by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker
What exactly is “voice” in fiction?
An engaging story “voice” captures us from the first sentence and beckons us into the story world. Literary agents and acquiring editors always say they’re looking for fiction with a captivating, fresh, natural voice. Then when asked to define the term, they hesitate as they try to capture the elusive “je ne sais quoi” qualities of a voice that is unique and original, a voice that engages readers and compels them keep reading.
In a nutshell, the ideal “voice” is that natural, open, charismatic tone and style that pull us in and make us feel like we know the characters well — and want to get to know them better! A strong, compelling voice will bring your characters and story to life on the page. Voice is personality on paper.
How can we develop an appealing voice?
Here are some concrete tips to help you develop a captivating voice for your fiction.
~ Relax your writing and let it flow.
Many of my editing clients are (retired) professionals or academics who want to try their hand at writing fiction. I help them shake off the constraints of their formal, “correct” writing background, especially if it includes graduate degrees and a lot of legal, academic or business writing. With my guidance, they develop a more casual, accessible, appealing voice and tone for their fiction.
If your writing tends to be overly correct and/or wordy, you’ll need to concentrate on paring down those long, convoluted sentences and replacing abstract or pretentious words with strong, concrete, evocative ones. Focus on writing in a clear, direct, accessible, casual style that evokes the senses and appeals to the readers’ emotions.
~ Write to one person.
To help develop an intimacy with your readership and a conversational tone, create or choose one single person you’re writing to, who is warm, friendly, open to your ideas, interested, and intelligent.
Create an ideal reader. Write a brief description of their age, gender, background, home and work situation, personality, and interests (which of course include reading your kind of writing!). Get to know them a bit by giving them some positive attributes that will help you feel comfortable and open with them. Then target your writing to this person. Relax and let the real you come through.
~ Read and imitate writers whose voice you really enjoy.
Don’t copy their words verbatim, of course, but immerse yourself in their story world, told in their unique voice. Read their books aloud to really internalize the rhythm of their language, the phrasing and expressions and word choices that appeal to you so much. Then of course adapt the cadence and rhythm and attitudes and vocabulary to your own situation.
~ Write a chapter in first person, then change it to third person.
One author whose voice I love is Janet Evanovich, whose spunky, quirky heroine, Stephanie Plum, narrates her story in first-person point of view. But it’s hard to write first-person well, and it can be limiting, as you’re confined to scenes where this character is present. Also, first-person isn’t always the best choice for, say, a thriller, as you want other viewpoints in there, too, notably that of the antagonist.
But try writing several pages or a chapter or two in first-person (“I”), to develop your main character’s unique voice, then just go back and rewrite them in third person (he/she), with as few other changes as possible.
~ Read your story out loud to test its authenticity and easy flow.
Your writing should have the rhythm and comfortable familiarity of spoken language. If it doesn’t flow easily, go in and streamline the language to take out the convoluted sentences, clunky phrasing, and fancy-shmancy words. Or hire a trusted writer friend or reputable freelance editor to go through it for you to take out anything that sounds too formal, wordy, or erudite.
~ Write in deep point of view or close third.
This means the story is unfolding mainly through the thoughts and reactions and emotions and attitudes of your protagonist. Even descriptions of your setting should be filtered through your protagonist’s (or other viewpoint character’s) preferences, views, and mood. This ensures that your whole novel has a great, unique voice, not just the dialogue.
~ Give each character his or her own voice.
When you’re writing dialogue, each character should sound different, with their own unique speech patterns, word choices, and slang or pet expressions, based on their milieu, upbringing, education, and personality. For help with this, listen in on all kinds of conversations, both in real life and on TV and in movies.
Develop an ear for how different people speak. To improve the idiosyncratic speech of a character in your novel, try journaling in their voice, in first person. Just write freely, using lots of attitude! Eventually, you’ll get into their rhythm and find the words that seem to suit them best.
~ Add emotions and attitude.
Bring your characters and scenes to life by showing your character’s feelings and reactions to things. Evoke as many senses as you can to draw the reader into the story world. And show your character’s moods and attitudes not only through her words, thoughts, and actions, but also through the tone and wording of the narration, which is really her observations of and reactions to the people and events around her.
So break free from the constraints of your background, education, and any work-related writing, and write the story only you can write, with your unique experiences and personality, in your own direct, open, interesting voice. Don’t hold back — relax and reveal yourself.
Copyright © Jodie Renner, September 2013
– Readers – Can you share some novels where you’ve particularly enjoyed the voice?
– Writers – Do you have any more tips for finding an authentic, appealing voice?
[GIVEAWAY: Jodie will gift an e-copy of one of her books to two lucky people who comment below. Please specify in your comment whether you’d prefer “Sizzles” or “Thriller.” Good luck!]
Jodie Renner, a freelance fiction editor specializing in thrillers and other fast-paced fiction, has published two books (& e-books)to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER and STYLE THAT SIZZLES & PACING FOR POWER (Silver Medal winner in FAPA Book Awards, 2013). For more info, please visit Jodie’s author websiteor editor website, or find her on Facebook or Twitter.
Finding your voice – I’ve used a combination of two of Jodie’s suggestions – reading aloud from author’s who’s voice I really like. I think reading aloud really internalizes the nuances of the voice.
Sizzles.
Elizabeth – Thanks for hosting Jodie.
Jodie – You’re so right about how important finding voice is. And I like your suggestion of reading one’s work aloud. It’s a useful strategy. I have my students do that too to help them get a sense of their own writing.
