Eva Jaber ’28 (she/her) is a prospective English or international relations major. She is a member of the Cleftomaniacs, an a cappella group, an ESL tutor and hopes to encourage peace-minded advocacy on campus. Contact her at ehjaber@wm.edu.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
I went to a Noah Kahan concert this summer, and he said something that really resonated with me. Before jumping into one of his sad songs, he gave a spiel along the lines of “Most people go into the entertainment business to make people happy. Screw that. I’m gonna make you guys cry.” That really got me thinking. I’ve now entered my third academic year of writing this column. Why do I do this to myself and others?
For those of you who are new here, my name is Eva, and this is my satire advice column. I have the privilege of reading questions submitted by my peers, and instead of giving them the empathetic insight they deserve, I essentially make fun of them. Am I … a campus villain? Or am I like a Kahan-esque figure who uses dark humor and emotional vulnerability to create a cathartic space of self-reflection for my fellow students? Tragically, I think it’s the former.
But let me explain what differentiates me from Noah Kahan in case you’re having some trouble identifying it. The guy is a whole foot taller than me. Scientifically speaking, the taller someone is, the more surface area they have for the diffusion of their spite. I’m five feet tall, so my spite is far more concentrated than people like Mr. Kahan. While he has the opportunity to make art that finds a productive outlet for his complex emotions, I’m forced to settle on a release valve for my distilled malice. Every time someone tells me that they don’t like “Shark Tank” or that they prefer some other inferior shoe brand to Skechers, I feel the need to remind them that I took Taekwondo classes for two and a half weeks when I was seven and that my belief in pacifism does not extend to circumstances in which someone is being annoying. The bottom line is that this column serves no altruistic purpose beyond making me less of a community nuisance by giving me a platform for what would otherwise be unsolicited advice. With that, let us turn to someone who solicited some advice from me.
The question of the week:
“Hey Eva, I hope you had a fabulous summer! How do you develop your voice as a writer?”
I’ll give you readers one thing: Your questions have been getting kinder and kinder! Ever since I wrote that issue about how none of the greedy question-askers on this campus ever address me by name, I have felt so much more respected. I did have a fabulous summer, dear question-asker, and I hope you did as well! Now, let’s chat about developing a writer’s voice.
Usually, I offer a multi-point plan, but this question only has a one-word answer (and a 594-word explanation). Consistency. The way to develop your writer’s voice is consistency. Once something feels unique to you, just stick with it. The beauty is that for something to be consistent, it doesn’t even have to be good. It just has to be distinct and constant. For example, many have described my tone in this column to be cold, unfriendly and “undeservedly self-appraising,” whatever that means. That’s good. That’s a brand. The way I write this column is the way I write my emails to professors, my essays for class, my texts to friends and my fan mail that I send to the Sadler mailroom for myself to score aura points with the people who work there. Is my tone always situationally appropriate? No. Is it consistent? You betcha.
“But Eva,” you ask, “How can you be consistent with your writing style to develop a voice if you haven’t found something that sets you apart?” Dear reader, there’s an easy solution. The step that comes before being consistent is finding your brand. This, conveniently, also has a simple secret sauce. You need a shtick. You know, like a bit or a gag that you wholeheartedly commit to for an extended period of time. If you stick to a shtick enough, the act you’re keeping up will just become your personality by force of habit. Then, boom. Your shtick is your brand, and your brand on paper becomes your writer’s voice.
Don’t know where to start? I’ll leave you with a few potential shticks that you can use to develop a habitual writer’s voice:
- Tie everything you write back to some random and unrelated historical reference like Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928.
- Stupa para tu buttom gelato baboy bee-do (translation: write entirely in Minionese from now on)
- Heartlessly declare war on Oxford commas. (Wait … never mind — that’s The Flat Hat’s thing.)
- Overuse any catchphrase. It doesn’t matter which one. Consider using one from corporate America like “let’s circle back” or “we need to maximize our return on investment.”
- Go back through anything you write and throw in some Ŕanđoɱ aĊceňts to give your text ă litţlȄ söḿetȟinĜ spĘciȁl.
- capitalize nothing except your own name.
- CAPITALIZE EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE NAMES OF YOUR ENEMIES.
- Structure everything you write like it’s a Gordon Ramsay beef Wellington recipe.
- Write an article in its entirety, and then replace at least thirty important nouns, adjectives and verbs with blanks like this _____. Turn to the person immediately beside you and make them play Mad Libs with your work.
- Don’t write anything at all. The blank page becomes a mirror that reflects the writer’s voice that the reader wanted to see most.
Alright. You can’t sue me if you take my advice and fail your first assigned paper of the year. Like Noah Kahan said, “I’m not here to make people happy. Summertime’s over. It’s shtick season, baby.” See you in two weeks.
