How to Find and Hone your Author Voice
By Heather Webb | April 23, 2020 |
I wanted to write about this topic today, because I find both as a writer and as a freelance editor, voice can be difficult to explain to someone and yet, what often draws a reader into a new book, is both the author’s voice and the character’s voice. In other words, it’s an incredibly important skill set. Author voice, in particular, feels a bit like a moving target so that’s what I’d like to dissect here. What is it, precisely, and how does one hone their own?
AUTHOR VOICE
- An author’s voice is many things, but at its most basic level, it comes from the stories buried deeply within us. It comes from inner, unresolved conflicts tucked away into our subconscious, or from these sort of knots of pain and joy that make up who we are.
- Voice is also about honesty—an unfettered and unique collection of your thoughts, feelings, passions, dreams, beliefs, fears and attitudes. (Oh, that’s all? Lol.) But this honesty, or really you could call it a tapping into your truth, comes through in every word you write.
- Voice is also about courage. Many of us are afraid of total, gut-wrenching honesty. Instead of revealing that rawness, we present to the world images of who we want to be or should be, hiding who we are. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to uphold our facades, and in the process, we can lose touch with our true, unique selves. In essence, it takes courage to drop those walls and to seek out our truths, and let them flow freely onto the page.
WHAT MAKES YOUR VOICE UNIQUE
That honesty, tapping into the well of experiences and emotions, beliefs, passions, makes up your attitude. Your attitude encompasses how you view the world, and life in general, or how you feel about someone or something. It’s also revealed through the way you talk, your body language, and your actions. The author often portrays their attitude through the actions and thoughts of their characters.
An author’s writing style is also a key factor in making a voice standout from others. It’s a more technical aspect of writing and less of a touchy-feely and nebulous aspect. It includes the author’s choice in vocabulary (slang, dialect, swearing, erudite, sharp, accessible), sentence structures, the author’s cadence, as well as the figures of speech they use and how they use them. Finally, an author’s style encompasses their preference for warm versus cool writing (or elaborate versus sparse).
Another piece associated with author voice is the way the author evokes emotion from their readers. Some writers aim for thrilling, fast-paced stories so the majority of the emotion they evoke is excitement. Some writers like George R.R. Martin, for example, kill off characters and uses violence to elicit emotion. Nicholas Sparks separates loved ones in various ways and then pulls them together again, playing with the reader’s emotions. E.L. James elicits pleasure through sex scenes and love scenes.
And finally, an author’s tone plays into their voice and can become an essential part of their brand. Do you often write with a sense of impending doom? Or are your books light-hearted and optimistic? Funny? Do they carry an air of tragedy?
FINDING & HONING OUR VOICE
There are some techniques that can help us hone our author voice, and below are just a few:
Developing Confidence: What is needed, above all is self-confidence, and this comes through many small acts of courage. Opening your heart and soul to channel emotions to the page. Believing what you have to say is real and authentic and will mean something to someone. Eventually these little acts of courage will lead you to feel confident enough to share glimmers of who you are in your stories, lending your voice the sort of authenticity that will make your books stand out.
Analyze Others: Studying how other authors infuse their voice into their books is helpful. Compare and contrast them to your own. What sort of techniques do they use that you like? Don’t like? You may be the most successful with this if you read more than one book, or at least passages from more than book written by the same author. In this way, you can really see there’s a consistency in the author’s voice.
Express Yourself: How is your own life story unique? What makes YOU unique? Despite the fact that every plotline has been told a hundred times, each one has a fresh viewpoint, a different set of circumstances. Emphasize these differences—this is where your voice will emerge.
Don’t Over-think it: Don’t try to sound like you, just relax and be natural. Think about one of the first academic papers you ever wrote. You wanted to seem smart so you dumped a bunch of fifty-cent words in the text. But it came off stiff, unnatural and at times probably didn’t even make sense. Don’t force your voice. It will rise to the surface if you listen to your heart.
Practice: Beyond working on your manuscripts, hone your voice with easy exercises. Think of three personal questions or beliefs and record yourself answering the questions. Play it back. What sorts of phrases do you use? Intonation? Thoughts?
With practice, your voice will grow and mature, and readers will delight in the confident voice they’ve come to know and love.
I’d love to hear who some of your favorite authors are, with strong voices?
Heather Webb is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of historical fiction. As a freelance editor and an adjunct in a MFA in Creative Writing program, Heather has helped many writers sign with agents and go on to sell at market. When not writing, she feeds her cookbook addiction, geeks out on history and pop culture, and looks for excuses to head to the other side of the world. To date, her books have been translated to seventeen languages.
Hi Heather. It’s funny, but I was listening to Laura Marling’s new album, Song for Our Daughter, as I read your insightful post. The music added even more insight for me. Of course singers use their voice (duh, right?). Sonically, Marling has a particularly interesting voice (and talk about diction!).
But it’s so much more than that. I’ve been a fan since her first album, and her songwriting is so “her,” if you know what I mean. The vocabulary choices, the themes, the emotional tone, even the evolution–they all contribute to an artistic continuum. I mean, she wrote this collection of songs about an imaginary daughter (she’s not yet a parent), she said because it: “offered all the confidences and affirmations I found so difficult to provide myself.” I mean, who does that? Laura Marling, that’s who. I’m unsurprised and impressed at once.
Not sure if that offers you or anyone else additional insight, but the pairing made for an inspiring start to my writing day. Thanks, as always, for your expertise and insight, Heather. I’m always delighted to find one of your posts when I pull up WU in the morning.
This is great insight, Vaughn, yes! I liked what you said here:
“The vocabulary choices, the themes, the emotional tone, even the evolution–they all contribute to an artistic continuum.”
