Developing Your Vision and Voice
[a version of this
article was first published at Stage 32 in March 2021]
What are Vision and
Voice and Why are They Important?
A core component of setting yourself apart is having a strong
Vision and Voice.
Vision is how you
see things. Voice is how you express
what you see.
I designed the 7 questions that follow to get you thinking
about your Vision and Voice and to develop them to the point that they’re integrated
into how you present yourself in your branding, meetings, submissions, social media,
and what you create.
1. What’s Your Core
Story?
Across my work and social media, my branding is: “Every Day
is a Story All Its Own.” My pinned tweet on X is: Remember: Every day is a story all its own. A new chapter. Another
chance. What story are you telling? Dream it. Write it. Live it. And it will be
so. It’s my philosophy for living a satisfying, creative life.
It’s the first thing people see about me. It informs
everything I do. It is the name of my book on Storytelling. And, because I
believe that we rewrite our story every day, it helps me take risks and present
myself Authentically because there’s no failure. Just learning and keeping at
it.
What’s your Core
Story? What keeps you going in the face of the frustration, competition, and often rejection that comes
with being a Creative? The questions that follow help illuminate this further.
It took me 15 years of working professionally and asking these questions to
come to my Core Story and another 15 to truly understand how it works in my
life and career.
2. What Motivates You
to Create?
The creative act and necessary business acumen to make the
most of it are time-consuming, with challenges and levels of effort only other Creatives
understand. They require discipline and sacrifice. So knowing why you’re creating is important.
Understanding your Vision is key to having at it full
throttle day in, day out. I’ve never agreed with those who term the creative
act a “war.” On some level, it’s a competition—primarily with yourself, to echo
Mikhail Baryshnikov—and we’re always striving for increased skill and the rush
that comes with kicking ass in our zone of creativity.
What do you want from the creative act? What are you willing
to sacrifice as far as time, money, and attention to other things? Being a
Creative means a dance of extensive solitude and then working with all kinds of
people.
Do you want to evoke emotional responses? Motivate action?
Help your audience get away from their problems and escape into an alternate
universe? How you accomplish these goals is all about Voice, because that’s
what determines how you construct the
landscape your audience will see when they engage with your work.
3. To What Kinds of Stories
and Genres Are You Drawn?
Having been hired to write, act in, and direct all kinds of
stories for all ages in many genres, I know some projects feel like jobs and
some like passion projects (outside of the people involved). Pay attention when
the work really speaks to you. What is it that’s feeding your passion? Chances
are, it’ll closely align to the answers to the first two questions. Some
stories move us more than others.
Right now, I am very passionate about historical fiction.
It’s a mode of storytelling that brings together many of my interests and skill
sets and how I best share my Vision and Voice. But there’s more. How I present
historical fiction as a writer, actor, and director is different than all of
the many (many) projects out there under this umbrella. Because I have a strong
Vision and Voice, I weight the elements differently. That sets my work apart.
The next time you get excited about the work you’re doing
and it’s directly related to the story or script, pay attention—there are riches
to be mined from those answers when cultivating Vision and Voice.
4. With What Kinds of
Characters Do You Most Identify?
Once you’ve identified which stories really excite you, go
deeper and look at character types that most interest you. The answers may
surprise you. A well-rounded villain can be more illuminating and have more
impact on the audience than a hero (and be more interesting to write and perform).
Essential to my Vision and Voice is exploring what motivates human beings to do
terrible things to each other. Not that I’m not interested in the hero, but my
Vision embraces Complexity. There are strong psychological, socioeconomic, and
political reasons for everything a character does. When you introduce
Complexity in motivation and create characters that are well rounded enough to
have the hero behave badly and the villain have moments of tenderness and
perhaps a chance at salvation, that’s creating at a high level, and fully embracing
subtlety and subtext, nuance, and the breaking of tired stereotypes.
Writers and performers with strong Vision and Voice create
the most interesting characters. Characters that surprise us and teach us and
ultimately move us.
And, because it’s character and not story that’s the conduit
to communication with an audience, this question is essential to the
development of your Vision and Voice.
5. What are Your
Strengths as a Storyteller?
