How do you develop your voice for writing fiction?
Fiona posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:
I’m not a writer or anything, though I wanna be when I’ve finished school. But anyway, around 2 years ago I had this awesome idea for a story, but it was only recently (about 3 months ago) I became serious about writing it as a full blown novel. I planned the plot (written down)and have the characters (a very detailed disciption of each)I also know the ‘voice’. I’ve changed it many times and settled on writing from my main character’s perspective. It sounds great and it really shows what the character is like, but I find it almost a chore to write as. So, I am now in the dilema of going with the terrible ‘voice’ I used to use (before I became ‘serious’) that just doesn’t work and makes the plot kind of sluggish or this new one that does work beyond my expectations but is really hard to write in…um, help…please?
Randy sez: The most common thing that editors and agents tell me when I ask what they’re looking for is, “I’m looking for a writer with a great voice.”
So what is that pesky voice, anyway? And how do you develop it?
Larry Brooks deals with that very question in his forthcoming book, STORY ENGINEERING: Mastering The 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. (Publisher: Writer’s Digest Books). According to Amazon, this book will release on February 24, 2011. Larry sent me a copy a couple of months ago to read for endorsement, and I really liked the book.
Larry identifies six core competencies:
- Concept
- Character
- Theme
- Story Structure
- Scene Execution
- Voice
Voice is your particular way of putting words together. It’s your attitude. It’s your personality, turned into words.
That’s what voice is. How do you develop it? That’s a harder question, one I’ve been thinking about for years.
In his book, Larry notes that in sports, they say that “You can’t coach speed.” Speed is a genetic gift. You can coach an athlete and help him fix things that get in the way of his natural speed, but if he hasn’t got it, you can’t give it to him.
Larry argues that voice is similar: “You can’t coach voice.” I agree with him.
And yet there are things you can do to build your voice. If you want to develop your speed, then run. And learn how to avoid doing the things that slow you down. If you want to develop your voice, then write. And learn how to avoid doing the things that kill your story. Study the craft of fiction.
The key thing is that you probably are going to need to write quite a lot to really start finding your voice. I think mine took at least 2 or 3 years to start coming out in my writing. During those 2 or 3 years, I learned the fundamentals of the craft of fiction writing and quit doing things that were killing my story. In the process, my voice emerged naturally.
Fiona, yours will too. Write fiction. Write a lot of it. Develop those other core competencies. I divide them a little differently than Larry does. In my teaching, I’ve always focused on what I call the “Five Pillars of Fiction” which are StoryWorld, Character, Plot, Theme, and Style. These have a lot of overlap with Larry’s categories. (What I call “Plot” includes Larry’s categories of Concept, Story Structure, and Scene Execution.)
By the way, let me make a plug for Larry and his book: I don’t think anybody on the planet teaches story structure better than Larry Brooks. If you want the state of the art in story structure (his Core Competency #4), then check out his web site at www.StoryFix.com.
If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.
Authors most commonly tell their story in their own voices, their natural voices, which they find easiest. In fact, many authors are unaware of their voices. They have developed them over their own lives, and now they use them in their writing. To do this, you, “Put down onto the paper the words you are hearing in your head—literally, Elizabeth Berg says. Some authors, though, are skilled at stepping into a voice particularly suitable to their story. Albert Zuckerman notes this about Stephen King. “Stephen King’s reputation among those unfamiliar with his work seems to rest largely on his bizarre and otherworldly plots, yet he has a sublime gift for the cadences and nuances of small-town American idiomatic speech, rendering its gross and subtle tones and rhythms with a uniqueness and an artistry that, to me, rivals Mozart’s or Van Gogh’s.”
It seems to me that Fiona and Randy are using the word ‘voice’ to mean different things.
Fiona speaks of using a particular voice for her character, she has to step into that character to write with that voice. The voice to Fiona will come from the personality, mood, and other characteristics of the narrator.
Randy speaks of an author’s voice being something that belongs to the author rather than the character. This might be because he has in mind an external narrator and the writing style of the author will show through differently.
If this is the case, maybe there are two questions regarding voice that we should look at.
Further thoughts —
Much of my writing is technical stuff, generally workplace related. This results in a stripped down, matter of fact, rather bare style of work. Technical writers have a voice or style, and some of them are easier to read than others, but most do not let their voice intrude.
My short fiction has a different voice, but people tell me it’s recognisably me. They can ‘almost hear me talking’ while I’m telling the story. People do not say that to me about the technical stuff.
My novel uses the voice of the character (first person narrator), and he’s very different from me in personality and presentation. I do not speak or write in the voice of that character in any other environment. People do not tell me that they can ‘almost hear me talking’ when they read the novel. Rather, they make comments about the character as if he’s a real person in his own right – which, in their own head, he is.
Perhaps it’s this experience that leads me to want to ask Fiona a few more questions about her original query.
