How to Find Your Writing or Preaching Voice?

My son Will is five and my Daughter Charlotte just turned three. One of their favorite games is to endlessly repeat whatever my wife and I say. My daughter will even try to imitate my deeper voice. Every kid plays this game. Mimicking is actually a necessary part of growing up.

As Carrie Shrier, writing for Michigan State University, put it:
“Infants love to copy facial expressions. In fact, babies as young as just a few hours old can copy an adult who sticks their tongue out. If you smile, they will try to smile back. As babies get older, they get even better at copying your actions. Holding the phone as you do, brushing your hair, mimicking your actions, and copying your words and tone of voice.”

Honestly, I find it terrifying. What comes out of my mouth soon comes out of theirs. And watching my son grow up is strangely like looking at some sort of time machine mirror. I constantly catch glimpses of myself. You come to realize just how much you shape their earliest self-identity.

But eventually, my son and daughter will learn their own voice, their own vocabulary and experiences, and traits. There will always be something of our family there, a foundation beneath them, but parents want to see their kids grow into their own voice and lives. What’s cute at three seems stunted by if still the same at twenty-three.

We often talk about voice when we describe the way a person writes or speaks. It’s more than the sound vibrating vocal cords, we are speaking about the uniqueness of that person's perspective and the way in which they express themselves. Voice is something we all recognize and love about our favorite writers and preachers, but after almost 100 interviews with writers, I’ve met very few who enjoy talking about it. When I ask about voice, it's like I’m asking what their wearing... it's strongly too personal. I feel it too.

As critical as it is, having a unique voice, it still sounds awkward and superficial to talk about. Early on as a writer and a pastor, I thought a lot more about it. What I wanted to sound like, what kind of writer I wanted to be. 

Eventually, though, you come to realize that a voice is not something you can construct but something which must be uncovered, something there but too often shuffled to the back, forced out by more pressing expectations and insecurities. 

What I mean is, the work of cultivating voice is really a process of subtraction, not addition. You must get all the stuff out of the way.