The Multifaceted Writer: Curating Your Voice

By Jessica Quillin

I am always impressed with the ability of novelists to craft sentences and realistic dialogue. For me, writing short and directed sentences is not something that comes naturally. However, as I contemplate my new project of redesigning my blog and curating it, my thoughts return to the art of well-crafted, focused writing.

As a former academic, I am inclined towards the long-winded side of writing, particularly in the realm of articles and essays. In novels, I love the sweeping nature of long sentences because they can establish an epic, timeless feel to writing.

Of course, lovers of Hemingway will counter with their preference for bare bones writing. In this mode, sentences are stripped down to their essential elements: noun, verb, and object. No figurative language or other embellishments are needed in the face of a clear description or idea. As the Count Almásy remarks in the film based on Ondaatje’s The English Patient when queried about how he could write a monograph with very few adjectives: “A thing is still a thing no matter what you place in front of it. Big car, slow car, chauffeur-driven car, still a car.”

I dare not go in the direction of a gender studies professor I had in college who liked to characterize this type of straightforward writing as masculine, whereas more flowery writing is feminine. I think that this is too simplistic, as many writers, particularly now, are extremely adept at adapting their narrative voice to the medium or character for which they are writing.

Yet, as writers, sometimes it’s easy to forget our readers. The main complaint I have noted across the web about blogs, which definitely applies to other forms of writing, is when writers don’t have a consistent voice or a strong angle to their work. Typos and grammatical errors in modern communication are nothing in the face of a lack of narrative focus.

While E.L. Doctorow noted that writing “is a socially-acceptable form of schizophrenia,” when you’re trying to sell your writing and build a readership, establishing and curating your own voice as a writer is crucial. More flexible forms of writing like blogs permit full freedom to muse on an infinite variety of topics and still gain readers. But, this only works if you are able to pull in your audience by creating a strong, unique point of view for yourself.

After years as a marketing/communications professional, I have slowly learned the art of tailoring different types of writing for different audiences. In my first job as a Communications Manager at a performing arts company, I learned quickly that it’s not just a matter of a particular tone for a certain type of writing, but also different voices within that type of writing. For instance, at the time, I managed three monthly e-newsletters that communicated roughly the same information, only to drastically different recipients. We had one general newsletter, one for the Board, and one for our young subscribers. While information was obviously recycled between the newsletters, I nevertheless had to reshape and re-present the same information in specific ways to appeal to readers of different ages and background.

Due to this experience, I have been somewhat surprised at how much of a learning curve I have experienced in adapting my own writing style to the medium of a blog. As I mentioned in a previous column, when I first started the blog, my writing was rather all over the place. It took time for me to get used to the medium and begin to cultivate a voice for myself. In the beginning, I did not feel in my element, which is why it’s taken me several months to take my own e-zine idea seriously.

The word “curating” is thrown around a lot these days, usually in reference to website maintenance or indeed anything that is specially commissioned. While I think the term is perhaps overused, it can be a powerful concept for writers as a way to define and establish a narrative voice.

The idea of “curating” your writing literally means “to act as curator for” it, which implies that you are fully taking charge of all aspects of what you write. This moves you well beyond a simple outline. As a curator, you must take a holistic approach, having a robust central idea, while maintaining a keen attention to the design, structure, and details that illustrate and support your concept.

In the mode of taking a deliberate approach to what you write, style suddenly becomes refreshingly individual. It is of your creation and thus at your whim, if you will. You’re even free of an outline as long as you feel that you are in control of your writing. To some extent, sentences, like characters, are as developed as you want them to be. They can function to support main ideas or they can be the locus of the action if you’re writing criticism.

For my own purpose now, as I figure out how to cultivate my blog into a magazine, I am conscious of setting up a strong concept for the project. This will hopefully make the task not only more organized and thus more feasible to implement, but
also more fun, as I will be writing with a sense of exciting purpose and direction.

Jessica Quillin owns Quillin Consulting, LLC, a consultancy in Washington, DC, focused on content development, research, and strategy for the public and private sectors. She holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Cambridge.