Voice is the Key to Writing Faster

I realized, at some point, that I loved The Lord of the Rings trilogy for a completely different reason than most people did. I didn’t care about the rivers, councils, armies, or the history of Moria. What I cared about was Hobbits, feasts, the love stories (which, for the record, are very sparse in the story)—and monsters. The Watcher in the Water, the wolves, and the pursuing Ring Wraiths were my favorite parts of the trilogy.

When I finished the series, those were the things that I came away with—they were my favorite parts. And when I started writing, I missed how big of a clue that was to my own style. I wrote books the way that I thought I had to. I wrote councils, boring meetings, and wars with armies, which took away most of my room for being me. But I realized that that wasn’t what I read books for, and neither should it be what I wrote my books for.

When I finally gave up faking being someone else, I found myself. I thought that if I didn’t write the parts that I didn’t like, I wouldn’t have a book. But what I found was that if I didn’t write the parts that I did like, then I wouldn’t be true to myself.

So, when I turned to writing my fantasy series, all of the scenes zipped by. I could hardly wait to get back to it to work on the next chapter. I had discovered the real key to speed writing. The key was the same key that unlocked all of writing: finding myself at the core of it all.

Have you ever been on a commercial flight? I’ve been on more than I could count, and I’ve seen the little safety demonstration about a million times. If you don’t know, they tell you where the exits for the plane are, how to tighten your seatbelt, and similar instructions. If there ever was to be a need for oxygen, masks drop out of the ceiling. When they tell you this, they sometimes include the warning to “Put the mask on yourself first, and then put your child’s mask on him.” (That’s because if you pass out, no one is going to help you, but if your kid passes out, you can just put his mask on him.)

And that’s what writing is. If your writing doesn’t help you, why would you think that it could help someone else? The point is, cut the scenes and the stories that don’t interest you. Tell the whole story—yes—but show it your way. You are a beautiful person. And there are people out there who just want to read about the Hobbits and the monsters. Those are the people who are waiting for you to find your voice so that you can bring them stories that they want to read. There are people who have ears for your unique voice. So don’t hide it.