Finding Your Writer's Voice

by Bria Quinlan, Jeannie Lin

Voice. That IT Factor. The Holy Grail. Every writer has one. Every writer knows what it is, but not everyone can put their finger on how to develop it. Join Jeannie Lin and Bria Quinlan, two award-winning, best-selling authors, as they chase down this elusive element. This book discusses the hierarchy of developing a professional voice as well as concrete tips and techniques for discovering and enhancing your writing voice so it emerges as a unique and compelling force that has readers turning the pages for more.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

152 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2017

About the author

Bria Quinlan is an award-nominated bestselling author of eight Romantic Comedies and YA Issue Books (that she swears are funny...really. They are.) Her books make you snort Diet Coke out your nose or tear up and curse her name.

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/ybgdq33r
Kobo: https://tinyurl.com/krvpqjr
BN: https://tinyurl.com/ydf9det6
iBooks: https://tinyurl.com/jrblzqr


Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/y9bcw7za
Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/zsxehx8
Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/yd8nv8tj

BookBub: https://tinyurl.com/y8edzs5d

BREW HA HA SERIES

#1 The Last Single Girl
#2 Worth the Fall
#3 The Catching Kind
#4 The Proposing Kind
#5 Things That Shine
#6 *In Progress*!

STARLIGHT HARBOR

#1 The Sweetest Things
#2 Back to You (summer 2022!!!)

RVHS SECRETS

#1 Secret Girlfriend
#2 Secret Life

YA Standalones

Wreckless

It didn’t surprise anyone when Bria Quinlan started writing YA Rom Coms… after all, her life is a walking sitcom (minus the commercials). Plus, secretly she’s still 16 (although her license says something different). Finally putting those English Literature and Creative Writing degrees and Copy Editing cert to work, Bria’s excited to get her quirky stories on the page to share with the world (or at least a segment of it).

She’s represented by the awesomely amazing Lauren Macleod of the Clan…. Oh, wait. Of Strothman Agency.

Bria writes Romantic Comedies for teens that take hard topics and make you laugh through your tears. You can contact her at briaquinlan.com OR twitter @briaquinlan
She also writes sweet & sassy Contemporary Romances as Caitie Quinn.

A proud Golden Heart Finalist, she’s focusing on writing stories that make you laugh, make you cry and remind you that life is an adventure not to be ignored.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was extremely helpful in thinking about my voice. Jeannie and Bria use alternating voices, and they include personal anecdotes to highlight the lessons. The lessons are all worth trying to figure what works for you and what doesn't. Highly recommend this book for people who are interested in analyzing their writing style or just want to improve their craft.

[Elise Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good place to start honing your voice as a writer. There are a lot of great exercises that make you think about what voice means, what affects voice, what your voice sounds like in your writing, and even how to alter your voice in response to genre or other conventions. It begins with the assumption that the reader is at least reasonably versed in the rudiments of writing for publication (and explicitly says that), but it does continually return to some very basic touchstones of craft. That continual return to the very basics ensures that beginning writers should find this book very helpful, but it does make sections of the book plodding and repetitive for more experienced writers. That isn't necessarily bad - sometimes you need to go back to the basics to fix something wrong with your writing.

The back and forth nature of the book - moving from one author's experience to the other's to showcase different approaches and tools - highlights the variability of process, which I appreciated. There were a number of references to film, literature, music, etc. which assume familiarity on the part of the reader. While I easily got about 80% of the references, I had to hunt up the others. That might be off-putting to some.

Overall, I'd say this is a solid book that's worth the work-through for a beginning to intermediate writer or a more advanced writer struggling to alter their existing voice.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Brittania Dancer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written book for anyone trying to find their writers voice. You get personal experience that you can relate too. You get exercises that help your thought process and your writing skills. This book takes you back to basics so that a beginner will find it useful and helps those that are more along rethink where they want to go with their book. You get useful references to movies, books and other genres that some might find informative. I would recommend this book.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very useful read which will give you pointers on the best way to find your writer voice.. It will help you write the story you know is inside you

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Anna Bowling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful and entertaining tips on honing authorial voive, from emerging to signature.

[MJ Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

My critique group decided to take a break from our usual meeting plan to read a book on the craft of writing and discuss it as a group. One of our members suggested Finding Your Voice: Make Your Writing Unique and Unforgettable by Bria Quinlan and Jeannie Lin. It was a good choice.

This is a shortened version of my initial review. In that review, I not only talk about what I did and didn’t like about the book, but I also focus in more on what I learned from it about my own writing. You can find that review on my bog site if you’re interested - [...] Here, I will focus on the groups high-level reaction to the book.

At our meeting last night, there was one comment that was almost universally agreed upon. The first portion of the book on “emerging voice” wasn’t as valuable as the second and third sections on “core voice” and “signature voice.” That’s partially due to the less concrete nature of the content, i.e., it focused more on what voice is not than what voice is. But, it’s also largely due to the fact that everyone in our group, published and unpublished alike, already has a voice, whether we could describe it or not.

What I loved about the book–and others seemed to agree—is that it helped me identify some things that are a distinct part of my voice such as sentence structure, word choice, and use of humor. It can be hard to articulate your voice, and knowing how to do that can be helpful in honing it as well as aid you in pitching your manuscript to an agent or publisher.

All in all, I think it was a well-written book on craft that writers of all levels can appreciate. The authors give plenty of exercises throughout. I marked half a dozen that I will come back to as I work through the revisions in my current manuscript.

[Angel Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had a long review wrote. Clicked save. Goodreads ate it. Been 2 days of this.

Good read. Worth your time.

[Amber Christiansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is packed full of information and examples about what author voice is and how to develop your voice. There are plenty of useful exercises that can be used with your current work in progress to find and refine your voice and those of your characters. Instead of a dry, boring, hard to follow textbook style, the authors make it interesting and sometimes funny to keep your attention on this important subject.

[Ren Benton]

Asked to evaluate for curriculum consideration. Guidance boils down to "write better sentences," which students would then have to look elsewhere to learn how to do. Since we already teach a "write better sentences" book and this one fails to do a deep dive into identifying and developing the qualities that make an individual's voice, did not recommend.