GHOSTWRITING: HOW TO SOUND AND LOOK LIKE SOMEONE ELSE ON THE PAGE
Alyssa Berthiaume (she/her)
Ghostwriter & Writing Guide | Serving badass and brilliant women ready to brave the path to the page and write their memoirs of grit, hope, and triumph. | Author of Dear Universe, I Get it Now
“What I write represents you, your business, and your values. As far as anyone on the receiving end is concerned, what they are getting IS from YOU, so it needs to be poised as such.”
I’m often asked by potential clients (or by other writers who are just getting started in the copywriting/ghostwriting space), “How do you write in the other person’s voice?”
I tell them: by magic and osmosis.
(Just kidding.)
I tell them the obvious answer: through study and practice.
Yes. Like anything else you want to become exceptional at, it requires attention, effort, and repetition. If I’m going to be generating someone else's copy or ghostwriting for them, I need to parrot their voice on the page unbeknownst to their most loyal follower/fan/audience member.
This means I need to be paying attention to how my client communicates, then attempt it, and then keep refining it (through repetition and the collaborative process with the client).
While this post could dive into methods of practice or the process of working with the client collaboratively to ensure their voice is captured, neither practice or process will matter if the client’s voice hasn’t first been studied. When I start working with a new client, I study them. I’m looking for two forms of ‘how’ and one form of ‘what’ in the way they communicate. Each of these helps me to succeed in ghostwriting their voice and establishing their essence on the page.
Those three forms are: how they sound/deliver (tone/personality), how they look on the page (format), and what they say (content).
Read the full article on how to sound and look like someone else while ghostwriting here, or visit the TWPRT blog to get access to all past posts.