This can be a difficult question, as most self-assessments are,
but it’s important to know where you operate at a high level creatively,
because we all have strengths that come naturally or we’ve learned well and
those with which we struggle. Developing awareness of your strengths is a
crucial aspect of the business of being a Creative—sparking excitement about
your work and the prospect of working with you—and essential to developing Vision
and Voice.
What elements of your writing or performing are praised? Which
are the projects where you’re contacted because “You were the first one I
thought of” or “This would be perfect for you!” If you haven’t, start
cataloging this feedback. When you submit your work to contests or producers
and receive feedback, it’s easy to focus on the negative. But be sure to see
the positive—not to feed your ego, but to strengthen your Vision and Voice.
This also helps when it comes to branding and marketing. I
glean lots of useful information about how people perceive me as a Creative
from social media comments and the comments on articles like this one.
6. What’s the Story
You Most Want to Tell/Theme You Want to Explore?
Now that you’re working on questions 1–5, it’s time to
tackle the last two “big” ones.
What’s the story you most want to tell? In technical terms, when
we examine a Creative’s body of work over a lifetime, themes emerge, no matter
how different the characters, settings, time periods, and styles of each
individual piece might be. There are fascinating studies of filmmakers like Scorsese,
whose films are deeply influenced by Catholicism. Certain actors emphasize
particular character traits—in some cases their own natural traits—but for
others it’s how they handle the crisis moment, or how they pause to think
through things in an infinitely watchable way. Writers use certain images,
symbols, or tropes throughout their work because they are expressions of their
Vision translated through word, image, and composition (Voice) as the story
they most want to tell.
Is it rags-to-riches, redemption, the bad guys win, love conquers all, or we’re all slaves to The Man? Again, this is not about story arc but the underlying current driving the story. For me, almost all my stories look at the relationships and expectations of father–son legacies (micro) and inherited versus earned place and power in the world (macro) and the responsibilities inherent in those relationships. I express this in some form in fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, horror—the list goes on.
And it’s the product of many years focused on cultivating Vision and Voice. The more conscious you are of your thematic drivers, the better you’ll be at expressing them without being heavy-handed.
7. What Do You Want
Your Audience to Take With Them?
Vision and Voice are key to getting the audience response you
want. Audience response is complicated—as professionals, we want positive
audience response and high attendance and sales. That’s show biz, folks. But on
a personal, visceral, emotional level, what do you hope for? Because Vision and
Voice can be fluid, depending on the work you’re doing at the moment, the
answer can and should change. Many Creatives work on projects with different
personal expectations. There are projects for which we are hired to bring into
existence someone else’s Vision and Voice (I make a substantial amount of
income this way). We have highly collaborative projects where compromise means altering
your Vision and Voice.
[for a list of my writing and creative development services, see: https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/1027346460735612910/937507864042641168]
Then there are Passion Projects—a style or genre you want to
explore, though it might not have great commercial potential—but you move
forward, taking the risk, because you have to.
Having a strong Vision and Voice does not mean you have to alter
the world’s moral barometer. Helping people escape their problems, indulge
their fantasies, or have a good time with a comedy or adventure is a great use
of our talents! Filmmakers creating the unfortunate debate about the merits of
comic book films miss this point. There’s no one legitimate story, and no moral
or other obligation as a Creative as you develop your Vision and Voice. The 7
questions I’ve posed are designed to expand your creative boundaries, not limit
them.
The World Needs Your
Stories!
My Vision and Voice center on my belief in the power of
story to change lives. Without getting political, I think we all agree that
things globally are not going in the best direction. Story is the way to make
changes—and, again, that includes giving people a break from their stress and
anxiety by making them laugh, or to indulge in fantasy, or to see traits in
(super)heroes they most want to emulate.
Whatever story you’re telling, the way to personal and
marketplace success for Creatives is developing a clear Vision and Voice. Once
you know what’s important to you and how you see things (Vision) you can
concentrate on the skills that best help you to share that effectively with
your audience (Voice).
I wish you well on your journey! I’d love to hear from you
as you work through these questions. I am also available to work one on one.
joeymadiawriter@gmail.com
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