Here’s a WriteOn Con riddle for you: Publishers want it, readers love it, authors seek it. Nobody can define it, but everyone can recognize it.
Okay, I admit it. That was a terrible riddle, completely unsolvable unless you read the title, in which case you know this is a discussion on voice.
Voice is the sound of your writing; your unique use of dialogue, description, characterization, and syntax. If it were a song, voice is the music, the rhythm, the beats upon which each sentence rises and falls.
A common mistake for beginners is writing the way they think will sell their story. Some browse the thesaurus for fancy words, others bloat their sentences with filler words, and occasionally a writer lifts scenes from her favorite authors but changes out minor details. Ultimately, these strategies betray the writer as an amateur, because none of them lead to the authentic voice all editors crave.
Okay, you say, I sorta get it. Sorta. Here are six tips to help you identify your voice.
- Study other voices. As you read, try to distinguish the unique sound of the author’s words. Why does Kristen Cashore sound different from Scott Westerfield who sounds different from Dan Wells? The better you are at spotting voice for others, the more clearly you’ll see your own.
- Learn all the writing rules. And then forget them. All writers should know the rules of grammar, punctuation, syntax, and rhythm. Learn the rules of your genre, the conventions of characterization and exposition, and the common pitfalls in a story. You must know these rules, so that you know how to break them. If everything you write conforms to a standard English textbook, you’re probably doing something wrong.
- Know your characters. Just as each writer has a unique voice, every character in your story should have their voice too. The better you define your characters, the stronger your writing of them will be.
- Try a different genre. I once had a critique partner who wrote adult crime novels. They were okay, but not publishable. Then one day he heard an old frontier story and decided to fictionalize it. His YA historical had a brilliant voice, and might’ve been the story that broke him into the market, but in the end, he gave up because he insisted he was a crime novelist. Maybe you are exactly the writer that you think you are, but there is no shortage of examples where someone finds their voice in a very different place than where they thought they would be.
- Know your stuff. Personally, I’m not much for the “write what you know” philosophy. I prefer, “write what you love” because when you love a topic, you want to know all about it. Voice often suffers in a manuscript when the author doesn’t have a firm grasp on the details. For example, if the character is riding a horse, the author should understand enough about horses to bring authenticity to the scene.
- Write for yourself. In the wake of any big novel, editors are flooded with copycat manuscripts. Many of them are brilliant books in their own right, but many are quickly rejected because it’s obvious the writer is only offering a cheap imitation of the original. Write the story that is in you, the way only you can tell it.
If you want samples…
“This time of year, I live and breathe the beach. My cheeks feel raw with the wind throwing sand against them. My thighs sting from the friction of the saddle. My arms ache from holding up two thousand pounds of horse. I have forgotten what it is like to be warm and what a full night’s sleep feels like and what my name sounds like spoken instead of shouted across yards of sand. I am so, so alive.” – The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
“Food is important in the burg. The moon revolves around the earth, the earth revolves around the sun, and the burg revolves around pot roast. For as long as I can remember, my parents’ lives have been controlled by five-pound pieces of pot roast, done to perfection at six o’clock.” – One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
“There were heavy shadows, like smears of ash, under Dad’s red-rimmed eyes as he turned to me. For a second it was like he was looking at a stranger, but then he pulled his lips into a grin and slapped me on the knee.” – The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
And if you’ll forgive this blatant act of self-promotion…
“I’d never attempted roast thievery before, and I was already regretting it. It happens to be very difficult to hold a chunk of raw meat while running. More slippery than I’d anticipated. If the butcher didn’t catch me with his cleaver first, and literally cut off my future plans, I vowed to remember to get the meat wrapped next time. Then steal it.” – The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen
Exercises to Help Find Your Voice:
- Write a brief description of someone you know as if you were a psychiatrist, a criminal, and an artist. Then write their description as yourself.
- Write the scene you’ve always secretly wanted to write. Not to be published, edited, or even seen by anyone else. Just let the self-indulgent words flow and see what comes.
- Read your work aloud, and try to feel when your words are not authentic. If you’re forcing out the words, then you are not staying true to your natural voice.
And finally…
Remember that “voice” doesn’t develop in your first month, and in most cases, not your first manuscript. The more you write, the closer you come to finding it. So get writing!
