I need to churn them out, work that cursor across those pesky blank lines without falling out of character. The way I see it novels are a marathon not a sprint and to remain consistent (for a hundred thousand words or so) I can’t be thinking too hard about the personality behind each word. It’s the one thing most susceptible to being ‘lost in translation’. Hone your craft, consider structure and pace, and edit till your eyes twitch. So, I’ve come to believe ‘voice’ should take the least effort. So how can that be anything but raw, essentially you? Like the core of the onion after all the layers are pulled away. But the all-important ‘voice’ is the relationship you have with your reader. Tone and word-appropriateness are dictated by audience and purpose – the odd ‘f’ bomb may be considered acceptable by many in a work of contemporary fiction, but entirely taboo in a professional or technical piece.

Your style is the result of the decisions you make at the word level. But it wasn’t until they accepted my second ( Missing You, out April 2015) that I realised I just might be doing something right, and perhaps it was my ignorance of all rules that made me distinct.

My first attempt at writing (mostly for sanity-preservation reasons whilst on mat leave) was found on the slush pile at Random House about a year after I started. Suffice to say finding my voice was a short and flukey journey. In fact, my throat still tightens a squidge every time I say ‘I’m a writer’, fearful that alarms will sound, people will point and shout ‘she has no business calling herself that’. For me, writing is an unconscious, gut instinct most of the time. Like a windswept, uphill adventure involving a hip-flask and walking stick. Having winged my first book (and most of my second), I feel a tad unqualified to talk about finding a writer’s voice.

Losing Kate by Kylie Kaden