I was listening to Sara Bareilles last night and thinking about voice. Her lyrics are so meaningful and emotional at times, and quite poetic. Obviously some are more like pop tunes than others, but my favorites of hers don’t make the radio. I’ve come to recognize and love that beautiful honesty and inspiration in her songs. Plus the musical talent as well.
I think as writers, our voice is as important as a singer’s, except we’re “silent”. ;)
Thanks for your comments, as always.
I love all of this. Such a difficult topic to tackle, and yet you draw out all the important aspects.
A newer-to-me author I stumbled upon a few years back is Anita Brookner. I love her voice. Sara Baume is another author whose voice really connected with me. Others whose work I have only read once (some have only one book out so far)…Emily Ruskovich, Ruth Ozeki, Marilynne Robinson, Joseph Boyden, Elif Batuman, Julia Phillips. And I have always loved the way Garrison Keillor tells a story. In all of these cases, if I see something new or something I haven’t read yet of theirs, I will buy it without a second thought. And it has everything to do with voice. Plot does not factor in at all.
Patterns I see here: the voices are generally introspective, understated, evocative, and make connections but do not draw conclusions. In most of these cases, the stories themselves were very simple but the characters were visceral.
Thanks, Heather. I’m going to read this post over a few more times.
Isn’t it interesting how little plot matters? It DOES matter, of course, especially in genre fiction, but what sticks to our ribs is author voice and character voice.
On another note, I haven’t read a single of your favorite writers listed! I think I have my work cut out for me. Going to look some up now… :)
As a writer making the shift from business writing to creative writing I have been focusing on voice as recommended by my editor. I have been to many workshops and read many books but your words are the most concise guidance I have received. Thank you. This gets a place in my writing log! For voice I have been studying Barbara Kingsolver. Her way with description, humor and truth deeply engages me every time.
Oh, how wonderful to hear. Thank you! I’m glad you find them helpful and I wish you the best of luck in your journey to discover your fictional voice. :)
Thank you, Heather, for tackling this topic, one that I often ponder. Reading your words brought me deeper into my characters in my WIP. Your post also made me realize similarities in my protagonists in both my novels, my debut now out, and my WIP. I never thought of them as similar and yet they are, and I now see myself more in them than before. This post is one I will re-read and share with my writers group.
Thank you so much, Linda. So kind of you to share it. I joke around with my critique partners about how I always write terrible mothers that abandon their daughters in some way. I’ve since pledged to write a loving, nurturing mother one day. lol. As writers, I think we have a innate emotional topics to which we are drawn because of our own backstory, and it plays out again and again in a myriad of ways through our stories.
Thanks for your comments today!
Great article. I find letter-writing one of the best ways to develop not only your own voice but those of your characters. I just finished a book, Love and Salt by Amy Alznauer and Jessica Mesman Griffith–it’s a spiritual memoir in letters–and each voice is distinct.
Great advice! I also find writing in first person for awhile–even if I’m going to change the POV to third–helps me see inside a character’s head and to be closer to their hearts as well.
Hi Heather, THIS: Don’t try to sound like you, just relax and be natural. While writing a memoir of my life back in Chicago, I discovered a voice that truly was me. Maybe going back to my roots, bringing forth the memory of my father’s early death and the brilliant way my mother went on is part of that voice–a combination of wonder, belief in the future, fearlessness. But I attribute it to my mother, her voice, her spirit and yet there it is on the page. So different from the voice in my novels. Thanks for this post. When we read novels we often are pulled in from the very beginning. Why? Voice.
You bring up another great point. We have different voices for different kinds of writing. I find when I’m writing craft articles that I lean toward the motivational and “instruction with sass and love” kind of voice. My fictional voice is very different.
Thanks for sharing!
Heather, so many great authors, so many compelling voices. I just finished a Hilary Mantel book of short stories (The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher) and marveled at her ability to characterize someone with a sentence (and often an acidic sentence). Great skill with words, setting and mordant humor. I’ll have to read Wolf Hall.
Off the top of my head, where I fear a bald spot is forming, Annie Dillard, Kent Haruf, Marilynne Robinson, Amor Towles, Louise Erdrich, Colson Whitehead, Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy—so many voices, so much talent. I’m just starting a novel called The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, and I hope it will be as amusing as recommended.
Oh, and probably my OG: Mark Twain, whose wry voice I return to through time, over and over. Thanks for the post!
I’ve read Hilary Mantel and she’s a real talent. I like the way you described her style as “acidic”. I think that’s dead-on. I also read The Rosie Project and the voice is terrific there as well. Self-deprecating humor. It’s interesting to see the way the character’s logical side battles to understand his emotional.
Thanks for stopping by today!
I”m very much impressed with all the literary authors mentioned by all the commenters. As a writer of genre fiction, I also look to literary writers for some inspiration — people like Richard Russo, Annie Proulx and Jane Smiley.
But I also look to writers in my genre – so the “old standards” like John D. McDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler. But I also look at the “new standards,” too … folks like Reed Farrell Coleman, Michael Connelly and Joseph Finder. (There are loads of others, but these stand out to me – others’ mileage may vary.)
Great post … and most timely!
Thanks, Chuck. I think it’s important to look outside of our category, as you mentioned, but definitely within our categories as well to understand reader expectations and marketing expectations for our own books. Sounds like you’re taking a broad approach, perfect for really fine-tuning your voice.
Thanks for sharing your insights.
Heather,
A list of my favorite voices:
Kurt Vonnegut
George S. Saunders
James Still
William Faulkner
Joan Didion
David Sedaris