This is the second in a multi-part series on writer’s voice. Read the first part first.
When I started preparing for my workshop on voice, I thought I would only be talking about two types of voice. But as I researched, I came across two other types that are just as essential to the overall book experience, even if they are not exactly what industry professionals are talking about when they use the term voice. They are still, nonetheless, worth talking about.
The first type is… Reader voice
As I said in the part one, this is the reader’s own personal perspective they bring to the reading of our stories. The important thing to remember about reader voice is that we have no control over this. We birth our babies and send them out into the world, a reader takes over from there.
These two quotes from John Green sum up what I mean:
A book is a conversation between a reader and a writer, but we both have to hold up our end of the bargain there. It’s possible to write a book terribly; it’s also possible to read a book terribly. (Witness, for instance, those who read Huck Finn as a defense of slavery.)
Books belong to their readers.
Coming to grips with this is as much about our sanity as our writing.
You can make yourself crazy trying to write the book that will please everyone, but you will only end up with a book that pleases no one. Reviewers have opinions and tastes and biases and there is absolutely nothing you can do to change that.
A friend of mine wrote a book with a main character named Jane. She got an email from a “fan” explaining how she hadn’t liked this book as much as my friend’s other books. “Maybe it was because of this,” she said, “or maybe because of that. Or maybe because I don’t like characters named Jane.”
In the end, as much as the reader and her voice is an essential part of the cycle, as a writer you need to be able to put it aside in a little box.
The second type is… Verb voice
As writers, we hear about verb voice all the time, in terms of active voice and passive voice.
To determine which you’re using, you can generally look at the order of elements in the sentence.
Active tells what a person or thing does. The subject tends to come before verb and the object comes after.
Harry wrote a sentence.
Passive tells what is done to a person or thing. The object tends to come before verb and the subject comes after.
A sentence was written by Harry.
(Yay, sentence diagramming. Kill me now.)
While active voice is often preferred in fiction, with passive viewed as the Voldemort of writing—shh, don’t even say it out loud—there are times when you might want to choose passive voice. If you are purposely trying to disguise the identity of the speaker/actor, like in the villain’s POV of a thriller maybe. As with any “rule” of writing, you just have to know how to break it to make it work.
If you need some more help on this kind of voice, check out this article on yourdictionary.com.
The third type is… Character voice
Okay, now we’re getting into the types of voice that agents and editors (and ultimately readers and reviewers) might be talking when they talk about voice: Character voice and Author voice. And I think it’s likely that when a reader or a casual reviewer is talking about voice, they probably mean character. Because as a writer it is our job to make the character come to life for the reader, and giving the character a strong voice is one way to do that.
The key to character voice is authenticity, making sure that the things your characters say and think are true and consistent to who they are.
You probably wouldn’t write a modern teen character who, for example, says, “Golly gee.” Or a Victorian heroine who calls the hero “Hot.” (Unless, of course, you’re going for an A Knight’s Tale kind of anachronicity and then totally go for it.)
Another important aspect of character voice is distinction. Make sure your characters sound different from each other.
Even characters with similar backgrounds will have very different speech and thought patterns. If you have (or know) siblings, you can imagine just how different people raised in the same house can be. Characters are just the same.
Sometimes this just comes down to details.
Sweet Venom, for Example
In my Sweet Venom trilogy, each book is told in three first-person points of view. Which, if you’ve never tried writing, I do NOT recommend. It made me completely insane. And to make things more difficult, the three characters were triplets. However, they hadn’t been raised together. Had, in fact, been separated at birth and raised in very different environments.
- Gretchen — ran away from abusive foster parents at twelve, has been on the streets hunting monsters ever since
- Grace — raised by loving and supportive family, firmly middle class, very education focused
- Greer — raised by extremely wealthy but distant parents who expect nothing short of perfect
In addition to generally trying to be in the mindset of the tough, the sweetheart, and the snob as I wrote the characters, I relied on some simple dialogue tricks to differentiate them for readers.
| Gretchen | Grace | Greer |
| Fine | Okay | All right |
| Crap | Holy goalie | Sugar |
| (never couches) | Maybe | Perhaps |
If you read the Sweet Venom books, you will never hear Gretchen say sugar or Grace say crap. (Okay, probably never—nobody’s perfect.) These are simple cues to let the reader know which character is speaking or thinking.
Character voice can be a very different thing from author voice, or they can be quite similar. They are more likely to merge in first person writing because I is such a personal pronoun.
So let’s talk about author voice.
The final type is… Author voice
This is what we’ve been waiting for. When an industry professional says they’re looking for a book with a great voice, this is the type they’re talking about. This is the type they find so hard to define. Why is this type so important?
Because it tells you about the author. In a million subtle ways, it tells you what kind of person they are, what their humor is like, whether we would want to be friends with them.
The best compliment I can get is someone saying that reading my book was just like listening to me talk.
Elements of an author’s voice might provide clues to:
- when they lived/wrote
- where they are/were from
- what they believe
The author isn’t even necessarily consciously aware of the linguistic choices they are making because a voice is so ingrained in who we are. It’s how you talk.
An author raised in NYC has different speech patterns than one raised in Los Angeles or than one who immigrated to America as a child who speaks English as a second language.
An author living and writing in 21st century America speaks differently to one raised in 21st century Britain (for example, Brits say “different to” and Americans say “different from—sadly, I just wish I was British) or one raised in 18th century America.
Your Voice is YOU
Your voice, like your personality and your whole self, is the sum of your experiences and a reflection of your environment and influences. You can’t—and shouldn’t—get away from that.
Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.
Barbara Kingsolver
The more honest you are in your writing (i.e. not trying to sound like someone else, someone you’re not) the more your unique author voice will shine through.
Stay tuned for the next article in this series, in which I’ll talk about the different elements of voice.
Essential Writing Elements: Voice
- Voice: What Is It?
- Types of Voice (this post)
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