Customer Reviews

Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I cannot CANNOT--say enough about this book! I'm an aspiring writer who had been circling for years--forever stumbling around in the dark searching for some missing ingredient. Les Edgerton provided that ingredient.

In his book, Finding Your Voice, Les throws a hand grenade into the marshes of dull writing. Not only does he give you permission to be yourself when you write, he SHOUTS that you must!
Many a non-published writer constructs barriers to getting published because of an ailment he tags as a "writerly" style. Such writing, he says, stems from trying to write like someone else, or by adhering to some "acceptable standard." All this expenditure of energy and effort not only kills creativity, it drowns out the writer's own voice. It's akin to attempting to draw something via tracing. Successful and effective writing-as in drawing a picture--occurs as the artist surrenders to the freedom of instinct and free-form.

"Voice" is rooted in individuality and PERSONALITY. He points out that readers aren't looking for Hemingway when they pick up your book -- they're looking for you! If they have a hankering for Hemingway, they'll seek out Hemingway. The reader who picks up your book wants to meet you, and they will do just that as you let go and allow your personality to permeate the pages. As a result, reader and writer take off on some joint venture. The experience is far more gratifying for the reader than reading mere dead words.

His book effortlessly exemplifies the very things he espouses. For instance, far from being obscure himself, Les exudes personality-HIS PERSONALITY-on every page. He's transparently friendly, intelligent, witty and totally likable. It seems possible to reach right through the pages and shake his hand. You know this man--he's a new friend.

Finding Your Voice is also a font of abundant and invaluable tidbits. For one thing, Les illuminates the techniques and usages that appeal to our culture today, and that invariably attract editors and agents.

His book is informative, entertaining, and freeing.

Get out there and get it!

as a writing coach, i have recommended this book to everyone who sits down to write. the author uses his own authentic voice to give us permission to be ourselves. his voice is at once down-to-earth, clear, funny and enormously valuable. a book for every writer's library!

Finding Your Voice entertains while it educates, providing writers with invaluable advice in language that is clear, colorful, and candid. The book has so much personality it almost seems alive and about to leap off the bookshelf -- no one but author Les Edgerton could have penned this particular how-to. Advice is delivered in chapters rich with examples and anecdotes to illustrate Edgerton's key message: that the attempt to "sound like a writer" often results in stiff, self-conscious prose -- and that writers should write to express, not impress. An excellent and useful addition to any writer's bookshelf.

My fingers hover over the rating scale... this book is a 3 in spots, a 5 in others.

Perhaps it's because I've been a published author, hundreds of times over. Maybe it's because I never imagined myself as a recycled Hemingway, Bob Woodward, or Mark Twain; I've always written like myself. However, I found the first section awfully tedious. The author keeps knocking you over the head with the reasons to find your OWN voice rather than write like an ersatz Big Name Author. Enough already, I got the point. The reader probably doesn't need to be convinced, if she's already picked up this book.

If I'd stopped after the first third of the book (and I was tempted to, I confess), this review would have gotten only 2 or 3 stars.

Edgerton makes up for it, though, when he gets specific. Fortunately, he does so often, with plenty of examples that show how to _use_ the rules you're read in other books. For example, instead of just saying that you shouldn't talk down to the reader, he provides the intro to one of his own short stories, then rewrites it with all the backstory that a less-experienced writer would be tempted to add. It works, because even the backstory-filled excerpt doesn't completely ... I found that compare-and-contrast analysis very helpful, and you probably will, too. (He has examples from plenty of writers, with all kinds of styles. Not just his own stuff, though he's certainly a good storyteller.)

The author also includes several exercises to help you "find your voice." I didn't feel that most of the exercises were necessary, but one intrigued me: identify the weakest part of your writing (plot, dialog, description, etc.), read several examples of that writing aspect done well, then write a "report" as if you were writing a college paper. I'm not sure if doing exercises like this will work for you -- they don't do much for me, since I usually have paying articles to write instead -- but his are certainly better than the typical [boring]ones.

Another strength is that Edgerton doesn't write only for fiction authors. I'm a non-fiction author and editor by trade (primarily articles but also some books) and much of his "voice" advice is helpful.

