For all the writers out there, one of the criticisms that often comes back from an agent or an editor is a lack of voice, or a voice that is not strong enough: “You need to find your voice,” they say.

It is just one of those things, quite abstract, and infinitely more difficult to fix than “passivity” or “run-on sentences”, for instance.

So what is a “voice”, exactly, and where/how do you find it?

Here are two opening passages from two different novels:

“It was the middle of a bright, tropical afternoon that made good our escape from the bay. The vessel we sought lay with her main-topsail aback about a league from the land and was the only object that broke the broad expanse of the ocean.”

“Call me Ishamel. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”

The second one of course, is immediately recognisable. That is how Herman Melville  begins Moby Dick. But the first is by Melville too. It is from his first novel Oomo.

When you read the two, the second one is stronger, more interesting, demanding of the reader’s attention. And that is the difference a strong voice can make. It is the way a writer speaks, whether through the narrator, through the characters. It is a certain authority, not intrusive, but certainly not indiscernible.

From these examples, you could draw a conclusion that the second voice is more mature because the author has matured over time, and through his work. You would be right. A seasoned writer does have a more authoritative voice than a beginner. She has also probably mastered the craft, and learnt to give different voices to all her characters.

But for those beginner writers who would like to have a strong voice from the word go, all is not lost.

Here are a few do’s and don’ts to help you on your way to find your voice:

DON’T

-read writers with brilliant voices and emulate them to create your own.
-try to impose style on your writing, so that you artificially generate tension, create a strong voice, but are unable to sustain it throughout your work.
-make the narrator’s voice so individual and distinctive that it overwhelms your story and characters, unless that is the idea behind your work.

DO
-read writers with brilliant voices and analyse why the voices work
-read some of your own work, written a month or two ago, so you can be objective.

IMPORTANT: Underline the bits that impress you. Read them aloud. These are the parts that give you the best idea what your voice is like at the moment.

Now, take a different colored pen and underline the bits you do not like. Read these parts aloud and figure out why they seem worse than the parts you liked. Is it abstraction? Is it too much “tell” and very little “show”? Is it because the characters are not well fleshed out by your writing? Take these faults one by one and address them.

By doing the underlining and reading exercise, you would be mechanically feeding your unconscious, training it to be the most honest part of you, to be sensitive to your own natural voice.

Always remember that a voice is the expression of who you are as a person and an artist. The more you write, the stronger it will be. And in the meanwhile, you can always help it along using the tips given here.

Lean in with further tips in the comments, and we’ll add them on and credit them to you.

And good luck with finding your voice!

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Write what you know.

How many times have you heard that? I am guessing if you’ve been at this any amount of time… quite a few. What’s that? You write fantasy and you’ve invented a whole new world entirely in your head so how could you possibly write what you know?

I am here to let you in on a little secret… that isn’t what that means! Do you think  JRR Tolkien knew a tiny creepy grey guy consumed with greed that lived in a cave? Probably not. But, chances are he did know a thing or two about greedy people and how they acted… so when he wrote Gollum, he used the voice of one of those guys!

That’s the key. You can tell any story you want, and I don’t care if you set your story inside a giant’s cell phone… as long as you use voice to make your characters like real people, then your story will be relatable. I know it isn’t as easy as it sounds, because if it were then my pomeranian would be churning out a novel right now…

But remember, you know voice. You hear people talking and see them acting every day, and each of those people has their own voice. So next time you see some crazy cat throwing a fit at the bank… pull out your notebook and write it down. Their words, their hand motions. Even the reaction of the bank teller. Your story will be that much better for it.

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In high school, my English Teacher insisted we learn to write without using too much passive voice. I remember questioning her methods and thinking her ideas were pointless.

I WAS wrong. When you are writing in first person past tense it’s difficult not to write with a passive voice, and the story moves so much better if you don’t do it.

So, go through and check your manuscript for the passive stuff. Now, don’t get me wrong. Don’t get rid of every ‘was, is, are, were, am, etc.’ in your book, but trim it down.

A wise man once said to me: If you can replace WAS with a better verb and make your story say the same thing– why wouldn’t you?

If you are having trouble understanding passive voice, I have compiled a few resources for you to check out below:

Passive Voice Handout

The Passive Voice

Grammar Girl

Just for fun…. I invite you to go through the first chapter and highlight the word was. How many times did you use it?

I used WAS four times in the first chapter of my book that has been edited several times, and in my unedited work I used it eight times.

What about you?

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Every time anyone mentions voice, my mind immediatly goes to that scene from The Little Mermaid with Ursula the Sea Witch making Ariel sing as she traps her voice into the shell. For those of you unfamiliar, I found this little remake on YouTube, and for those of you that are familiar with what I am talking about… well, truthfully I just couldn’t pass up posting this awesome video.

