How does an author find their voice?

[Mira]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking about voice. It seems like this is a real key to writing something compelling and engaging the writer.

I'm curious - how did you find your voice? Or if you are still looking for your voice, how are you working on finding it?

I did find my voice, but I'm curious about the overall process. Is it different for everyone? Or is there a path that works for most people?

Looking forward to your answers, and I'll share later, too, once I think about how I found my voice - which was actually on Nathan's blog.

Thanks!

[Aimée]

They way to find your voice?

Write a lot.

It'll come to you. That's pretty much how I find my, and I'm not sure how else you could find it.

[dios4vida]

I agree with Aimee. Write, write, write some more, then keep on writing. I didn't even come close to finding my voice until my last WIP (my third) and am still working on it on this one (my fourth).

Also, though, read. Read, read, read some more, then keep on reading. One of the best things I ever did for my voice was to read the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. The man's got voice in the bag. His is the best I've ever read. I learned a lot about voice by studying his writing, the mannerisms, the word choice, the structure. I think there's a little bit of osmosis that occurs when you read the masters, too, which means reading is just as important as writing.

[Quill]

In my current WIP the voice did not emerge until the seventh draft, and did not begin to crystallize until the eighth. Voice was the product of pushing the words around until they sang. What they sang was the story. What they sang it in was my voice.

By that same token I'm pretty sure the first draft of my next project will not have my voice.

[Sanderling]

I agree with Brenda and Aimee, and I don't know if it's always something you can be completely conscious about - probably your crit partners and/or beta readers are more likely to see it before you yourself do.

So write a lot. But also, relax your brain and let the words come like they feel they should. Don't try to force them into a particular pattern just because you think that's the way they should be, or that's the way they're expected to be. I think the best voices are probably the ones that are natural, not artificially and deliberately sculpted. If you're thinking about it too much, it might be a voice, but it's probably not your voice.

[Hillsy]

I think it's also very important to work out what type of novel your natural "voice" lends itself too. Because different genres rely heavily on different aspects of writing. For example: a likeable, quirky narator is far less important in Fantasy, where we desire gravity, authority and a majestic turn of phrase. In contrast, Tolkien doing urban paranormal would likely be dryier than Will Self telling jokes on Mars.

***CAUTION! SPLEEN VENTING! FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY PLEASE STAND BACK BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE!***

I can get frustrated whenever this subject gets brought up (not because I discard the importance of it - quite the opposite) but because, despite this apparently being the single most important contributing factor to the success of your novel, examples of "good voice" are basically all the same: sassy, slightly quirky first person protagonists who exist in paranormal YA.

OK, I know this isn't 100% true, but I trawled through all 200+ Query Shark entries and could count the number of non-quirky, non-light hearted, non-YA stories that were praised for 'voice' on the fingers of my left hand (And my left hand was once caught in a thresher and only has 2 fingers remaining). What of adult fantasy? Thrillers? Space Opera? Horror? Are we trying to say that you can't have a "distinctive voice" in these genres? I was about to use Joe Abercrombie as an exception until I realised some of his uniqueness is the thread of comedy running through his characters - So is v'oice' purely humour related?

And getting specific advice is even more futile. Because 'voice' is so staggeringly hard to describe anyway, you get this kind of nebulous, well-meaning rhetoric - heart-warming and generous indeed, but ultimately less useful than antelope-flavoured lion repellant.

***SPLEEN VENTING FINISHED. ACTIVATING SAFETY MODE***

I don't even know if I have a 'voice' really. I know I have a certain metre, or beat, to my writing. I use a lot of semi-colon's and commas and try any edit out any modern turns of phrase I find. Does this constitute a voice? I have no idea. But I do know that Janet Evanovich and Iain M Banks write very, very differently.

[Sommer Leigh]

This topic always makes me feel stupid. Like, suddenly 2 + 2 = durrrrrrrrrrrrr

I know voice when I see it. Err, read it. Hear it? It's something like the way the story is told in harmony with who the characters are and what sort of story is being unraveled. It's something like word choice but also like the lilt and accent of a conversation. A personality that comes through like a freight train when some stranger smiles at you. It's, I don't know, choosing to use the word sonance instead of sound and not coming off as a pretentious thesaurus-toting jackass when you do it. I think it is mostly a form of personality through vocabulary and language.