I might have to try the writing in first person trick, although I’ve never done it. I do read out loud though. And attitude is not a problem!
Thanks for the tips on finding voice Jodie.
Thank you, Jodie, for not only defining “voice” but also giving excellent advice on how to create a voice that readers will enjoy.
Jodie–Thanks so much for posting today. Voice is tricky…I think it can be one of the hardest things for writers to nail. I particularly like your tip for writing to one person…one reader…and developing voice that way.
Finding voice can take time. Those tips certainly help shorten that time.
Jodie, Great post. I must say that I loved academic writing when I wrote papers for my graduate courses. But, fiction writing is so different. I laughed at my daughter, who has her doctorate. When she starting writing for her blog again, her sentences were a bit stilted. I told her she needed to loosen up the writing. She did and they are now readable for the common man.
If you haven’t given away your eBooks yet, I would love to read Writing the Killer Thriller.
Hi, Elizabeth, :) :)
Reading aloud is vital, and writing in first person, seemed daunting but after a few tries, you get the hang of it and it’s fun!
Great post!
Thanks for hosting another one of my craft articles on your excellent blog, Elizabeth! It’s always an honor to be here!
And thanks to Alex, Michael, Margot, Diane, and Yolanda for your comments.
I do want to clarify that when I suggest writing the scene in first-person first, I still think it’s best to then switch it to third-person. First-person is a lot more difficult to do effectively than most people realize. I recently published an article on the pros & cons of first-person POV on The Wicked Writing Blog.
And yes, I couldn’t agree more with the importance of reading aloud, especially the dialogue.
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Susan and Jeanne! I appreciate it!
Commenters, please indicate if you’d like one of my e-books for free, and which title. You can check them out on Amazon first by clicking on the links at the bottom of the post.
Thanks!
Thanks, Teresa. Yes, blogs are much more relaxed in tone than academic writing! Even magazine articles are pretty informal and chatty these days.
I’ll add you to the list for Writing a Killer Thriller.
We’ll be choosing the winners of the two e-books tomorrow morning, so still time to get your name in the hat!
Hi Jodie, great post. Reading aloud certainly helps. I write all my first drafts by hand and have recently bought dictation software to type it all up. Reading it aloud really brings me up short when I find a bit that just doesn’t work. It makes clunky sentences much, much easier to spot!
(Ps I’m sure I’ve missed out on the competition being in the UK, but please could I have sizzles if I win ;-) )
Reading the story aloud will help me, for sure. I’ve written a novels and a short story in first person. It is hard but I love the way the voice comes through so easily.
I’m late to the party so I suppose I missed the opportunity to win a book but I’ll likely read both of your books anyway, Jodie.
Thanks for the great tips. You’ve planted ideas for my characters voice!
One MG novel I’ve read that has a great voice is Slob, by Ellen Potter. Such an authentic voice, it made me feel like I knew the protagonist personally. Great post! I enjoyed reading it.
Jodie — As odd coincidences go, I just posted a blot on this same topic — inspired by some comments on a forum about point of view where some writers seemed to believe POV is the same as voice.
So a question for you: Do you see voice as constant to one author? Or varying across the works of one author depending on the book?
I tend toward the latter, as I’ve written various things and find the “voice” of the work depends in part on what it is. My literary novel has a very different voice than the cozy mystery I’ve just completed.
How do you see voice relative to genre?
Oops! Should have proofread my comment before publishing. I meant to write “I just posted on my blog on this same topic…” although some might call it a “blot” ;-)
So sorry for the error!
Great tips! They always say “voice” is something that can’t be taught, but it can definitely be found if a writer is simply honest and true to him/herself.
Thanks, Marcia, Immilford, Annie, and Stephanie! I’m glad you found my tips helpful.
Annie, I must check out that novel, Slob. It sounds great!
Stephanie, I love how you expressed this: “it can definitely be found if a writer is simply honest and true to him/herself.” So true!
And also, try getting right into the head and psyche of the character by stream-of-consciousness journaling in their voice, letting all their anger, fear, insecurity, hopes, and attitudes come through!
Love this advice! Especially the bit about writing to one person. I tell ya, too often I think about all the people who won’t like the story, instead of focusing on those who would.
I would love to read Sizzles!
Julie, that positive image of an ideal reader is so important for relaxing your writing and being yourself, so your authentic voice feels it’s okay to come out!
Hi Ellen,
A lot of well-known authors have a recognizable voice, but I think that’s because they write in the same genre, often in series with the same characters or similar characters, and the same milieu.
But if an author changes genres or develops a brand-new, different character, their “voice” would have to change, too, sometimes drastically, to fit the character and the situation.
Of course we all know the importance of the character’s dialogue fitting their background, gender, age, education, personality, etc., but I take it once step further and say that the narration of any given scene is really the POV character’s thoughts and observations and reactions, so the narration should stay, as much as possible, in that character’s voice. That’s where we really suck the readers into the story world, into the fictive dream.
So, in a nutshell, I definitely agree with you! :)
Congratulations to the two winners of my e-books!
Writing a Killer Thriller – Teresa Coltrin. Already gifted directly from Amazon.
Style That Sizzles – Michael Kelberer. Waiting for Michael’s email address to gift the book.
Thanks, Elizabeth, for hosting another one of my guest posts! It’s been a lot of fun!
Jodie Renner – http://www.JodieRenner.com