Build a Writer's Room

Every writer, as they continue to practice, will build their own unique voice over time. Every strategy that the writer naturally uses makes up their voice. Sentence structure, the ways that descriptions are structured, even cinematic angles play a role in the development of a writer’s voice. Your voice is not expected to stay the same over time. You’ll learn more, be influenced by other writers around you. Maybe you’ll try different styles, handle dialogue differently, or work with a type of character that you’ve never worked with before. 

One strategy that I have found helpful for myself and others, to better understand voice, is to imagine your own writer’s room. This is a thought exercise that can be completed by writing, drawing, or just by picturing in your mind.

Begin with the floor and walls. Consider these the genres, niches, and structures that you tend to work in. They can be different colors, textures, and patterns. What defines your writing? Perhaps you prefer historical fiction set in a specific time period, but you also write a lot of professional reports.

You might see your historical fiction wall as brightly papered. Maybe you walk with the knowledge that there are mysteries under one of the floorboards! You’ll write these with the slang of the period in mind, and maybe there’s a little bright red graffiti in the corner. This type of writing favors a variation in sentence structure where dialogue happens in short bursts, but descriptions of the setting are drawn out. Time might seem to slow down in this part of the room.

Perhaps the other side of your room feels like exposed brick and laminate. There’s a lot of natural light, referencing the clarity that’s expected of a business report or professional correspondence. This side of the room might feel more rigid. However, because you’re a skilled writer, you know how to make your work feel engaging and conversational. So, there are strategically placed windows. Your room can be as big as you need it to be and have as many divisions as you need it to.

This is your room, so you can make space for all of the types of writing that you specialize in and the types of writing you want to learn more about.

Set the mood with lighting. Remember when we mentioned natural light? Depending on what you’ve chosen to write, whether it’s a scene from a book or a short piece for work, you’ll want to elicit specific feelings from your audience. Adjust the lighting in your room, and you’ll change the mood.

Maybe you’ll want a dim, green glow of foreboding. A plain, soft light from a lamp can feel familiar, homey, calming. Consider, also, that lighting can determine one’s focus, motivation to action, and perception of a space’s size. While a big, bright light can make a room feel larger and help you to see clearly, a smaller, more focused light can make a space feel more intimate.

Change your lighting as needed to convey different emotions through your writing and engage the senses.

Add furniture. The type of furniture you choose and where that furniture is placed represents your stylistic choices, building on the mood you want to set and the function you want your writing to serve.

Maybe you have a big, comfortable recliner in one part of the room for a cozy novel. There might be a table with a map on top for an adventure story. Maybe you have a conference room or a standing desk on the professional side of your room.

While furniture can, naturally, be decorated, it is meant to serve a function. A couch is meant to sit or lay on, to rest, to take information in. A kitchen chair is meant to sit on and get up from easily. A table can hold something like a vase of flowers, or it can be a place to lay down your head while you’re working on a difficult assignment.

When you are visualizing the space in your writer’s room, think of the function that you want your writing to serve and how you expect your audience to spend time in that space. Choose your furniture accordingly.

Now, decorate! Decorations also serve a function, mostly by making the space feel uniquely yours. Posters, paintings, sculptures, rugs, even a cork board can add personality. Your decorations represent figurative language, vivid visual descriptions, and other literary devices.

Maybe you have a vase of flowers on a table for a more grounded, slice-of-life kind of book. You might have small accents like throw pillows to symbolize a metaphor that will be carried through your story. A painting or poster with some minimalist accents can symbolize a balance between personality and professionalism.

While walls, flooring, and furniture can change over time, it’s easier to experiment and encourage gradual change through decoration. The same is true in writing. Once writers adopt habits that work for them, the nature of those habits can be traced throughout their body of work. Change in those habits usually begins at a small scale, picking up a new strategy (decoration) here and there can lead to some changes in the context or journey that characters undergo (furniture).

Finally, who are your guests? Fiction writers might visualize their characters occupying their rooms, interacting with the space and figuring out how everything works. Many writers I’ve worked with have used this space in conversation with their inner critic, finding subtle fault with elements of design but not knowing how to fix it. So, we visualize the problem first.

Did something break?

Well, what usually causes something to break?

It’s easier to think of fixing physical objects than it is to think of fixing writing that doesn’t go according to plan, but the same principle applies. If something breaks, it has broken somewhere or it needs something to put it back together. Maybe one of your guests is someone who inspires you to write and keep writing every day. 

The beauty of the writer’s room is that it can expand and change in any way you need it to. This is meant to be a space where your writing can be better understood and can flourish.

What does your writer’s room look like? Let us know!