The Voice Test

Your writing voice isn't something you need to find. It's something you need to stop hiding. This exercise reveals the gap between how you talk and how you write — then shows you how to close it.

📖 Chapter 10 Bonus Exercise

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Chapter 10 introduces the iceberg analogy: a psychologist studying stuttering discovered that the hiding — not the stutter — was the real problem. The same thing happens when you write. You put on a "writer voice" that sounds nothing like you, and the hiding kills the writing.

This exercise is based on Mary Karr's talk-first method and the Gap Test from the book. You'll do both, back to back, and see exactly where your authentic voice lives.

Part 1: The Kitchen Table Recording

Choose a memory. Something small is fine — a moment, a conversation, a day that stayed with you. Don't overthink it. The first one that comes to mind is the right one.

Take out your phone. Hit record.
Tell the story out loud as if you're telling a friend.

While you're recording:

  • Don't plan what you'll say — just talk
  • Include the weird little details (what you were wearing, what the room smelled like, what song was playing)
  • Let yourself speed up when the story gets exciting
  • Let yourself slow down when the memory gets heavy
  • If you laugh or get emotional — good. Keep going.

Talk for 2–3 minutes. When you're done, listen to it. Pay attention to the words you actually used. Not the fancy ones — the real ones. Notice where your voice changed.

Now write the story down.
Not a transcription — a translation. Keep the words, the rhythms, the parts that sounded like you.
Clean up the ums and false starts, but leave the soul intact.

This is your AFTER version. Set it aside — you'll need it for Part 3.

Part 2: The "Writer Voice" Version

Now write the same memory again — but this time, write it the way you think a Writer is supposed to write. Use the formal voice. The impressive vocabulary. The proper sentences your English teacher would approve of.

Go ahead. Make it sound "good." We'll wait.

This is your BEFORE version.

Part 3: See the Gap

Put your two versions side by side. Here's an example of what you might see:

❌ The "Writer Voice" "It was during the autumn of 1974 that I first became acquainted with the man who would become my husband. The evening was characterized by an atmosphere of nervous anticipation."
✅ The Real Voice "I met David at a dance. October. I was wearing my sister's dress because I didn't have anything nice enough, and I spent the whole night terrified she'd find out."

The second version is alive. You can see the borrowed dress. You can feel the fear. The first version is correct, competent, and completely lifeless.

Now compare YOUR two versions. Ask yourself:

  1. Which version sounds like a person actually talking?
  2. Which one has the small, specific details that make you feel something?
  3. Which one would you keep reading if a friend handed it to you?
  4. Where did the "writer voice" version swap out a real word for an impressive one?
  5. What details did the formal version cut that the spoken version kept?
The gap between these two versions is where your memoir voice lives.
Close the gap. Keep the spoken version.

Part 4: The Read-Aloud Gap Test

This is the exercise you'll use on every page of your memoir from now on. It comes from Mary Karr, who reads every draft out loud — every one — and says if you stumble over a sentence, the sentence is wrong. Not you. The sentence.

Take one page of your writing. Read it out loud. Not in your head — out loud.

Circle every place where:

  • You stumble over a word because no one talks that way
  • You run out of breath before the sentence ends
  • You think: "I would never say this to another human being"
  • A word feels like it was chosen to impress rather than to communicate
  • The rhythm feels wrong — too stiff, too formal, too careful

Rewrite every circled part until it sounds like you. Until you could read it to a friend without feeling like you're performing.

Your spoken voice has been developing for sixty, seventy, eighty years. It has rhythms it learned from your parents and your hometown and the way your family told stories around the kitchen table. Trust it.

Why This Works

Joseph Sheehan discovered that people who stutter spend enormous energy not stuttering. They swap words. They stay quiet. They perform fluency. And the performance makes the problem worse.

The same thing happens when you write. You swap your real words for impressive ones. You stay quiet about the messy details. You perform "good writing." And the performance kills your voice.

Sheehan called the person who stutters "a giant in chains." The chains weren't the stutter itself. The chains were the hiding.

Your writing voice works the same way. It was never lost. It was never broken. It was never inadequate. It was just waiting — holding its breath, waiting for the moment when it would be safe to come out.

This is that moment.

Keep This Checklist

Use the Gap Test on every chapter of your memoir:

☐ Read the chapter out loud, start to finish

☐ Circle every stumble, every stiff phrase, every "writer voice" sentence

☐ For each circled part: tell it out loud first, then rewrite

☐ Ask: Would I say this to a friend over coffee?

☐ Ask: Did I cut a real detail to sound more "literary"?

☐ Read it out loud one more time. If you don't stumble, you're done.

Kill the inner English teacher. Write the dishes.