Jennifer A. Nielsen was born and raised in northern Utah, where she still lives today with her husband, three children, and a dog that won’t play fetch. She is the author of The Ascendance trilogy, beginning with THE FALSE PRINCE; of The Underworld Chronicles, beginning with ELLIOT AND THE GOBLIN WAR; and will write the sixth book of the Infinity Ring series. She loves chocolate, old books, and lazy days in the mountains.
Jennifer is giving away a signed copy of THE FALSE PRINCE, and a first chapter critique!! Comment on this post to enter!
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THE FALSE PRINCE by Jennifer A. Nielsen: In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king’s long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner’s motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword’s point — he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. But Sage’s rivals have their own agendas as well.
As Sage moves from a rundown orphanage to Conner’s sumptuous palace, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally, a truth is revealed that, in the end, may very well prove more dangerous than all of the lies taken together.
Loved the examples of different “voices”
Finding your voice can be challenging, but you have great advice. Especially writing what you love! If you don’t love what you write, how can anyone else? Thanks!
Thank you for the reminder/permission to write the scene you secretly love. One of the best writing instructors I had back in college, Adrienne Kennedy, asked us to write a scene of crisis. To be brave and describe what we might be afraid to describe. The writing that resulted from the class was some of the best from that semester because it seemed that no one tried to impress or persuade… each writer simply needed to tell a story…
Love the advice about reading your work out loud. I’ve done this before when I’m stuck and hearing the words is such a different feeling than reading them, it gives great perspective.
Thanks so much – this sort of advice is a great help
IJ’ll respond here to a few more comments. Again, thanks to everyone who mentioned this post was helpful to them, and for those who had kind words about The False Prince. Now for some specific feedback:
1. Michelle, no worries if your first drafts sound horrible – mine do too! I can start to see voice emerge in the early drafts but it’s never a clear, interesting voice for me until a fifth or sixth draft, at least. Keep going. Even if it’s awful, keep going.
2. Elsinora, I’m a theater major too, and I thought the observation about an elderly posture was brilliant. All of my scenes are played out in my head first, and on paper second. Very cool!
3. Melanie, if you worry about your characters sounding the same, then consider whether they’re as clear as you want them. Refine their goals, their weaknesses, and their secrets. From those details will arise a unique voice, even as your writer voice remains the same.
4. To those of you attempting to teach voice to young writers, here are a couple of thoughts:
A. Ask them to write a missing scene from their favorite book…as if they were that book’s author. Have the students then switch papers with someone else familiar with the book (if possible) and give feedback on what they did in their story that was similar to how the actual author did it.
B. Give the students excerpts of two different stories and have them use colored pencils to identify the following in each: use of describing words, long and short sentences, formal or casual sentences, long vs. short descriptions, etc. Have them compare how one author uses humor vs the other (if relevant). For example, The Series of Unfortunate Events Books are funny. So are Junie B. Jones. But the reasons why they are funny are very different. This will help students understand what to look for in identifying voice.
C. Put a list of writing “rules” on the board, such as “Write in complete sentences,” “All sentences need a noun and verb,” and “Only write in third person past tense.” There are others, of course. Tell the students to write a story and see how many rules they can break.
Thanks again everyone! Keep writing!
Thank you for the post! I’m currently finishing up my third novel-length manuscript and I hope I’m finally slipping into my voice. The hardest thing for me, I think, is accepting it without comparing it (unfavorably, of course) to other writers’ voices!
Thanks! For me, it’s interesting that some characters automatically have a voice in my head – something that makes them stand out, makes it easy to identify them. Others might blend in more. I’ll have to try your exercise #1. I already do #3 a lot, and I find it bery helpful.
Thank you so much!
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“write what you love” –> this made me smile because it feels so right. When my fingers tingle in anticipation of typing or I get scared I’m not putting enough emotion or voice, it’s because I love what I write and I want to give the characters an opportunity to tell their story (or to show their story
Your number 2 is so important and really helped to realize why even in the third draft of my first manuscript, it was simply not working. I didn’t know my characters enough. Now, I do and it makes it so much easier
One of my characters has too much voice. He’s upstaging the MC! Not good.
Thanks so much for this post- great topic!!
