The Sound of a Soul: Finding Your Voice as a Writer
While making your characters unforgettable in every sentence
There was a time in my life—many versions ago—when my job was to shape-shift. I was a ghostwriter, a brand whisperer, a voice-for-hire. I could write like anyone. That was the skill: absorbing someone else’s tone like osmosis, slipping into their cadence, their rhythm, their metaphors. I wrote for CEOs, fashion brands, and once—yes, truly—crafted a bit of social copy for Stephen King back in 2017. That was thrilling, surreal, and unforgettable. But even then, I knew the most important voice I’d ever learn to write… was my own.
Voice is one of the most intangible yet defining traits of a writer. It’s not grammar. It’s not genre. It’s not even structure. It’s the fingerprint of your soul pressed into language. And for years, I silenced parts of mine to make room for other people’s.
But when I began building The BelleVerse, I had to call every part of me back. The mythic, the romantic, the cosmic, the sarcastic. I had to give myself full permission to sound like me. And it was only in doing that—owning the complexity of my tone, the way I bend genre and lace prose with glitter and steel—that I finally felt free as a creator.
Sometimes my voice is honey-laced and reverent, poetic like a hymn to the moon. Sometimes it’s sharp, wickedly funny, casually devastating. And that’s the point. Voice isn’t about fitting into a box. It’s about sounding like you—on purpose.
One of the biggest differentiators in my work, and something I believe many writers overlook, is how I approach character voice too. I’ve read too many books where everyone sounds the same—where the villain and the love interest and the sidekick all talk like they’re in a writer’s room full of the same pop culture references and generic cadence.
But my characters? They speak like they’ve lived. Like they have history, taste, damage, humor. And none of them sound like me.
That separation is key. Your authorial voice should be distinct from your characters' voices. You’re the omniscient conductor, but they are the ones who sing. Each with their own tempo, dialect, and wounds. Each one echoing something real—so real you could hear them across a crowded room.
So if you’re a writer finding your way, here’s what I’ll say:
Write how you speak when you feel most like yourself. That’s your seed voice.
Let it evolve, bend, shimmer, grow teeth.
Don’t apologize if it sounds "too much"—whether that means too romantic, too cynical, too poetic, too bold.
Let your characters breathe in their own voices, not yours.
And most importantly: Write like no one’s editing you.
The reason I stand out isn’t just the fantasy worlds or high-stakes plots or layered mythologies. It’s because you can hear me. You can hear my soul in the sentences. And you can hear my characters fighting to become who they are.
That’s voice. And that’s where the magic lives.
With (glittered) quill in hand,
BELLE