to have a fairly bland, straightforward writing voice. Some of my work has been for B2B (business to business) websites, where readers want clear, accurate information, but they’re not looking to be entertained.

With fiction, you’ll normally want a stronger sense of voice in your writing—but even then, some genres lend themselves to a clear, simple style (think chapter books, for instance, aimed at young readers).

Don’t hold yourself back from writing as a career just because you think your voice isn’t strong enough. There are loads of types of writing where that can be an asset, as it’ll keep readers’ attention on the content – not on your cleverness or likeability as a writer.

Developing your writing voice can take time. Try some of the ideas above to loosen up and find your voice … or share your own tips with us in the comments section below.