Finding Your Voice as a Writer

Let’s be honest: “Find your voice” has become one of those phrases that gets thrown around so often it’s started to sound like spiritual wallpaper. Everyone says it. Few explain it. And most people using it are trying to sell you a course about it.

I’ve lost count of how many articles, workshops, and YouTube videos claim to help you “find your authentic writing voice”, as if it’s a Pokémon hiding behind a tree, waiting for you to catch it. The truth? Your voice isn’t hiding. It’s drowned out.

It’s buried under what you’ve been told a writer should sound like. Under the advice columns, the “ten rules of writing,” the SEO checklists, and that little voice in your head whispering, “Will people like this?”

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: you don’t find your voice. You recover it.

The Noise Problem

When you start writing, you’re like a musician who’s just picked up a guitar. You learn by imitation. You mimic the rhythms of writers you admire, the lyricism of Didion, the punch of Orwell, the swagger of Thompson. And that’s fine. Mimicry is part of learning.

But somewhere along the way, you realise you’ve built a Frankenstein’s monster of borrowed tones. One paragraph sounds like a professor, the next like a travel blogger on too much espresso. You’ve become fluent in “writer,” but mute in yourself.

And then…if you’re lucky…you hit a wall. You get tired of trying to sound right. You get tired of bending your sentences into shapes that please imaginary readers. You realise that authenticity isn’t something you add in the edit; it’s what remains when you stop performing.

That’s when your voice starts to whisper again.

Honesty Over Branding

The problem with modern writing advice is that it treats your voice like a brand asset. Something to polish, package, and present to the world. “Find your niche,” they say. “Be consistent in tone.” “Write for your audience.”

No.

Write for the truth.

Your audience will find that.

When you sit down to write something real, not filtered through marketing speak or self-consciousness, you reconnect with the same creative pulse that made you start in the first place. It’s messy, yes. Sometimes it contradicts itself. Sometimes it swears. But it’s alive.

Voice isn’t about how you sound. It’s about how honest you’re willing to be.

Forget the Guru, Trust the Gut

I once read an article that said, “To develop your writing voice, identify three adjectives that describe your style.”
Three adjectives. Imagine describing Leonard Cohen that way. Or Bukowski. Or your own diary.

You don’t shape your voice by defining it. You shape it by using it, every day, in drafts that no one will read, in posts that flop, in moments when you surprise yourself.

Every time you write what you actually think, not what you think you should think, your voice sharpens. It’s the muscle memory of honesty.

And like any muscle, it only strengthens with use.

The Courage to Sound Like Yourself

Finding your voice isn’t a quest. It’s an act of rebellion.

Because sounding like yourself means risking yourself, your reputation, your tidy image, your chance to be universally liked. It means writing something that might make someone uncomfortable. It might even make you uncomfortable.

But that’s the moment you’ve struck gold. That discomfort means you’ve stopped echoing and started speaking.

I’ve learned that every time I tried to impress people, my writing sounded borrowed. Every time I tried to be clever, I lost the thread. But when I wrote as if no one was watching, that’s when the work breathed. That’s when readers connected.

Not because it was perfect, but because it was human.

So, How Do You Find Your Voice?

You don’t.

You write badly until it stops feeling fake.
You tell the truth until your fingers stop hesitating.
You write one line that sounds like you, and build from there.

Voice isn’t discovered. It’s remembered.

And when you finally stop chasing it, you realise it was never missing. It was just waiting for you to speak without permission.