So, what is it about your voice that makes the story work, and more importantly.  How can you prove to an agent or a publisher that your voice is unique enough to stand out ina  crowd? Many writers are born with the talent, just like singers. But both need to practice to make their voices that much better than the rest.

I think the most important place to start with your storie’s voice is the first sentence. Let’s take, for example, the first sentence from my current work in progress.

I held my breath and dove into the crawl space just out of sight of the cops as they shone their flashlight in my direction.

Now, at first glance, I can see this sentence needs a lot of work. For starters, is shone even a word? If it is, then it makes me sound like a country bumpkin for sure.  This is for a Young Adult novel specifically written for girls, so we need to make sure it maintains that voice. If it were for a group of role playing grown men, then we would want something completely different. We might go with something like:

I watched my breath in the frozen air as I slipped into a small cavern just above the dragon’s lair while her warm body smoldered below.

If we were writing for middle grade we might do something like this:

I ducked under my desk and held my breath, nervous to get caught.

Now… if I can just get it to work for a Young Adult novel you guys will be the first to know!

So… good luck with finding your voice, and remember it’s all about your style!

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Creating Believable Characters:

It’s a matter of voice.

By Christine Fonseca

Writing fiction is more than simply putting good words on paper, or telling a riveting story.  It involves the creation of characters that are 3-dimensional.  A well developed character is one that stays with you long after the story is finished.  Through their eyes, the reader is transported to another life, or another world.

Some people like to start building characters from the base up – know what they look like, what their wants and desires are, etc.  I tend to have a different approach (typical).  I start with their voice. I literally HEAR my characters long before I see them or understand which story they fit into and what their role is.    So, when I build my story – and consequently my characters – I always start with voice.  Now, by voice I don’t mean the sounds they make; although this may be part of the process.  I define voice as the unique actions and behaviors of the character – the thing that makes them WHO they are.

For characters to feel believable to your readers, they must possess an authentic voice that is unique – not a collection of used clichés (the abused wife, the enraged alcoholic, the scared and lost middle-child, etc).  That is not to say that the characters have not experienced the things referenced above.  Maybe they have.  To be believable and riveting, however, they need more.  They need to be as unique as the people we come into contact with everyday.  They must be three dimensional.

To bring a character’s voice to life on the printed page, the author MUST speak from voice each time they refer to that character.  This can be very difficult.  Many times an author’s voice will replace the voice of the character, leaving the reader to feel as though the words or actions of that character are somehow disingenuous. Try this.  Think back to the last book you hated – besides poor writing style or overindulgent world building, why did you hate it?  Odds are it had to do with characters that behaved in ways that were not believable.  They were not authentic somehow.

Staying true to the voice of the characters is vital to the creation of a rich story.

One technique that has helped me learn to “stay in voice” didn’t come from the writing practices I’ve learned in class or at workshops.  It came from a combination of my experiences with theatre and the field of transformation psychology – method acting (or voice dialogue in psychology).

These techniques, though somewhat different from one another, focus on “becoming” something else – a character.  For method acting, it is about finding the aspects of the character you are portraying within yourself and pulling that aspect of being to the surface – literally becoming that character.  In doing so, the actor can create something so full that the actor falls away completely, leaving the audience to experience only the character.

Voice Dialogue is a similar process developed by Hal and Sidra Stone.  Defined as a way of getting in touch with the many aspects of personality that exist within each of us, Voice Dialogue teaches the participant to literally speak from various aspects of the self.

Both techniques have a practical application to writing, enabling the author to consistently “speak” from another characters voice.

Here are a couple of practices that may help with this process: a) write a letter to yourself (the author) from your character’s point of view.  This practice can unleash your subconscious creative mind and enable you to get in touch with your character more fully.  If you’re stuck in a scene, unsure of your character’s motivations, try this…ask to speak to that aspect of yourself (I know, sounds strange – but trust me, it WORKS).  For example, if your main character is Julie, ask yourself to speak to Julie.  Tell Julie what the problem is, stay still for a minute and write.  Odds are really good that you will be able to release that creative nature again and write from that perspective.  (I have a friend that calls it channeling her characters – perfect…)

For the next couple of days, try writing from different characters’ voices in the first person.  Pick a variety of characters – the broader the variety, the better.  After doing this for a while, read what you wrote.  Does it all sound the same?  If so, you may not be speaking from the character’s voice – but from the author’s voice.  Try it again.  Eventually you will be able to completely stay in the voice of your character – regardless of POV, scene changes or plot developments.  As you master this, you will begin to create characters that leap from the page and give your story the heartbeat it needs.

An added bonus – this technique will help you go deeper with your characters emotionally – much deeper.

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© Christine Fonseca, 2008-2009.  Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author is strictly prohibited.

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