Do I have it? I think so. I know that my zombie novel is way different than my YA SF in tone and tenor. I can feel out both narrators. I'm juggling two first person present narrators in my current YA SF and learning how to make two unique but compatible voices. That has done more for my ability to write voice than anything ever has.

How did I get it? Honestly, I think it came from writing my blog. Blogs are no different than fiction - they have to have a voice that compells people to read and come back and this is not an easy trick to perform. You'd think it would be easy since you're writing you, but I think it's even harder to some degree. Blog you is more like the clever and saucy teen movie you, not the real you who gets moody and anxious and nervous and annoyed and has bad moods and good moods and lonely moods. So many years writing the voice of my blog has made accessing and separating a voice easier, I think. Not that writing a blog voice is a false sense of who you are. It's just, you don't write the voice of the you who drinks a glass of wine and cries while watching Love Actually for the billionth time because you had a really bad day at work.

[Sanderling]

I think it's also very important to work out what type of novel your natural "voice" lends itself too. Because different genres rely heavily on different aspects of writing. For example: a likeable, quirky narator is far less important in Fantasy, where we desire gravity, authority and a majestic turn of phrase. In contrast, Tolkien doing urban paranormal would likely be dryier than Will Self telling jokes on Mars.

Yes, very true. I think the easiest voices to pick out are the ones that are a little quirky, or have a little humour (eg. "on the fingers of my left hand (And my left hand was once caught in a thresher and only has 2 fingers remaining)" - great voice). But voice is definitely just as apparent in non-humour, too. You wouldn't say that The Hunger Games are written with the same voice as Twilight, though neither are humour. But it's harder to say how they're different.

I know voice when I see it. Err, read it. Hear it? It's something like the way the story is told in harmony with who the characters are and what sort of story is being unraveled. It's something like word choice but also like the lilt and accent of a conversation. A personality that comes through like a freight train when some stranger smiles at you. It's, I don't know, choosing to use the word sonance instead of sound and not coming off as a pretentious thesaurus-toting jackass when you do it. I think it is mostly a form of personality through vocabulary and language.

I think this is a great summary. The voice is just an aspect of your personality. When you first start writing, it's like a first date. You sit across the table from the person, and the conversation is a little stilted, a little awkward. You worry about putting your foot in your mouth or otherwise doing something to embarrass yourself. But the more time you spend with the person (/writing), the more your natural personality is allowed to come out. You stop overthinking what you're saying or doing, and eventually you just be yourself. Which is why, I think, one of the most common recommendations for finding your voice is just to write lots. You gotta get through those awkward first dates and start feeling comfortable enough to let your natural personality shine.

And also, like in real life, different situations (/stories) might require different aspects of your personality. You have a different face on when you're in the office with your co-workers than you do when you're out having fun with your friends. But they're both your personality.

[polymath]

Voice is one of those writing oddities that we all have as an innate talent, though hidden and held back by of all things our own personal doubts, our insecurities, our reluctance to speak up. We want our voice to come forth but we don't want to risk the hazards.

I came to find my voices, yes, voices, through noticing the stronger voices in what I read, saw, listened to. It was Jonathan Franzen's writing that opened my eyes to a key quality of voice. Attitude. Franzen's characters are outspoken, strong willed, opinionated. I don't have to agree with their ideologies to appreciate their standpoints, veiwpoints, points of view, positions, opinions. Which I don't. But do agree somewhat with his core message, if only he'd solidfy it so I could make up my mind once and for all.

Better I don't agree, frankly, because that to me is part of Franzen's visionary and mystic aesthetic. He's heavily Postmodern in the sense he questions preconceived notions of prorpiety through his characters working out their cognitive dissonances by expressing their positions and having them challenged by their social cohorts. In some circumstances by echo dialogue, in others by colloquy dialogue, in others by non sequitur dialogue, meanwhile understating each's full position yet with hyperbolous statements. Delicious irony there. And then there's his characters' thoughts and actions which don't gibe with what they say aloud. Delicious irony too. Particularly dramatic irony, where someone knows what's really going on, usually readers or audience or spectators, but others don't have the full picture.

Once I could discern the overstated voice methods and intents and meanings of Franzen's writing, and elsewhere, TV talk shows, news commentary, screenplays, etc., I could hone in on the subtler ones, and ever subtler ones. And the varieties and causal sequencing and the changes in tone, mood, tenor, ambience, register, attitude, etc., of voices, so many voices from which to draw now.

