Jerry Jenkins on How to Find Your Own Unique Voice

It's not as complicated as it seems

Best selling author Jerry Jenkins breaks down an easy way to think about developing the unique voice that is personal to you. Plus he offers a simple exercise that will automatically help you identify and capitalize on it. Enjoy!

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Your writing voice is your distinct:

• Personality

• Character

• Passion

• Emotion

• Purpose

• The Lens through which you see the world.

Your voice sets the tone and conveys your message in your own unique way.

Try this exercise. Consider:

1. The coolest thing that has ever happened to you

2. The most important person you told about it

3. What you sounded like

That’s as complicated as it needs to be.

Here’s how I found my voice:

The highlight of my life was meeting the woman who would become my wife.

I couldn’t wait to tell my best friend, who happened to work at a gas station.

I pulled in there and made my friend give me his full attention.

I hopped atop a 55-gallon oil drum and told him all about Dianna, and I mean everything—what she looked like, sounded like, how she acted, how much I loved her, that he would be in the wedding…

“Wedding?” he said. “Does she know about this?”

“She will soon enough,” I said, and for two hours I rhapsodized about a woman with whom I’d spent not much more time than that.

When I climbed down off that drum I realized I‘d been sitting in a quarter inch of motor oil the entire time. It had soaked through my pants and down my legs.

When I arrived home, my mother took one look at me and said, “You’re in love.”

My voice in this anecdote is obvious. I was smitten, energized, passionate.

You at your most engaged is the voice you want on the page.

JerryJenkins.com