Voice is one of the most difficult writing terms to define and pinpoint. We might know it when we see it, but what’s voice made of, really?
You hear so often that agents and editors want “new voices” and “compelling voices” and voice voice voice. So what is voice? How do you cultivate it? And how many rhetorical questions do you think can I fit into one post?
Voice, at its most basic level, is the sensibility with which an author writes. It’s a perspective, an outlook on the world, a personality and style that is recognizable even out of context. You could drop randomly into a David Sedaris story or an Ernest Hemingway novel and probably guess the author within a few paragraphs because they have strong, unique voices.
It’s the narrative voice, but also encompasses the dialogue too.
An author’s voice is often imitated (think: Tolkien), but a truly original voice can never be duplicated.
So what makes a good voice? How do you cultivate one?
Among the essential elements:
Style
At its heart, voice is about style. And not just style in the sense of punctuation and how the prose looks on the page (though that can play a role), but style in the sense of a flow, a rhythm, a cadence to the writing, a vocabulary, lexicon, and slang the author is drawing upon.
A voice can be wordy (William Faulkner) or it can be spare (Cormac McCarthy). It can be stylish and magical (Jeanette Winterson) or it can be wry and gritty (Elmore Leonard). It can be tied to unique locations (Toni Morrison) or it can be almost wholly invented (Anthony Burgess). But whatever the flavor of the writing, a good voice has a recognizable style.
Personality
A good voice has a personality of its own, even when the novel is written in third person. There’s an outlook that is expressed in a voice. It’s a unique way of seeing the world and choosing which details to focus on and highlight and a first draft of how the reader will process the reality of the book. Think of how Catch-22 captured the absurdity of WW-II by boiling down irrational rules and presenting them at face value, or Stephen Colbert’s TV character, always seeing things and arguing from an invented perspective.
There’s a tone to a good voice, whether it’s magical (J.K. Rowling) or slightly sinister (Roald Dahl) or hyper-aware (John Green).
Consistency
A good voice is consistent throughout a novel. It may get darker or lighter or funnier or sadder, but it doesn’t suddenly shift wildly from whimsical to GRUESOME MURDER. (Unless, of course, the voice is capable of it). A good voice is never lost when the plot shifts.
Moderation
Even the strongest voices don’t over-do it. Voices are not made up of repeated verbal tics (“You know,” “like,” “so I mean,” “I was all,” etc.) but are much more nuanced than that. They are not transcribed real-life dialogue, they give the impression of a real-life voice while remaining a unique construct.
Transportation
A good voice envelops the reader within the world of a book. It puts us in a certain frame of mind and lets us see the world through someone else’s perspective, and provides not just the details of that world but also gives a sense of the character of the world. Basically: see J.K. Rowling.
Authority
From Bryan Russell (aka Ink) (full comment below): “For me, one of the absolutely key elements of voice is authority. With a great voice you know the writer is in control, so in control that the writer vanishes and you see only the story… A great voice carries you through the story, compels you through the story. I think all great voices have that… There’s a sureness to a great voice. The words are simply right and the rhythms of the prose are buoyant. You won’t sink, not with these voices.”
Originality
Above all, a good voice is unique and can’t be duplicated. It is also extremely contagious. And this is the hardest thing about starting off a novel: we have thousands of authors’ voices swimming around our heads, many of them quite powerful, and they are only too happy to take up residence in our current Work in Progress. But that’s okay! Don’t sweat it if it doesn’t come right away: We all have to find our voice, and one of the best ways to do that is to just write, even if what you’re starting with is derivative. You may need to keep writing until you find the voice. Just remember to revise revise revise the opening in said voice once you have it.
Authenticity
And this is the key to finding the voice: your voice is in you. It’s not you per se, but it’s made up of bits and pieces of you. It may be the expression of your sense of humor or your whimsy or your cynicism or frustration or hopes or honesty, distilled down or dialed up into a voice. We should never make the mistake as readers of equating an author with their voice, but they’re wrapped up together in a complicated and real way. We leave fingerprints all over our work. That part of you in your work is what makes it something that no one else can duplicate.
What do you think? What do you think makes for a good voice, and what are some of your favorites?
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Art: The Singer in Pink by Jean-Louis Forain
My real voice comes through on my blog. So when my voice isn't strong enough in my book — or I start writing too formally (since I'm a journalist by training), I remind myself to write like I would on my blog. Casual, cool. Very me.
Wow, this is probably one of my favorite blog posts ever. You give many great examples of authors who have voice and the elements of voice you give are right on the money.
I am still a young writer and have only found my true voice a few times. It's difficult to be my own voice while I write because many a time I just end up sounding like a certain writer after I've read his or her book(s). But there are times when I have a lightbulb idea go off for a WIP and begin to write, write, write. Afterwards I feel so thrilled at what I've got down that I barely even realize that what I wrote was in my voice.
It takes a lot to find your own voice in writing, but it's worth it in the end because in a way it's like finding a part of yourself.
