5. Find your voice
When
children start to learn musical instruments, it's really important that
they get to try as many as they can lay their hands
on – violins, pianos, recorders, trumpets, double bass, timpani,
all sorts. How else does a girl from the Scottish highlands –
Evelyn Glennie – find out she's a brilliant, inspiring percussionist?
There are just as many possible voices in fiction writing as there are instruments in an orchestra.
What form do your gifts best suit? Poetry? Short
stories? Drama?
And should you write in the first person – I did this and I did that – or tell someone else's story in the third person – she did this and she did that?
Then there is your subject matter. Are you a car chase writer, or, like me, a medieval battles person. Could you set your story in the future or on the moon? Or in a single room …
Only by experimenting will you find out which form
best suits you.