In Kate Messner’s book on revision she suggests highlighting each character’s dialogue in a different color and then going through the MS and JUST reading aloud the character highlighted in yellow (for example) to see that the voice sounds unique and consistent throughout. I thought that was a great tip for making sure each character has their own voice.
I also love your suggestion to try a different genre- I found in my own writing the instant I made the change from writing lower middle grade to upper middle grade, everything just clicked. So for me, it wasn’t the genre, but the age- I guess I’m a 13-year-old at heart:)
I notice sometimes it takes four or five chapters ( or twenty-five) to really nail down a voice. I end up going back after my first draft to re-read and find that one of my characters “sounds” completely different at the beginning than he/she does at the end of the piece. Thank goodness there’s something called revision!
Thanks for the ideas here.
Thanks for your advice. For me, I only feel I’m close to finding my voice once I can really feel and live my character. I pretend I’m my character and my story is her movie
Thanks so much for this great post – especially the examples! Voice is so tricky – I can’t read enough advice on it
Great post on a hard-to-define subject! I really like the examples. Very helpful!
Write what you love, and write for yourself are two points that resonate with me. ” The False Prince” sounds like a fascinating read…I love all things “historic”! Thanks for sharing bits of wisdom with us, Jennifer.
Thanks all. Let me respond to a few comments:
1. Andrea, it is an issue if your MC is being upstaged by another character. You might consider stepping back from the story and evaluating whether you have the right character telling the story. Or your MC may need a stronger goal – you might need to raise the stakes because it’s possible this upstaging character is fighting harder. Definitely take the time to resolve this.
2. Heidi, there are several authors who consider their first few chapters filler space until later on in the story when they understand their characters better. They don’t put a ton of effort into them right at first because they know they’ll change a lot anyway. There’s some wisdom in this for new authors, because it’s in that first chapter that it’s so important to pull in the agent/editor/reader. If they spot the voice in chapter one, they’ll turn the page. If they don’t, they’ll pass.
3. Sabrina, this is excellent. In addition, you can replay the movie from the perspective of another character. This is really important for making all of your characters rounded and interesting. But I definitely do this too!
Any tips for developing two different voices in the same manuscript? My novel is written in first person, but the chapters switch between the heroine and hero. I’m trying to find ways to make them sound different, but it’s tough because it’s the same me writing them both. Thanks.
Love the tips, and the exercises. Wow, and you even went through and answered questions. How delightful!
Thank you so much for the post.
Oh, my goodness, this conference is addicting. I love reading these posts and I write down book title after book title that I need to read. I adore your statment of “write what you love.” I always hear write what you know but this makes more sense to me, if you write what you love, the work comes alive. Thank you for helping me learn this subject matter.
Nice post. I was checking continuously this site and I’m impressed! Extremely useful info especially the last part I care for such info much. I was looking for this particular info for a long time. Thankyou and best of luck.
wonderful Kharma keeps the wheel turning…
I love your idea of the four different descriptions: Psychiatrist, criminal, artist, self. I will be trying that tip out! Thanks.
Thanks for the post. I write what I love. I would love a critique from you to see if my voice shines through.
I really needed this post, Jennifer! Thank you for including the exercises at the end.
My wife and i were absolutely joyful that Michael managed to round up his inquiry by way of the ideas he received through your blog. It is now and again perplexing just to find yourself giving freely techniques which often people might have been trying to sell. And now we fully understand we have the writer to appreciate for this. Most of the explanations you have made, the straightforward web site navigation, the friendships you help engender – it is all unbelievable, and it’s leading our son and us reason why that issue is brilliant, which is very serious. Many thanks for the whole thing!
I love the exercises you suggest!
Great tips and love the the exercises! Very helpful and what a great idea!
The exercises are fantastic! Thank you for sharing!
Heather, approach your manuscript from the mindset that there are two narrators (hero and heroine), not one (you). If you can, get a picture of each character and put it up when you’re in their POV. Give them each a piece of separate business that you can identify with. For example, you have a nervous habit of tapping your pencil and so does your hero. You are quick on your feet when under stress, and so is your heroine. And when you’re in quiet places, spend time in each of their heads, apart from the story. A song comes on the radio, how would your hero like it? You see a person on the street, would your heroine be that person’s friend? Work on these, and you’ll find their voices coming out with greater clarity.
Thanks all, and I hope you’re enjoying this awesome conference!