Writing has always been my favourite form of expression, it’s an art that transforms imagination into reality. It’s a superpower, allowing me to shape and alter the world around me. My favorite part of writing is constructing scenes, using vivid imagery, and capturing the small, overlooked details of everyday life. I love placing myself in an alternate reality and using language to bring it to life.
I started down this path in elementary school, often spending my free time writing. I explored different genres like romance, horror, sci-fi, action, and comedy until I began to find my voice. Over time, a common theme emerged. My strongest work was poetry, where I relied on powerful emotions, strong words, and the art of showing rather than telling (my greatest talent). I was drawn toward darker subjects, and genres like horror, psychological suspense, and post-apocalyptic fiction. I enjoyed exploring unconventional topics, proving that even the unsettling or obscure could be poetic and thought-provoking.
As I continued writing, my style evolved, yet at its core, my writing remains a way to challenge perspectives, create new worlds, and in all honesty have fun. All my best writing pieces have been from me enjoying the process, throwing words at a page, and not agonizing over perfection (a habit I often struggle with).
The question that drove this project forward was ‘How do we develop our voices as writers?’. My simplest answer: Authenticity. The quality of being real or true, genuine or legitimate, and the reliable or accurate representation of one’s self. To develop as a writer you must take on the truest most vulnerable form of yourself, you must be transparent, unfiltered, raw, and maybe even a little crazy. Opening up that part of yourself does take time and can be intimidating, just like a dog revealing its underbelly to someone for the first time. To break that barrier we did a few activities in class, the first being the whale song activity.
This activity was so interesting to see because everyone interpreted it differently. Some people wrote a rap song and performed it while beatboxing, others performed a rap with whale sounds accompanying it. Someone at my table simply had whale noises, but within 15 minutes I wrote a short poem.
Our next activity to help us develop our voice was the talk/walk test. In this activity we were given a prompt like “Mom scolding a child” “A referee starting a wrestling match” or “Reading out a phone number”, then we were told to count to 10 like we were in that situation. In this test you could see similarities in peoples voices like tone, volume, and emotion. Next we did a similar activity where we walked like we were in certain scenarios like “Walking through sticky honey” “Walking in a hot desert” or “Walking home knowing you have a lot of chores to do”. This was very funny watching everyone’s different walk, but again you could see similarities. This activity taught us that everyone has a unique way of navigating life and no one is the exact same. In our writing we should have our own voice that is unique and recognizable. Or as Ms Willemse said:
“Walk your walk!”
The final test for this project was for everyone to write something then have other people match the person to their writing. The only instructions we had were to determine whether our writing has voice… or not… we will have a writing test that will be public, reveal us, be in writing, and not be very long. I knew immediately I wanted to write a descriptive and show-not-tell poem. I decided to base it around the concept of enjoying the journey not just the destination, and used my road trip across Canada as an example. A few years ago my dad drove me all the way from North Vancouver to Newfoundland and Labrador. During this trip I read book after book and I remember very clearly how peaceful it was. I didn’t plan a lot for this poem, and ended up writing almost all of it on the bus home after school. Here is the final product:
Using this, and 9 other pieces of writing from my classmates, we did the voice test! I had so much fun watching this test and so did everyone else. It was extremely interesting to see our teacher’s ideas and their perception of us being revealed by determining whose writing is whose. During this test I took notes on the thinking processes of Ms Maxwell and Mr Harris to look back on.
If you want to see the results of this test you will have to watch this video below ⬇️ Thank you for reading!