Finding Your Voice did sensitize me to several issues of writer voice, and at the end of the book I felt I'd learned something useful. I don't think that I'd put this book on a writer's Must Read shelf, but I'm glad I invested the time in reading it.

This book was, by far, THE most in-depth how-to book that I've ever read on writing. And I've read more than I have fingers. Seriously. I don't work for them. This book raises the bar. I wish the author would write a series on all the other aspects like: plot, setting, and characters. Unlike most books I've read, this one gives specific examples for every topic. Concrete, systematic techniques delivered without that authoritative tone that intimidates the aspiring writer more than instructs him/her. Before reading this, I didn't even realize that my first person manuscript wasn't written in the voice of the viewpoint character. I was using words that would be foreign to "Devin," describing things he wouldn't notice. He wasn't telling his story. I was. I'm soooooo glad I read this book before I gave my manuscript to anyone. I made highlights and typed up notes from this book that I will use repeatedly. This book can be used as a guage of the quality of every other how-to writing book you read. Seriously...

First, let me say that I'm a pretty big fan of Les Edgarton's Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go and I was ardently hoping that this book would be just as solid and useful as the first book of his that I had read. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Finding Your Voice had 5 Chapters of stalling and padding, a few solid chapters on voice, and then another bunch of filler. Take a look at the Table of Contents and you'll see what I mean. This book wasn't worth the asking price, let alone the time to read it.

Now there aren't many books dedicated solely to "voice," but there are a few that have a few chapters on it with material that is more than the equal of this book's. So here's what I'd recommend you buy instead:

Movies in the Mind, How to Build a Short Story

and

The New Strategy of Style

This book is for aspiring writers not for professional writers. This is an important point, because other reviewers have said this book gives too basic advice. Basic, but paramount.

The basic idea behind this book is that many authors suffer from a terrible affliction. He calls it "the writer's inferiority complex" It results from an overadulation of the published word.

Some might say that it is obvious that one should be original.

The fact is that as aspiring writers we are constanly studying the good stuff, good authors, and we are always studying technique. The result of this is that we have a tremendous and heavy influence to carry on our backs. The danger is real: if we are constantly trying to study the best, we might end up becoming a copy of them. Which, paradoxically, is far from being the best we can.

The solution is simple. Buy this book if you have noticed that you write too much like someone.

If someone tells you that you write too much like someone else... buy this book.

If as you write you begin thinking "oh, maybe I shouldn't write this because MR. X or MADAMME Y wrote in this other way... so, maybe I'm not writing good enough", then you should seriously consider getting this book. So you can overcome your self doubts when you compare yourself to your heroes.

If you have an original voice and are very aware that you are not copying (even by osmosis) someonelse's work, then skip this book.

Here is a quote from the book that I particularly liked:

"The astute artist in any field knows that he or she can't "be everything to everyone," and so cultivates his or her own particular and inimitable style, thereby appealing to some and not to others. That's fine. That's the way it should be".

It certainly is fine... how boring it would be writing like your idols!

"Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing" excellently presents new and fresh methods of writing, and provides that "Da Rules" of writing, although useful at times, do not always have to apply in order to make a literary work a masterpiece. However, in an overt attempt at proving his point, the author engages in trashy misuse of incomplete sentences and inclusion of extraneous parenthetical blather. If you can get past that, though, this book is definitely worth the time it takes to read it.

Have you ever left a writers' conference fired-up to hit the computer -- overflowing with sudden inspiration? It's a very liberating experience that you only wish you could recapture during those sometimes long creative dry-spells.

Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing is like a trip to one of the best conferences you've ever experienced. Each "visit" to Les Edgerton's book will leave you feeling energized and in contact with that elusive creative high.

Excellent book by a teriffic author!

I know when I start reading a book, one thing that jumps out at me is if the characters seems "real." Someone who has the skill of writing with a good voice can make the characters come alive on the page, characters you'll remember long after the you close the book.
Finding Your Voice teaches writers how to use their own voice when writing, not someone else's. The book also helps with the un-learning of old rules, or at least knowing when to break them to make for better writing. Edgerton has a way of teaching writers what they need to know in a entertaining way, so the book is enjoyable to read as well as informative.