Craft Chat The writer's holy grail: Voice

[RK Wallis]

I found this interesting:

 

[CageSage]

Just a note on Harper Lee - I hear people say she only ever wrote one story, but she spent years on short stories, submitting them to various magazines (mostly local), and to family members. It was a family member (cousin?) who talked her into doing the longer story based on one of her shorts.

 

[Steve C]

Voice is a frustrating thing to get to grips with especially when you first start out. Lots of other stuff you can learn and it makes sense but Voice is impossible to pin down and can't be learnt. It appears all we can do is plug away, learn the techniques and hope we don't lose whatever it is that makes our writing distinctive. Sometimes I feel knowing too much about the dos and don'ts of writing sanitises an authors voice. How to be unique and readable is sometimes a delicate balance.

 

[Carol Rose]

I personally don't believe you can teach anyone voice. It's unique to each of us. You also can't fake it as a writer. If you try, the writing is off. Not authentic.

If you listen to a group of people talk in real life - really listen - you'll notice subtle differences, even among a group of people roughly the same age with similar backgrounds. We write like we speak, even if that's unconscious. Makes sense, if you think about it.

Your voice is already there. It's not something you have to fix or find or make stronger. You find it and make it stronger by writing. Practice, practice, practice. Just get your story down on paper and do any needed edits later.

Voice and edits aren't the same thing because by edits I mean fixing the grammar, etc., changing passive into active sentences where doing so makes the scene stronger and more immediate, and taking out filter words where you can to close the gap between your characters and your readers. None of that will change your voice. It will only strengthen the writing, which in turn will strengthen your voice.

 

[RK Wallis]

That's what I took away @Carol Rose - lots and lots of writing.

That's why Flash Club is so useful (even though only a drop in the ocean in the "write, write, write, practice, practice, practice" bit). It can help a writer find their voice. I use it to play around and see what word choices and combinations work for me. I'm not worried about winning; it's my opportunity to test out word choices and see what I like. I also play a little game and try to guess whose piece it is. I love the anonymous posting for that reason.

I find myself paying attention to the way I speak (when talking with my carer). I have a dry humour so I'm trying to find a way to bring that out on the page.

 

[Dan Payne]

Perhaps you can't teach voice, but you can certainly learn it. "Voice" is a tenuous concept unique to each person, but there are exercises you can do to become aware of voice, identify the effects you're aiming for, and help you to consciously develop your own voice.

I am working my way through what has been described as "the best book ever on voice" - and I think I might have to agree - Developing a Written Voice by Dona M Hickey. I thoroughly recommend it. The only limitation is that many of the exercises within are geared towards groupwork and require sharing and critiquing. However, there's decent value in doing the exercises even alone.

In the book Hickey presents exercises to identify (and then write) voice that's appropriate for different audiences and contexts, and then to identify the elements that remain consistent even though the medium varies. She goes as deep as individual word choice and sentence construction, and up as far as sustaining a voice across an extended piece of writing.

I've gushed enough. The book is out of print but I think it's well worth picking up if you can find it.

 

[Dan Payne]

Sometimes I feel knowing too much about the dos and don'ts of writing sanitises an authors voice. How to be unique and readable is sometimes a delicate balance.

^ This. Every source of writing advice tells us to remove extra words, get the meaning as tight and clear as we can possibly make it. But this leaves no room for voice. The clearest possible sentence is subject verb object, and it matters little how perfectly-chosen our nouns and verbs are, voice is so much more. Voice encompasses complicated, compound sentences and vivid metaphors and deep subtext. Complicated narrative structures, digressive passages, musings on the qualities of life - these things, in my opinion, distinguish serviceable "bestseller" prose from the kind of literary fiction people will remember for years. I can quite clearly bring to mind passages from Umberto Eco, Stephen R Donaldson or George Orwell. I can't, for the life of me, quote a single passage from any of the several Dan Brown books I've read. Dan Brown is undoubtedly easier to read and understand.

