Blogger: Mary Keeley
I had the blissful pleasure of reading two novellas on the drive to visit out-of-state family over the weekend. What else does one do sitting in the passenger seat while husband extraordinaire is at the wheel and listening to a ball game on the radio? Reading these shorter stories back to back brought out a stark contrast that highlighted the importance of an author’s unique voice.
If you’ve been writing for long, you’ve surely heard about the importance of finding your literary voice. Actually identifying it is more accurate because the elements aren’t lost; they’re a part of who you are. That’s the point. The characteristics of your voice are within you and are unique because you are unique. The following characteristics will weave their way into your work as you write and rewrite and write some more:
- Your personality – Have you noticed that you and someone else can view the same landscape and different things grab your attention? Note the people, objects, actions, and things in nature to which your eyes gravitate. Those are natural to you. Use them. If you write nonfiction, use metaphors that are natural to you. Don’t try to write like some other authority in an effort to impress readers. It rarely works and readers will have the impression you are inauthentic and therefore, what you write is untrustworthy.
- Your style – This involves your choice of words, the way you put them together into sentences, sentence construction, and even punctuation. (However, this does not mean you shouldn’t always be increasing your vocabulary and searching for the perfect word.)
- Your point of view – Your point of view will automatically seep into your writing. Let it. It’s natural and authentic to you, but do so within this guideline. Your author POV must match the context and setting of your main character or else you’ll cause a disconnect for readers. It makes the strong case for writing about that which you know and fits your personality.
- Your cadence – Just as your talking voice is recognizable in casual conversation, your literary voice is recognizable by its written rhythm and flow. This is one reason it’s good practice to read your work aloud when you finish your first draft.
Here are 2 tips for developing your unique voice in your work:
- Consistency. Your personality, style, author and main-character points of view, and cadence should be consistent throughout your work, no matter how the scenes shift in your story. Maintain them when you transition to a new point in your nonfiction book.
- Balance. Don’t overdo your author voice to the extent that it’s a greater presence than your main character. A captivating novel has readers engrossed in seeing the unfolding story through the main character’s perspective. Your literary voice will always be present but in the background, enthralling the reader with a view of the world through the main character’s eyes. Nonfiction writers have to watch that they don’t overuse words, terms, or phrases, but instead find more creative ways to express repeated thoughts without confusing the reader.
Back to the two novellas I read over the weekend. The newer author was better at the way she told her story. Her voice brought to life the main characters and a setting that perfectly matched. This goes to show that it doesn’t have to take years to get your author voice down if you put your five senses on alert to identify and then develop your unique characteristics.
What are the unique characteristics of your author voice? Which of them do you need to develop further? There are many published authors on the market already. What is your greatest challenge in establishing your author voice, which is different from theirs? Is there another characteristic that identifies your particular author voice?
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Nicholas Faran
Phew, what a question! Voice is that thing which remains elusive to me. I understand it. I can recognise it in others writing. I was reading C S Lewis to my son last night I picked up on his voice easily. Jonas Jonasson has a very distinctive voice. I could recognise Terry Pratchett’s writing a mile off. Others are less obvious, but I really enjoy the story even so.
My trouble is that I do not easily recognise my own voice. I can’t see it. Is that because it is weak? Probably, but I don’t see what I can do about that, as voice is something that has to come naturally, to force it is to put on a very bad accent (you really don’t want to hear my southern drawl, and my Welsh usually does up Pakistani after only a few words!).
During my last round of edits I began to take out some style and structure which I have read is generally advised to avoid. Very soon I realised that what I was stripping out was part of my voice!
Maybe my voice is just not in vogue at the moment.
p.s. You wanted a little reminder next time I posted that I am actually. Chris 🙂 I have been away, distracted by a job interview (boring engineering stuff I’m afraid). Now I just have to wait.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Chris, I rather doubt you’ve a weak voice. It’s probably just impossible to step back far enough to see one’s own style for what it is, just as one can never have the three-dimensional visual image of oneself that others do.