~TRA
https://xtheredangelx.blogspot.com
Wow, this is probably one of my favorite blog posts ever. You give many great examples of authors who have voice and the elements of voice you give are right on the money.
I am still a young writer and have only found my true voice a few times. It's difficult to be my own voice while I write because many a time I just end up sounding like a certain writer after I've read his or her book(s). But there are times when I have a lightbulb idea go off for a WIP and begin to write, write, write. Afterwards I feel so thrilled at what I've got down that I barely even realize that what I wrote was in my voice.
It takes a lot to find your own voice in writing, but it's worth it in the end because in a way it's like finding a part of yourself.
~TRA
https://xtheredangelx.blogspot.com
Wow, what a great post. A great voice draws you in and never lets you go until the very last page. Great storytellers have that magical rhythm and style that leaves you wanting more.
My favourite voices are David Mitchell, Paul Coelho and Haruki Murakami.
Thanks for breaking it down. My favorite voice? Jodi Picoult.
This is something I've struggled with, but now I think that anyone can find their voice. The more you write – anything, not just Your Big Project – the closer you get to your own voice.
Lately, I've been finding that I'm less likely to start writing like someone else inadvertently when I'm reading them. Plis, on my blog and later drafts of my novel, I'm starting to have a certain way of speaking – or perhaps a voice. It's me, but not just me. I was delighted when one of my first-readers that knows me well said they found "Jess-isms" in my novel. I have Jess-isms!
Great post with well thought out elements! Voice is elusive. I think over time, it becomes crafted.
There are many, many, many great voices out there in literature. Dickens, Twain, Bryson, Steinbeck… I could go on, and on, and on. It took me forever to think through them all and weigh them, but what it comes down to is that my favorite voice belongs to Garrison Keillor.
When I first began writing about three years ago, the author that would not leave my head was Zoe Heller. Her voice is very witty and cynically intelligent, typical of a lot of British authors who also use high-falutin vocabulary.
But after a couple more years of struggle, I discovered my own voice, and this happened through patience. I'm only a senior in high school and I've never taken a creative writing class, so I'm 100% self-taught. Cultivating your own voice is very possible. All you have to do is simply let it show up of its own volition, instead of forcing it out of you. I tried that, and what did I find? Zoe Heller, creeping up on my screen like a mosquito.
I REALLY enjoyed this post!! Very helpful! 🙂
You argued that writing voices are born and that experience primarily refines them. I would say they're more nature THAN nurture, but the latter does more than refine. Consider a few examples:
Ian McEwan
Upon graduating, he enrolled in a master’s program in comparative literature, at the University of East Anglia, which allowed him to submit stories as part of his degree. From the beginning, his prose had an unnerving discipline. Descriptions were precise; there was no failed wordplay or tortured metaphors; sentences had a razored gleam. (“I saw my first corpse on Thursday,” one story began. “Today it was Sunday and there was nothing to do.”) In “Mother Tongue,” McEwan explains that his surgical prose was, in part, a product of class anxiety. He composed words “without a pen in my hand, framing a sentence in my mind, often losing the beginning as I reached the end, and only when the thing was secure and complete would I set it down. I would stare at it suspiciously. Did it really say what I meant? Did it contain an error or an ambiguity that I could not see? Was it making a fool of me?”
Read more: https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/02/23/090223fa_fact_zalewski#ixzz0nt3loN3z
Would his style be the same if he came out of the background Martin Amis did?
Kazuo Ishiguro is often said to be a very English writer. Would he truly have the same voice if his family never migrated to England from Japan.
Junot Diaz talked about how hard it was to fit in a kid being an immigrant, and some argue there's a forcefulness to his writing. Would it be the same if he never came to the United States?
Would Tolstoy be the same if he was a factory worker in Manchester as opposed to somewhat upper classish in Russia?
Underlying abilities and dispositions strongly influence voice, but experiences do too.
Great advice, thank you.
I want to high-5 the person that mentioned Hunger Games. You just feel Katniss in everything she does, without there being a defining characteristic that jumps to mind.
Oh, and let's face it: Pride and Prejudice has a pretty good voice, because sometimes I don't know why something should be funny, but it jumps out of the page and yells, "If you lived in Victorian England, you'd be busting a rib in laughter"
RETURN IN SNOW
genre:romancesuspense Pamala Owldreamer Excerpt * * Chapter One * *
Symon Branigan, the only man she had ever loved was the last man on earth Caitlin Caldwell O’Brian wanted to see and the only man she wanted to see. Just her luck, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Caitlin waved goodbye and shoved through the door of the town’s only grocery store. Jesus, the temperature had dropped in the half hour it took to shop. She glanced up at the heavy bruised clouds and frowned. The storm was going to be a bad one.
Time to get home and check the wood supply for the fireplaces, police the outside of the house again for anything that could blow around in the gale force winds a blizzard always brought and check the snowmobile again.