 

[RK Wallis]

I'm personally finding reading someone else's voice and analysing what they've done, absorbing what they've done, teaches me far more than any craft book. And if someone like Naomi Novik, whose won awards and whose book Uprooted is being made into a movie, had listened to the "no adverbs" rule, it would've destroyed her voice. Mind you, she uses the most interesting adverbs, they aren't tired at all. She uses them like the master storyteller she is.

 

[CageSage]

Can I be the dissenting voice this time? * hops up and down *

Working at creating a style that is the signature of the author's 'voice' is almost a misnomer.

A story has a voice and a style, and it suits that story and no other. That's a voice. It's the writer finding the write --- whoops --- right voice for that story, for those characters and that world and that situation. It's unique.

A writer who uses the same voice for every story will bore not only their readers and publishers, but eventually, they'll bore themselves. I've seen it. The first book was great, wonderful tone and style and fitted the character perfectly. Beautiful to read and be part of that moment. Grabbed the second hot off the press. But the second book, in a different era, with different characters, a different country, was almost a replica in terms of style and dialogue and shape. The third was blatant. The author may have found their voice, but the stories suffered for sticking to what was referred to as 'the voice' of the author. Read one, read them all.

Voice isn't about style or word choice or whether the sentences are long or short, whether language is magical to the ear or eye, it's about the story. What voice does this story have, and how is it best brought to the words?

Example: Herman Melville. Moby Dick has a distinctive 'voice', the voice of the narrator of the story - and it's not the author's voice.
Another story he did, Omoo, is a completely different voice. It's an earlier story (his second, I believe), which he touted at the time as personal accounts of his travels (which, subsequently, was found to be slightly exaggerated to the point of outright fibs, but that's another discussion/story).

I prefer to focus on the voice of the story, rather than try to find a singular stylistic form that defines my author voice. I want to make each story distinctive, but to tell it in the way that best suits the way it fronts up to the world.

To me, voice and style are not the same, just as editing and proofreading aren't the same. In the same arena, not the same ballgame.

And I'm just one more person with an opinion, and we all know about that, don't we?

 

[RK Wallis]

I agree and that's the secret to hitting the ball out of the ballpark every time.

 

[Steve C]

Can I be the dissenting voice this time? * hops up and down *

Working at creating a style that is the signature of the author's 'voice' is almost a misnomer.

A story has a voice and a style, and it suits that story and no other. That's a voice. It's the writer finding the write --- whoops --- right voice for that story, for those characters and that world and that situation. It's unique.

A writer who uses the same voice for every story will bore not only their readers and publishers, but eventually, they'll bore themselves. I've seen it. The first book was great, wonderful tone and style and fitted the character perfectly. Beautiful to read and be part of that moment. Grabbed the second hot off the press. But the second book, in a different era, with different characters, a different country, was almost a replica in terms of style and dialogue and shape. The third was blatant. The author may have found their voice, but the stories suffered for sticking to what was referred to as 'the voice' of the author. Read one, read them all.

Voice isn't about style or word choice or whether the sentences are long or short, whether language is magical to the ear or eye, it's about the story. What voice does this story have, and how is it best brought to the words?

Example: Herman Melville. Moby Dick has a distinctive 'voice', the voice of the narrator of the story - and it's not the author's voice.
Another story he did, Omoo, is a completely different voice. It's an earlier story (his second, I believe), which he touted at the time as personal accounts of his travels (which, subsequently, was found to be slightly exaggerated to the point of outright fibs, but that's another discussion/story).

I prefer to focus on the voice of the story, rather than try to find a singular stylistic form that defines my author voice. I want to make each story distinctive, but to tell it in the way that best suits the way it fronts up to the world.

To me, voice and style are not the same, just as editing and proofreading aren't the same. In the same arena, not the same ballgame.

And I'm just one more person with an opinion, and we all know about that, don't we?