* I think your comments here are cogent and precise, and your voice has a warmth that makes them stand out. If that’s not in vogue, the world’s gotten its head into an anatomically insupportable position, and needs to excise its own idiocy.
Carol Ashby
*Is engineering ever boring? Don’t think so. The details of how things work always fascinate me.
*Compliance with what so many say are the rules does strip out part of our voice. I think it can strip too much. I’ve spent the last year changing my style to accommodate what’s supposed to sell now, but I’ve backed off from slavishly following the “rules” to develop my new and (I think) improved voice. I think it combines some of the best of what I did with what is now recommended. Books by established authors who write in a style similar to mine are regularly appearing on the market and presumably selling well. Isn’t that a good sign that readers still like it? That seems to me to be a good reason to continue with the voice that I’ve been developing. Maybe you’re in the same place I am.
(I knew you were Chris before you told us. I do like your pen name.)
Mary Keeley
Chris, you’re right to edit out certain style and structure errors, such as overuse of ellipses and dashes, which editors view as either lazy writing or lack of writing craft. Too many run-on sentences, which make the reading laborious, or sentence fragments, which makes the reading choppy. Both are unpleasant experiences for the reader. All writers have to avoid these types of errors. They are not part of an author’s voice.
As you practice writing and writing and writing more, you’ll begin to recognize your personality and point of view, as well as a consistent rhythm showing through, which is uniquely you. Reading your work aloud might help you to recognize your voice. Also, have others read it and tell you what they see as your unique voice. If it matches what you’ve recognized, all you need to do is continue to develop it.
Carol Ashby
Mary, I’m very interested in understanding your comment on overuse of ellipses and dashes. What exactly would you describe as “overuse?”
*Does it depend on whether they are used within direct quotations to indicate fragmented speech versus during time within the author’s head in deep POV where it’s fragmented thought? Sometimes adding a narrative beat can break the flow.
*When not indicating interrupted speech, is a single dash better replaced by a colon for a complementary element? I’ve read instructions to use em-dashes. I’ve also been told semicolons are “no-nos” with some editors. What’s the view of colons?
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
I’d be interested in knowing this, as well. I read a lot of nonfiction, and have found the use of ellipses a bit irritating…when overdone, but have never been troubled by dashes – they seem to engender less of a reading ‘block’.
Mary Keeley
Carol and Andrew, examples of too many ellipses are if there are several on one page or ellipses on every other page of the manuscript. If you are inserting someone’s direct quote, you would of course have to leave in the person’s ellipses exactly as was written.
Regarding a dash vs. colon, it depends on if the context. Colons are more common in formal writing. Dashes, used sparingly, are acceptable in casual, conversational writing, and yes, em dashes are correct for these.
Too many dashes leave the same impression with editors that too many ellipses do.
Carol Ashby
Thanks! I always used colons and never dashes in my technical writing. Is checking for proper use of colons by editors considered a colonoscopy?
Becky McCoy
I’m so glad you wrote about this today! My writer voice includes some use of passive voice. I’ve been told by a published writer that the non-fiction publishers don’t like passive voice at all. Do I need to adjust and remove it or leave it because it’s part of my style?
Carol Ashby
Becky, are you sure it’s always passive voice? I use simple past (ran), past progressive (was running), and past perfect (had run) tenses to accurately convey when and how active things were happening. Some fiction contest judges seem to think the past progressive of a verb is passive voice because of the similar “was (verb)” format. It’s not.
*Reducing passive is good in most cases, but don’t let them make you get rid of your past progressives when that’s what you really mean to use. To write everything in the simple past impoverishes the language, stripping away important distinctions in how/when the action was performed. Dumbing down the verb usage is fine in a children’s book, might be understandable in YA, but I don’t think you should have to do it for adults.
*In my more than 30-year nonfiction writing career, I saw the change from entirely passive required to active allowed and in some cases encouraged, but content, not style, determined if something got published. Using mostly active is probably better today, but why not try both active and passive versions of your sentences and use what reads best, case by case? Personally, I like the variety. Then again, I’m not a publisher making the manuscript purchasing decisions
Becky McCoy
I agree. A mix of active and passive voices make my writing conversational and add to the conversational tone I’m wanting.