The storm prep list her dad had drummed into her, played for the umpteenth time in her head. She only had herself to rely on now. The generators were already fueled but it wouldn’t hurt to check them again. She had plenty of canned and frozen food, the last minute shopping trip was for fresh milk, eggs, fruit and produce. She ducked her chin close to her chest to escape a blast of frigid wind and hurried toward her truck. If the storm was as bad as predicted, she could be snowed in for days or weeks.
The local weather expert and resident witch, Miss Ella Brodie, predicted blizzard conditions by late afternoon or early morning with two to six feet of snow on top of the three feet already on the ground. Miss Brodie was seldom wrong.
She loved her home town, but winter storms in Rook Haven, Alaska were not for the faint hearted or careless.
Another moan of frigid wind whipped her waist length hair across her face. Unable to see, she collided with a tall figure and slipped on the thick ice.
Strong arms caught her and kept her from landing on her butt with a shopping bag filled with eggs, milk and produce.
Laughing, she stepped back and tilted her head up. “I’m so sorry. Thank you for….”The smile froze on her face. She didn’t think about it, didn’t plan it. She just reacted. Like a slow motion sequence in an action movie, her hand curled into a fist and swung out and upward, connecting with Symon's grinning face and snapping his head backward.
Overbalanced, she pitched forward and fell against his broad chest. Maybe it was to keep her from falling or maybe he reacted in self-defense. Either way, she ended up crushed against his tall lean muscled body with his arms wrapped around her.
Caitlin was as shocked at what she had done as she was to see him standing in front of her. She had never punched anyone in her life, until now. Damn if it didn’t feel good and he definitely deserved it.
Symon grimaced and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His green eyes locked on hers. “Some welcome home, Slim.”
Caitlin shoved against his chest. “Get your hands off me Symon Branigan.” He allowed her to step back, giving her some breathing room, but kept a hand curled around her wrist. “I guess I had that coming. I’ve missed you Cat.”
She glared up at him and swallowed hard to force the lump in her throat down. She found her voice and spoke, her voice flat, husky and foreign to her ears. “I don’t want to hear it Symon. I don’t care anymore. There’s nothing I want to say to you and nothing I care to listen to. I gave up on you … I gave up on us a few years ago.”
Can't find my voice in this excerpt. Or in the rest of the finished manuscript.What do you think?
I'm sorry, owldreamer, and please forgive my honesty, but your first sentence left me going, "Huh?" I had to read it three times. And the rest didn't garner a much better response. I'd keep working on that voice thing. But I'll give you this, you're a brave writer for posting your work here. I did like the punch in the face. Haven’t we all wished we’d done that at one time or another?
As for me, after years as a newspaper journalist and freelance writer, I'm attempting my first novel. To avoid journalistic tendencies and to get a feel for novel style, I read multiple books in my genre. And of course, I’m still reading how-to books. After nearly eighty pages of fiction, a definite voice has formed. It's a coin toss right now whether I like it or find it annoying. But since I'm on the first draft, I figure I have several revisions to cultivate an original “sound.”
At least, I hope it works that way!
Thanks Nathan for a great post – I'm taking it to heart.
This was a great post. I was asking about voice and was pointed here (because somehow I'd missed this post) from one of the people who helped me. Now I have a good idea of what voice means when agents and readers talk about it.
Thanks!
Three authors with excellent voice: Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Dairy Queen), Hilary McKay (the Casson series), and Sarah DeFord Williams (Palace Beautiful).
I think that voice simply lies at the intersection of the author and the story.
Who are you? What is your story? How will you tell it?
It might be easier to achieve, initially, in first person because you have the main character to filter the author through. You think, "How would he or she tell this story?"
It's a little harder with third person, but most third person, these days is third person close, which helps, I think.
And even in omniscient third, the story has a personality of sorts, doesn't it?
I think it is that interaction of author, character and story that produces voice, and if the author allows the story and the characters to speak through him rather than draw attention to his writing, the voice will be authentic.
I have a sign over my desk that says, "It's not about me."
John Palmer
Voice is so important. You can have the best story in the world and it will fall flat without voice.
My favourites have got to be Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde and Cassandra Clare. There are others, I know, but for now, these will do. I love their humour and the way they twist old ideas by changing the angle. I mean, have you ever seen Death not smile?
Three of my favorite writers have very distinct voices: Bret Easton Ellis' 'coolly mesmerizing' voice, Chuck Palahniuk's darker, quirky voice, and Pat Conroy's cinematic, sweepingly beautiful voice.
Lisa McKay definitely has the strongest voice i've ever seen. loved her book My Hands Came Away Red…
Terry Pratchett and Daniel Pinkwater are favorites. Rick Riordan and James Patterson certainly aren't bad, either.
I don't care if some of my favorite writers' styles show up in my work. I still can't find any books that sound like my own writing, which makes it much harder to judge whether my own work is ready for publishing. I suppose if I could, then it would be a sure sign that it wasn't…
What a great post! I'm very happy to have stumbled across it. Great pointers for writers of all levels/purposes/styles.
The breakdown of voice left me recalling the voices of some of my favorites like Jasper Fforde and Charles Dickens. Both entirely unique and very recognizable.