So true, I think? I couldn't have put it better myself. In fact I couldn't have put it at all. Only by reading what you wrote did I realise what I should have been thinking. Thanks for that.

 

[Dan Payne]

A story has a voice and a style, and it suits that story and no other. That's a voice... wonderful tone and style and fitted the character perfectly.

I have to disagree with you on that.

Every story has a storyteller. There is always a narrator, whether that's an omniscient author or a character moving about within the book. The "voice" is how the storyteller uses words to get the story across.

Every character has a different way of looking at things and using language. For some authors and some stories - not by any means all or even most - the aim is to make the author disappear so that the story is told in the language and vernacular and thoughts of your Point of View character. Shall we call this the Holy Grail of third-person close? In such a book, every description, every action, every introspection comes directly from the POV character's head.

But most characters are not storytellers. What if you want to write a novel that tells the story of an 1800s coal-shoveller? That's not an educated man. It's probably not a very thoughtful man. A novel written by such a man would consist entirely of short sentences, simple, describing exactly what's happening and not much more. How intriguing can such a book be?

Take the same story and tell it using the (educated, literate, thoughtful) author's POV. Sure, when describing things the POV character sees and thinks, the author uses language and thought patterns appropriate to him. But the story is a springboard from which the author can describe the milieu that surrounds this man and the plot.

Even the most immersive third-person narrative blends the character voice with the author voice. Your coal-shoveller novel will doubtlessly use sentences, possibly even words and metaphors, that would not normally come to mind for this uneducated man. Unless you're Raymond Chandler, you're not likely to completely sit your story inside a character's head - and even Raymond Chandler had an identifiable voice.

If your story contains more than one POV character, you don't want a novel that swings wildly between different forms of language. Readers will get whiplash every time they start a new chapter. You want a novel that reads like it's written by one person, the author. Or if you're not writing a third-person close or a first-person narrative, the author has a voice. What voice is "appropriate to the story" then?

Voice is one of the things readers look for when they pick up a book from one of their favourite authors. People don't pick up a Stephen King novel wondering what kind of language they're going to get. They already know. Nobody has ever accused Stephen King of having cookie-cutter characters or all his novels sounding the same, but they're all identifiably King.

Voice is a lot more than just the vernacular a character uses. Your story has more than one character in it, and they all need to sound different. But they're all being written by one person, as is all the action around them - the stuff that's not happening in the characters' heads. That stuff is where Voice lives.

 

[RK Wallis]

Yes, that's true, but what @CageSage is true too. I wonder if it's an interpretation of style and voice or a blending of the two?

Let me explain by using Naomi Novik as an example. The words Novik chooses in Uprooted are very different compared to the words she chooses in Spinning Silver, BUT the "style" is unmistakeably Novik; or is the "style" blended with "voice"? Or the format she chooses to tell her tale? One thing is for sure: the words for each story are chosen carefully.

In the end, when we discuss "voice" and "style," it's all just semantics. We just know they're our Holy Grail.

 

[Steve C]

Not sure my if confusion is coming or going but @CageSage and @Dan Payne you have both got it moving around with excellent posts. I think you are both right. For me, the most important thing in a novel is the story and that comes from within the author. It personifies him. The words he then uses to tell the story are his style which also comes from inside. Mash the two together and you have a voice? Perhaps? Maybe? Who knows? It is a tantalizing question.

 

[Anonymous]

Voice can be tricky and elements of voice can be learned and voice can often be intentional and still quite effective. I once entered a very prestigious flash fiction writing competition. A person could enter up to three entries each for this competition. I intentionally wrote three pieces with three distinct voices. The judging for the competition was done blind, so author names were NOT attached to the entries. When the rubrics were tallied I had won both first and second place in this competition. The judges were quite floored that they could not tell that the entries were by the same author. (My third piece was my weakest and didn't get so much as a nod from the judges.)