The worst place to be voice-wise for me now is the socially sensitive one of the middle moderate compromise position of an opinion so one doesn't disturb one's acquaintances.

A bit of dry wit from a culture I admire for it's plain spokenness, yet ironic sensibilities:

Thwart: a transverse structural member of a maritime vessel, like a seat in a canoe, rowboat, sailboat. Pronounced "thought" thereabouts. Sit in the middle of the thought so you don't rock the boat.

Well, for voice, rock the motherloving boat, rock it so it tips out the passengers, for cripe's sake.

[Hillsy]

You wouldn't say that The Hunger Games are written with the same voice as Twilight, though neither are humour. But it's harder to say how they're different

Yeah I definately agree that being able to tell the difference between writers is a pretty clear indication of 'voice'. My gripe is that, in my feverished snouting for writing tips, examples of a "stand-out voice" in non-humour are rarely, if ever, given. Instead you get the feeling its either written poorly, or written well: 'Voice' ceases to become a qualitive factor, only a differentiating one. In other words, on a checksheet of things you like about a non-humorous book, "Voice" wouldn't get a tick had the "Well-Written" box above it already been checked.

I trawled back through Writing Excuses and found an old episode:
http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/10/0 ... and-style/
which is recommend everyone listens to religiously.

[polymath]

What kind of humor? Upbeat, downbeat, ironic, sarcastic, approving, disapproving, self-deprecating, forelorn, woebegone, chastising, resigned, and so on and so forth. Other than humor, there are dozens of emotions voice can convey, primal emotions and secondary and tertiary emotions. And delightfully artful writing overlaps several emotions at once.

Voice's attitude feature is also emotion. While voice isn't always a stand-out feature of written word, it's always there to some degree. Maybe craft stands out more though. Written word generally lacks verbal intonation and nonverbal expression, which are emotional in context: gestures, facial expression, body language, etc. Yet strong writing imitates both intonation and body language, imitation meaning gives an adequate sense of, because the sheer quantity of nonword nonverbal and verbal information experienced in person would overwhelm a narrative.

That is demonstrated by the Mehrabian communication studies. which found "7 percent happens in spoken words [comparable to text]. 38 percent happens through voice tone [which is difficult to artfully express in written word]. 55 percent happens via general body language [not as difficult to artfully portray as intonation]" (ChangingMinds.org: Mehrabian's Communication Studies).

[Rachel Ventura]

What kind of humor? Upbeat, downbeat, ironic, sarcastic, approving, disapproving, self-deprecating, forelorn, woebegone, chastising, resigned, and so on and so forth. Other than humor, there are dozens of emotions voice can convey, primal emotions and secondary and tertiary emotions. And delightfully artful writing overlaps several emotions at once.

Voice's attitude feature is also emotion. While voice isn't always a stand-out feature of written word, it's always there to some degree. Maybe craft stands out more though. Written word generally lacks verbal intonation and nonverbal expression, which are emotional in context: gestures, facial expression, body language, etc. Yet strong writing imitates both intonation and body language, imitation meaning gives an adequate sense of, because the sheer quantity of nonword nonverbal and verbal information experienced in person would overwhelm a narrative.

That is demonstrated by the Mehrabian communication studies. which found "7 percent happens in spoken words [comparable to text]. 38 percent happens through voice tone [which is difficult to artfully express in written word]. 55 percent happens via general body language [not as difficult to artfully portray as intonation]" (ChangingMinds.org: Mehrabian's Communication Studies).

Never heard of the Mehrabian guy, but the fact that you have to use emoticons when typing online, and how difficult it really is to express yourself in 140 characters or less, seems to correlate with his argument. (Or is Mehrabia a new country in Arabia that I haven't heard of where someone studied this stuff?)

I must be crazy enough that 140 characters each have a unique voice of their own and they're all a-Twittering with visions of sugarplums in my head.

[polymath]

Albert Mehrabian communication studies circa 1967 UCLA, though an Iranian-born Armenian immigrant.

[Rachel Ventura]

Albert Mehrabian communication studies circa 1967 UCLA, though an Iranian-born Armenian immigrant.

Wow, thanks, Polymath! Have you considered having yourself published as a reference book? I mean cloned?

[poptart]

I think voice comes when you've learned enough to have the confidence to shake off all the influences of other writers and truly become yourself. That's why is takes time to acquire and can't be edited into a piece of work. It's as personal as your fingerprint and DNA, the clothes you wear and the way you style your hair.