How to Write Something No One Else Can Write

Have you guys seen Garden State? That 2000s romantic dramedy with Zach Braff and a post-Star Wars Natalie Portman? Zach Braff didn't only star in it; he wrote and directed it. Nobody else could have written it. The film was based on his real-life experiences.

There's an iconic scene where Portman's character says, "You know what I do when I feel completely unoriginal? I, I make a noise or I do something that no one has ever done before, and then I can feel unique again, even if it's only for, like, a second."

When you write, you're not simply telling a story. You're telling a story that no one else can tell. Yes, in some ways, every story has been told before. But it's our perspective that makes each story unique.

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How do you make your mark?

One easy way is to use your life experiences. If you are a (to borrow from a tired trope) bored, suburban housewife, you can write about bored suburban housewives, and it can be interesting—remember Desperate Housewives?

But you can also take that ennui and write a fantasy story about a wizard who's battling apathy and the forces of darkness! Either way, you're drawing from your own life, Mrs. Housewife.

Another way to capture your unique voice is to pay keen attention to your writing on a sentence level. Your goal is to craft as many sentences as possible that sound like nobody else could have written them but you. Word choice matters. Syntax matters. Rhetoric matters.

But remember—you don't have to get it perfect the first time. You can write a dull sentence and sharpen it later. That is what revision is for. So, when you're writing a first draft, don't focus so much on voice that you slow yourself down. Just get those words out, and fix it later!

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