*my background is physics and lab reports are written solely on passive voice (“the ball was rolled down the incline” as opposed to “I rolled the ball down the incline”) so it’s a habit I’m not always aware of.
*thanks for the input. I really appreciate it!
Carol Ashby
Hey! Applied Physics Letters was my favorite place to publish! Having to edit and trim to get figures and text to exactly fill the 3-page template was the best training I could possibly have had for writing 200-word back-copy and 1-page synopses of 100K-word novels.
Mary Keeley
Becky, the published writer gave you good general advice. Nonfiction authors need to write authoritatively on topics in which they are educated and experienced. Declarative sentences convey that authority. Passive sentences do not. Too many passive sentences can weaken the author’s sense of authority, and readers may lack trust in the author’s message.
Occasionally, a passive sentence might be used if it conveys a thought better. Memoirs and narrative nonfiction are a little different. Although they’re considered nonfiction, the author is telling them as a story.
Jackie Layton
I think our setting can affect our voice. If I set a story in Kentucky, there are expressions I don’t think are used in other parts of the country. ‘Flatter than a flitter, is one expression.
I struggle with giving my characters different voices so they don’t all sound like me. I’d love to hear suggestions on that. Thanks!
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Jackie, you’re so right! And ‘time’ is a part of that equation.
* A chap named Tony Dudgeon, who flew in the RAF in India and the Near East before and during WW2, wrote an engaging trio of memoirs (The Luck Of The Devil, The War That Never Was, and…I forget the last). He was not only a splendid writer, but he knew how to transfer his personal sense of place to the page in a way that’s accessible to all. The RAF of the Empire was a queer beast, with its own customs and slang (which included Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu). It was a life of calling cards and cobras, goolie-chits and grooming. And Dudgeon, in his almost magical voice, can still bring those days alive.
* (And, you may ask, what is a goolie-chit? It is, or was, a note carried by pilots, a note written in every possible native tongue promising any captor of said pilot a substantial reward if said pilot were returned…um…’intact’. The effectiveness of goolie chits was questionable, considering that they were issued in areas where illiteracy topped 95%.)
Mary Keeley
Jackie, absolutely, the setting affects voice. When the narrative matches the POV character’s voice, the reading is sublime. The elements of your author voice are still there but in the background.
Shirlee Abbott
For years, I wrote newsletters and meeting minutes for physicians. I worked to get each thought across in as few words as possible, in a way that could NOT be misunderstood. Not my personal voice, but it worked..
*My non-fiction author voice is chattier. But my imaginary audience includes people who can’t read at the level they can think–so I avoid long and unfamiliar words. I see it as a conversation with Fred, a low-literacy but eager learner from our congregation who often asks, “what do you mean?” If Fred would stumble over a word, I look for another one. I want to enthrall my readers, without confusing some of them. I try to paint a picture with words by sketching the basic outline and letting them fill it in with their imagination.
*Consistency is a challenge. My MD work style keeps sneaking into my voice. Then I pretend I’m a surgeon and cut it out–hopefully without killing my patient.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Shirlee, you’ve reminded me of a story that was always experienced by someone else’s mate, but is too good to be apocryphal…
* During introductory first aid in boot, a corpsman was explaining the cut-and-suck technique for dealing with a bite from a venomous snake.
– A young Marine asked, “But what if I get bitten on the butt?”
– “Then you’ll know who your friends are, boot.”
* There might be something here in realizing we need help to ‘fix’ a problem in our own voice…we need to be careful whom we ask, for in working on something so personal, we need a friend.
Mary Keeley
Excellent tips, Shirlee.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
You’ve brought up a great point, Mary…your voice is YOU. There’s an old saying in golf, “Groove the swing God gave you.” Arnold Palmer and lee Trevino made the purists blanch, but they did OK in the game.
