The Value of the Informal "Conversational" Voice

"I can't find YOU, in there!"

It's a statement I remarkably often make to people who share their writing with me.

What I mean by that is that I will read someone's article or book and it is so wrapped up in the "factual" that I have no sense of the author's voice.

I have heard musicians say that they can tell when a piece of classical music is played by a computer, because it lacks "soul." 

So it is, with writing.

Often, this is a result of having been taught — probably in high school or freshman English in college —that the "proper" format for writing is "3rd person, singular."

I suppose it also explains why I tend to turn down invitations to edit mechanical or scientific papers and books. I'm more interested in people stories than thing stories. 

On Being Compelling

With the advent of the Internet and self-publishing there is just so much writing out in the world that a major part of creating a compelling personal brand is that you need to have a "human voice" that comes through to the reader.

If you don't, you become just another voice that fades into the noise of the crowd.

Indeed, we were told in school to not use first person when we write! But what makes a book about your experiences in India compelling is that they are YOUR experiences... not the experiences of some undefined "it" that could be any one of several hundred decent travel or spiritual writers. 

I also spent many years working in marketing and advertising, and one of the most important concepts in getting a product seen is "differentiation."

When you write something, your unique angle — your differentiation — is that it's your story. So don't take yourself OUT of the story, just because some grammar book or style manual said to do so!

And, to be perfectly blunt about it, if the thing that matters most to you is grammatical accuracy? I'm probably not the right editor for you...

So, write from the heart!

Making You Look as Good as Possible!

A friend of mine had been playing around with the idea of writing a book of his life experiences living in various parts of Asia in the 1980's and 90's.

He came to me with some notes and asked "What exactly does an editor DO?"

Of course, there are plenty of excellent definitions — most of them quite long winded — of what book and manuscript editors do.

But that wasn't the sort of answer he was looking for.

Eventually, the "Elevator Speech" version I came up with goes like this:

"I take your ideas, your words and your voice and make you look as good as I possibly can!"

And that's pretty much what it amounts to.

Whether you bring me scribbles on a napkin or a nearly perfect first draft, my job is to make you look as good as possible. And it's really our job, as we will work together to do this!

I realize that it's also why I enjoy working with authors from highly creative or spiritual fields, where the primary objective is to convey an idea and essence, rather than just go through an exercise in "mechanical accuracy."