So there I was that foggy morning at the Central California Writer’s Conference, sipping my morning dose of caffeine, listening to the workshop presenter and sitting in one of those “reach down, lift up and pull over” desk-chairs only a Gen Y-er could manage gracefully when suddenly I sat up and took notice.

What did she say?

No, it couldn’t be that simple.

No way!

I’d processed the speaker’s opening remarks, the usual rules of the road. Find a regular time to write. Check. Fill out your character profile sheets and get to know your characters. Uh—huh. Make writing time a ritual. Yep. Then something happened. I’d had a writing epiphany, thanks to Earlene Fowler, powerhouse teacher, writer and Agatha award winner. She had performed a miracle with four tiny words: “Voice,” she said, “is word choice.”

Word choice. Really, that’s it?

For years, I’d attended writer workshops, read all the self-help books I could that often buried voice within a discussion of style and point of view; yet it always seemed elusive, hard to pin down and just out of reach. “You know it when you hear it,” one author wrote. “What a terrific voice, Amy has, don’t you agree?” a friend said, and I’d nod, sure, yep, of course, not fully understanding what voice was, and if mine were out there somewhere hopping down the literary bunny trail, would I recognize it when I heard it or even fell over it? But on that morning in San Luis Obispo, I felt a door long bolted had finally opened. Voice was word choice. What a concept.

My thoughts led me first to music. My parents and grandparents could easily distinguish Sinatra’s voice from Crosby’s, Ella’s from Rosie’s, Count Basie’s orchestral sound from Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey’s. They’d recognize the Americana of a Berlin tune, the lush romanticism of a Gershwin melody, the sophisticated lyrics of a Cole Porter. Just ask the younger generation if they can hear the difference between Britney or Christina or Jessica. I’ll bet they can.

Then I remembered one of Bob Newhart’s routines from the 1950’s when he was known as the comedian with the “Button-Down Mind.” In an imagined telephone conversation between Abe Lincoln and his press agent, Abe said he wanted to change the hook in the Gettysburg Address from “Four score and seven years ago” to eighty-seven years. The agent mulled this over, said it wasn’t a good thing since the speech was field-tested in Erie, P.A., and everyone there loved it. Still, Abe wasn’t convinced.

“Well, Abe,” the frustrated agent explained, “it’s sort of like Marc Antony saying, ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, I’ve got something I want to tell you.’”

If that isn’t voice in a nutshell, what is? Voice is distinct, one of a kind. It’s yours and only yours. So the next time you delay starting dinner or feeding the household pet because you’re deep into a story or article, hunting for that perfect word, remember you have a legitimate excuse. You’re exercising your voice and practice makes perfect.

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About the Writer:

Paul Alan Fahey is a California Central Coast writer. His work has appeared recently in Byline, New Times, audience, Crimson Highway, Boston Literary Magazine and in the Cup of Comfort Anthology for Single Mothers. He is a five time recipient of the annual "Lillian Dean Award" at the Central Coast Writer's Conference. Paul has just completed two screenplays and three short stories using Syd Field's three-act paradigm as a guide for structure. He lives in Nipomo, California with his partner, Bob, and three loveable yet very unruly shelties.