When I stepped into this weekly soapbox three years ago, I was an opinion columnist without a voice. Yes, I read voraciously and wrote feverishly. I (usually) had clear theses and lucid arguments. But the columns didn’t “sound” like me. “I” was drowning in the turbulent sea of facts, perspectives and events.
Finding the shore was a Herculean task. After a few columns, I realized routine wasn’t enough. Developing your own voice, unfortunately, wasn’t like brushing your teeth. So I tried experimenting. At times, I was a fiery human rights activist, viscerally condemning the University administration using graphic images and bombastic words. That stage soon died a natural death; I couldn’t be a polemicist on steroids when writing about laundry theft or praising University undergraduate research.
Fascinated by modern political theory during my second year, I became a philosopher. I would coolly muse about the “underlying assumptions” of arguments and find excuses to quote someone famous. That stage too, didn’t last. Logic is powerful, but presenting it dryly with excessively professorial overtones is little more than intellectual masturbation. Readers found it boring, even pretentious. As one averred, “You sound smart, but I don’t know what you are writing about”.
Later that year, the historian stage was bound to kick in. Taking a full schedule of politics and history classes, I was inundated with information about the world. That knowledge soon seeped into my writing. Perorations about governments not “understanding the history” became a regularity. My editors cautioned me to “keep your audience in mind”, but there was no time for that. I was on a single-handed quest to expand my readers’ horizons, who I assumed shared the same passion for history as I did. That, as I would have written in my philosopher stage, was a flawed underlying assumption. While history was useful, one had to package it tightly and simply for readers to understand. My dad, who is a journalist, put it best: “Write for the layman. The simpler you can write, the better of a writer you are.”
The evolution of my writing wasn’t all just neat little stages. I dabbled too. I tried individual columnist voices, from the personal style of Thomas Friedman to the cool, simple logic of David Brooks, from the biting sarcasm and irony of Fareed Zakaria to the eloquence of Charles Krauthammer. I also used different techniques that I thought were successful — writing conversationally, varying sentence length, and throwing in a dose of raw personal experience.
My voice did not crystallize until around the beginning of last fall. My writing style became more stable and routinized. I wrote faster and it flowed more naturally. I fused my roles as historian, philosopher and activist, realizing that opinion writing is as much about churning out a draft of history as it is about shaping consciousness and challenging arguments. Two years after having my own weekly column, I was finally beginning to use it as a personal soapbox to convey my thoughts, rather than a private laboratory to experiment on how to express them.
So, what is my voice, exactly? When I ask my mom for a recipe, she often frustratingly says, “I don’t know. I just throw in all the stuff because I’m so used to doing it.” Inchoate as that may seem, that’s sort of how I would describe my voice and the process of its formation. You start out clueless, drifting in the turbulent waters of your own prose. But after two years of weekly experiments and constant practice, the various techniques, personalities and styles you try eventually meld into a coherent whole — your whole. My voice.
So, since this is my swan song, some thanks are in order for those that helped me find my writing voice. First, to you, dear readers and friends, for tolerating the swing of my writing pendulum for the first two years. You have functioned not only as an audience for my writing, but the lab rats for my experimenting. To my editors, for having the humility to tell me when I’m right, the courage to warn me when I’m wrong, and the patience to let me learn from my mistakes myself. To the administration: I haven’t written many columns about what you have done right, but “dog bites man” doesn’t make for an interesting column. While the University has a long way to go in addressing issues like diversity, I do admire your hard work to make this institution one of the best in the country.
Lastly, and most importantly, to my family. Papa — for teaching me everything there is to know about journalism and imparting to me the importance of reading. For letting me badger you with mundane political arguments and hover over your shoulder as you wrote your weekend pieces. Amma, for being the best grammar teacher there ever was and sending my columns out to your extensive mailing list so I can live the dream of being a real columnist. And my brother Nishanth, whose biting sarcasm and blunt comments on my writing never cease to amuse and annoy me. Needless to say, this experiment wouldn’t even have begun without you all.
And a word to future columnists: take it from a journalist’s son, there is no writing gene. Like everything else, it’s hard work. Write more and read more. And if you intend on doing this as a career, don’t skip the arduous but essential task of finding your own voice. Use these pages as a laboratory if you have to. The journey isn’t easy, but you won’t regret it once you reach your destination. I certainly don’t.
Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appeared Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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