1Every serious writer eventually discovers that finding a truly personal voice matters far more than perfect grammar.
2Voice is the special music of a sentence, the rhythm that tells you who is speaking.
3You can often recognise a famous writer from a single paragraph, even when no name appears on the page.
4Most young writers begin by copying the style of the authors they admire, and that is perfectly natural.
5Slowly, through years of patient practice and many failures, their own way of speaking begins to appear on the page.
6Style is not mere decoration added at the end; it is the writer's whole way of seeing the world.
7A plain sentence can carry deep feeling when the rhythm and the word choice are right.
8Readers may forget the plot of a novel within a year, but they rarely forget its voice.
9That is why experienced teachers of writing always tell their students to read their own sentences aloud.
10The ear catches false notes and weak rhythms that the eye, moving quickly across the page, will easily miss.