A raw, unedited, radically honest letter from OBA’s founder to you, brave storyteller, about how to tell your truth in public and stay whole while doing it.
Dear Radical,
You know what I hate? I hate when people say, “I’m still trying to find my voice.” And the reason why is because you’ve never actually lost it.
Your voice is not something that you search for. It’s already in you. From the moment you began talking and developing opinions and thoughts and beliefs, your voice began to be born.
Then teachers told you that you had to follow the rules. Editors told you that you needed to fit within a specific mold or be more professional. Perhaps someone even told you that your work wasn’t very good, that you weren’t very talented, or you should maybe choose a different career path. Somewhere in there, you stop liking the sound of you.
You collect your favorite authors, your favorite writers, your favorite directors, your favorite influencers, your favorite people. And because they do it so well, you try to imitate them. Sometimes indirectly, but you think,
They said this word or these words in this order and that worked, so I should try something similar.
What you end up doing is letting someone else’s voice drown out your own.
So what is voice, exactly? Most people think voice means style, sentence flow, word choice, rhythm. But that’s not really voice. Those things are icing. They’re the things that you put over the structure that’s underneath. The structure that’s underneath is what really matters.
Your voice is your emotional frequency. It’s your worldview. Your humanity. It’s what leaks through when you stop trying to sound smart or polished or professional or even poetic. Your voice isn’t how you write, it’s how you see. And how honest you’re willing to be about what you see.
So the big question is: why do we tend to “lose” our voice?
You lose your voice every time you start writing for approval. This is not uncommon—I consistently write thinking about what other people will think. When you write, you are more than likely thinking about Booktok, or the writers group that you hang out with, or about being a best seller.
Is this piece that I am writing going to be good enough for other people?
Does this sound on the level of a professional?
When you get trapped in this thinking, you start to edit yourself out mid-sentence. You imagine who might read your writing and then automatically start trying to polish it to fit their taste — not yours. Not the way that you prefer to speak, to express yourself, to show up.
We’re taught to sound a specific way instead of human. Which I think we should buck against, because one of the biggest complaints that many of us have about AI is that it doesn’t sound human. Yet we are constantly trying to polish ourselves to sound professional; sound like something approved; sound like a bestselling author; sound like somebody who is successful. And in doing that, we don’t sound human.
But the stuff that connects — the sentences that make someone stop scrolling or turning pages — they’re supposed to be messy. They’re supposed to be alive.
Yes, you will edit. Your editor and you will clean up and strengthen and clarify many things. But if you write true to your voice in the first place, being unapologetically yourself on the page, then your editor has a chance to work with you to shape something marketable while still remaining true to who you are.
A good editor will not edit out your voice, they will maintain your voice. Why? Because that’s the story you set out to tell. That’s the story that your soul knows needs to be told. Your story doesn’t have to land with everyone in order for the right people to find it.
You don’t lose your voice because you can’t write. You lose it because you’re afraid of being judged. Afraid of being misunderstood. Afraid of being rejected by some imaginary reader who doesn’t even exist yet.
So how do you get your voice back?
Radical honesty. The thing you never want your mom to read? Write it. The stuff that you would be embarrassed to say in public? Write it. If it scares you, it’s probably your real voice talking.
Radical curiosity. Ask why you see the world the way you do. Your trauma, your humor, your contradictions. That’s your lens. That’s your voice. That’s the way you see things. Voice isn’t found with grammar or polished work. It’s found by perspective.
Radical consistency. You can’t find your voice in one draft. I’m sorry, but it’s not gonna happen. Write enough to recognize your own patterns. What do you notice? How do you phrase things? What do you always circle back to? That is your fingerprint.
Your voice will become stronger the moment you stop trying to prove you deserve to have one. So keep writing. Lean into yourself. Find the parts of you that you are afraid to share with the rest of the world and put it on the page. The fine-tuning will sort itself out later, with a good editor.
I promise you this, you don’t need to find your voice. You need to unlearn all the extra shit that is drowned out. Every page you write, every story you tell, it’s an act of remembering who you were before you edited yourself or someone else edited you.
Your voice isn’t out there waiting to be found. It’s not some secret Easter egg that’s waiting on a quest on the top of some mountain. Your voice has been inside of you and waiting for you to come home from the beginning.
Stop trying to sound “good.” Start trying to sound true.
Love Always,
Finding the courage and confidence to write a bestseller with your own messy, vulnerable, human voice is HARD. One Brilliant Arc’s editors and publishing consultants know how to guide you through the harrowing journey. We promise to help you tell your story your way, in your voice, without compromise. Schedule a ✨free✨ consultation with an OBA story coach and we’ll help you create a plan to do just that!
