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Content corner: How do you find your ‘voice’?
Out of everything I’ve learned about writing to date, nothing helped me more than finding a unique voice. Here’s how I did it:
1) Make a list of everything that colours your character’s perception. That includes things like class and location, as well as hobbies and passions. A kid from Alabama who loves space is going to describe a sunset in a very different way to a colour-blind accountant in Iceland.
2) Try other voices on for size. You can mimic voices of people you know, or strangers. You can even try writing voices from other books or media, to see if any fit with your character.
3) Write in different mediums. When I’m trying to find new voices, I try writing the opening page of the book on a laptop, phone, typewriter and even a good old-fashioned pen and paper. Sometimes, stepping outside our usual writing habits can help us walk in different shoes.
So, how do you find a unique voice? Share your tips below!
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4 Replies
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Great subject, and we enjoyed your talk at the Festival.
I definitely write as I speak, and speak the parts of my characters before I write. I mostly have decided what my characters are like before I write, so speaking their lines as I write enforces the character and also helps me iron out/decide quirks, or faults in my perception of them.
I definitely can’t write on a phone though, or tablet as make way too many mistakes due to old age and arthritis – well that’s my reason and has absolutely nothing to do with the sherry, no matter what Erin may say, 😉
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It’s very easy for the author’s voice to slip in unbidden. One edit run I always do now (and am in the throes right now) is to seek out oft-used words. Sometimes it’s just an overabundance of “that” which is a word I use hideously often and can usually delete, but sometimes one character likes a word or phrase and then another starts using it as well. I have to iron all of that out.
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Once upon a time – back when I used WordPro rather than Word (ah, now that dates me) – I used to apply a style to every character’s lines, then I would do a pass where I made everythign but that one style invisible, so I could read through solely that specific character’s words, to ensure they were consistent.
Word’s styling interface is a bit clunky to achieve that same process, but if I had fewer characters, maybe…
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Here’s a question that stumps me now and again…when is it ok to let voice shine through at the risk of the prose not being as tight/precise as it needs to be?
