When writing for the print industry or the web, everyone tells you to have you own voice. But what does that really mean?
Finding your voice is simply a matter of writing with
personality. No one wants to read boring informational articles (well, maybe some
people do) or stories, which is why adding personality is effective. However,
there are several ways you can do this.
You can be the casual conversationalist
This is where your writing sounds more like a casual
conversation than your high-school research paper. It is adding
conversation-style words to your writing rather than traditional written words.
This is the style I write in most often and the style that most of my writing
clients prefer.
You can be the funny one
Humor is engaging and fun. The trouble with humorous writing
is that to become funny, sometimes there has to be something to make fun of,
which can be a slippery slope. If you ever visited the website Cracked.com, you
can see what I mean. Their articles are usually quite funny, but often in a
mean or condescending way. If you want to write for humor, then you’ll have to
have a tough skin. Additionally, finding something that your readers will find
funny in addition to something you find funny is fairly difficult. You’d be
surprised at how many jokes are inside jokes.