How A Ghostwriter Matches Your Voice

How do you write in someone else’s voice?

It’s an awesome question. And one I hear all the time from strangers when they hear what I do for a living.

Voice is one of the most important aspects of writing. It’s the difference between a story that resonates with an audience versus one that feels stilted, stiff, and forced. 

Everyone has a unique voice. We have go-to words and phrases. We communicate using mannerisms, some so subtle the speaker doesn’t even notice them. 

Some people speak with great charisma, rushing with energy from story to story. Their stories might build to a crescendo of laughter or sarcastic shouting. 

Others are steady and calculated. They consider every word.

My goal as a writer is to match your written voice to your spoken one. But how does a ghostwriter capture subtle speaking nuances, so that every person I write for doesn’t sound the same? 

Start with the client’s natural speaking voice

I meet monthly with nearly all my ghostwriting clients. We engage in a regularly scheduled call where I interview them to uncover stories, ideas, and hot takes on what’s happening in their business or industry.

I record all client calls, process them using a transcription tool, and send those transcripts to my Kindle, where I go line by line through our entire conversation, sifting for gold. 

Starting in a transcript means starting in the real speaking voice of my clients. If the client uses a particular metaphor or defaults to a certain word to describe something, it’s right there in front of me.

The result is that everything I write has a foundation in my client’s natural speaking voice.

As a side note, AI is now embedded in most transcription tools. When this first became a standard feature, I tried using AI to “mine” the transcripts for great topics and talking points. 

This worked fine. But I found that the nuance, topic density, and voice of a piece were much easier to achieve when I skipped any AI summaries and just dove straight into the transcript. 

The richness of ideas buried in a transcript is far superior to what I’ve been able to pull using AI summaries. If you need me, I’ll be sitting in an armchair reading the transcript from my Kindle.

Analyze past writing

Another place I turn is past writing.

Executives are storytellers. It’s part of the job. From internal memos to investor letters, writing is critical to leading most companies. So, I always review a client’s past writing and media appearances to get a sense of their voice.

Past writing highlights something that doesn’t always come up in client calls: how my client wants to sound on the page. 

Some consultants or heads of established companies prefer more polished prose than their conversational speaking tone. They want their public writing to match the authority of their title.

Other clients are far more laid back. They prefer to tell casual stories, insert photos from their everyday life, and don’t mind using a well-placed swear word or emoji.

But here’s where I need to be careful with past writing: Sometimes clients work with a ghostwriter because they’re trying to escape their natural writing voice.

Anytime I ask for their past writing, I always like to clarify if their existing writing style is a good reflection of how they’d like me to write for them. 

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Find voices that resonate

I always like to ask new clients about their favorite authors or who they enjoy following online. Often, the writing style of their favorite authors and speakers is a hint about the voice my client aspires to achieve in their prose.

Much like borrowing from the client’s past writing, it’s worth clarifying precisely what they like or dislike about their favorite authors.

Once a client tells me their favorite authors, I usually ask if they’d like their own voice to emulate that same writing style. Usually, they’ll say yes, but with a caveat or two. 

My client might like the author’s heavy use of fast storytelling, but might hate that they use so many emojis. Maybe the author writes in paragraphs when my client prefers one-sentence line breaks to speed up pacing. My client might like an author’s topic choices but hate their writing style. It’s all worth clarifying.

In summary, you can learn a lot about someone’s preferred writing style by the people they like to follow.

Learn through revision

Everything I write gets reviewed by the client before it’s published as a chapter, LinkedIn post, or op-ed. During feedback, the client quickly notices words or sentences that sound unnatural to them. All they have to do is correct the sentence directly or leave a comment about how I missed the mark. 

I try to remember the major comments and edits for future writing. If a client comments “Love this!” beside a certain sentence, that gives me a clue about their preferred style. If they comment, “This isn’t how I’d say this…” then that’s just as helpful.

I revise the work and remember their feedback for next time. It’s all part of the process of mastering my client’s voice.

Ghostwriting is ultimately a writing partnership. It’s my job to help capture your real stories and ideas in a voice that sounds natural to you. If you’re an executive in the market for a ghostwriting partner, let’s talk. You can schedule a 15-minute consult here.