However, there is one thing that I’d say to Fiona. The book has to stand on its own merit. It has its own requirements and makes its own demands of the author. Her choice of voice for the character should come from this understanding rather than from how much work it will take to write.
I agree with Kim, I think Fiona is asking a different question. And giving each character a distinct, consistent voice is tricky. I think most of that takes developing depth to the characters and really knowing them, knowing more about them than you’ll ever put on the page.
Randy, on a side note, please elaborate some time on what kills story, so I can stop doing it. 🙂
I fear my current novel is slowing down to funeral procession speed by over-plotting. I have a list of scenes I intended to include, but looking at the entire list, I see a 647 page, slow moving story in the works. I’m about to get really crazy and just toss the list and go SOTP. Don’t dare me, I’m this close to doing it. 🙂
Kim Miller – “However, there is one thing that I’d say to Fiona. The book has to stand on its own merit. It has its own requirements and makes its own demands of the author. Her choice of voice for the character should come from this understanding rather than from how much work it will take to write.”
I think this makes a lot of sense. Whether it’s a character voice or an author voice, each should work within the novel’s demands. The novel is the most important persuasive factor. Yes, as an author you should have a unique voice, but that voice should be slightly different or masked depending on the novel.
I’m sure there are other ways, but like Randy says, your voice will most likely develop when you’ve 1) read enough and 2) experienced enough to find that you are drawn to a particular type of life ideology/perspective that naturally begets a familiar writing style.
RE: Our Authorial voice.
I set up and run an online Peer-to-Peer critique site for Speculative Fiction authors of a certain niche genre. A while back I set up an identity using my pen name as an ordinary user to check out some of the technical glitches we were encountering with the website.
At the time I thought it would be a fun writing challenge to see if I could maintain that identity as a separate person, an evil twin if you will. I even wrote some simulated arguments between us.
Well, it didn’t work. Within less than a month the other authors in the group pegged my pen name persona as being me. The giveaway was my “writing voice”, they said we were too much alike in our voice to be two separate people.
My comment on “the same old thing” touched on my concept of what our “writing voice” is. In the realm of preaching there is a true aphorism, “a preached Gospel message is not the study of a few days or a week, it is the outflow of your life and character.”
I’ve been a bi-vocational gospel minister for 30 years. In my secular career I became a trainer and teacher of various business disciplines. I have a lot more experience preaching, writing curricula, writing technical reports and training/teaching/presenting in industrial settings than I do writing fiction.
In each of those disciplines those who knew me told me that they could identify something that I had written just by reading or hearing it. My authorial voice was distinctive.
In a sense I don’t think it’s correct to limit this concept of “voice” to just writing stories and books. It is the way that our personal life experience, our aspirations, our values, and our world outlook flow out of us into whatever we do in life by way of personal or professional expression.
There is a writing voice that goes with our general voice. As Randy mentioned some people call it personal style, but since style is a technical skill in the writing field I think it goes beyond style. It is your spirit, the way you parse the world of experiences and explain them, how you rationalize the reality you live within and how you deal with challenges.
Okay, that’s probably way too philosophical (hey my basic degree is in Philosophy, sorry); suffice it to say after many years of observing behavior and interacting with people industry, church and society I’ve come to believe that “our Voice” authorial or otherwise in an integral part of each one of us.
I think the reason it takes time to develop our own “Authorial Voice” is that until we master the mechanics of writing style we aren’t really expressing ourselves yet. It’s a bit like learning to play a musical instrument, you can’t express yourself in your music until you master the instrument and the type of music you wish to play.
So, Bottom Line: Fiona, don’t worry about your “Authorial Voice”, it’s already in you. You merely have to master the writers trade well enough that you can let it out when you write. That will probably be when you can just sit down and write easily without having to struggle with grammar, style and structure. Then Fiona will be speaking in your prose, and your voice will be heard.
I tend to agree with Kim. I also read Fiona’s comment about “voice” to be her main protagonist POV. In general, the author’s voice and a character’s voice are two different things. I would go so far as to say they are even two different concepts.
An author’s voice is his storytelling style, his way to put words together. Anyone who’s read more than half a dozen fiction novels (from different authors) knows every author his his own style, his own voice.
A character’s voice in a story is something different entirely and I believe has nothing necessarily to do with how the words are written down. First of all, for a character to have a voice, you need to write from their POV, which can be third person POV as well as first person POV. The way this character’s voice then manifests itself is in how this POV makes the reader feel. What does this character do, think, feel, how does she interpret things, react to things. You can tell the reader what this character’s thinking, but more than that, by certain actions, reflections, even observations, you can make the reader get inside this character’s head. Even if you’re not directly quoting her, she’s telling the story and giving it her own voice, on top of the author’s voice.
Now my own voice is telling me I’m not explaining myself properly. Oh, well, time to go silence it with an overdose of monday morning coffee.
Name for Cathy’s book.
QUANTUM SILENCE