* There is, I think, one more thing to add…and that is that voice is informed by experience, and it has to grow. Tennyson put it well, in “Ulysses” –
“I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! ”
* My voice is surely my own; I am more comfortable handling weapons than carrying a briefcase, and my people-skills can be frighteningly direct. This carries over, and an attempt to write a main character who is, say, a suburban liberal who on principle drives a Prius would be kind of grotesque.
* But that is not to say that I am unsympathetic to the suburbanite. It is the Grace of the Great to be tolerant of the weak and the wrong.
* The foregoing is not entirely said in jest, because one of the hallmarks of voice is confidence, the comfortable fit of broken-in boots, the rucksack that you’ve carried so far that it’s a part of you, the boonie hat that fits no other head. It may have the arrogance of Hemingway, the quiet authority of Nevil Shute, or the picaresque bonhomie of Michael Malone…and you may wish it were different, in your author’s heart…
* But it’s you, and even if parts of it feel kinda ugly, then wear the ugly with pride!
Jennifer Zarifeh Major
Ahh, author voice. Such a tangible thing to nail down. Like jello. Or ice cream. On a tree.
One thing I learned early (thank you, Ronie Kendig!) was that males do NOT speak to each other like females do. Males do what my husband calls “chirping”. The closer the bond, the worse the chirp.That old adage “he wouldn’t tease you if he didn’t like you”? It’s very true.
Thus, since the MC’s in my first 2 books are men, they’d better sound like it. Otherwise, my author voice is weak.
So, one will tell the other that he stinks, he’s ugly, he’s dim-witted, and a terrible shot. They prank each other and generally act like children. Unless the chips are down, then it’s full on ‘band of brothers’.
They find the humour in the mundane and live life to the fullest. I wonder who does that?
Also, having 3 sons has made writing the younger males in the story rather fun.
Cadence is very important to me because if it’s off, the music in the sentence goes flat and pulls the reader out of the story. I don’t write performance art. Which is probably why I don’t enjoy free verse poetry.
And yes, I may as well admit it, I pick one character and let my snark got to town. Like, on a Harley.
But just ask around, I can behave. I can.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Interesting. Guess I’m atypical, because men didn’t tease me. They just DIDN’T.
* Good point about the male/female conversational style; I try to avoid having two women in conversation, because I can’t reproduce the music.
* For that matter, I can’t do the ‘guy talk’ thing either. Nathaniel Fick (“One Bullet Away”) described two major categories of males; posturers, who would insult one another and thump their chests together, but not do any real harm to one another – I don’t understand that type – and predators, who would take abuse with a smile and then wait for the right moment to quietly neutralize their opponent. Posturing is more common, I should think, and more socially acceptable.
* Susan Howatch wrote from a male voice in five of the six novels in the ‘Starbridge’ series, and in both books from the “‘Wheel of Fortune’ diptych which immediately preceded it. I personally think that was the weakest aspect of her work, because she imbued her male characters with either too much manliness, or too much capacity for self-examination. It didn’t detract from readability, because the characters were vivid and internally consistent. They were simply not fully ‘genderized’. And that was OK.
Jennifer Zarifeh Major
Noooooooo, I don’t see most people teasing you.
Some try.
But it’s be like teasing Spock. Even Kirk couldn’t do it. But nobody could keep up with Spock, could they?
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
It would be an endeavour rooted in illogic.
Mary Keeley
Great points, Jennifer. Who knew all these years that being outnumbered by men in your house would be the training you’d need to write your first books from a male POV. I can almost hear God’s chuckle.
I too struggle to like free verse.
Kristen Joy Wilks
I have 3 sons too! I kept having people who would read my stories ask if my characters were boys…they were not! Had to fix that and yes, I have sense written some stories with male protagonists, just in case that is where I should be going.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
Pursuant to my mention of Susan Howatch’s work, above…I darn near left off the best part!
* It’s how finding God can change one’s voice…Mrs. Howatch became a committed Christian between “Wheel of Fortune” and “Starbridge”, and the change in her voice – for the better – is stunning.
* “Wheel of Fortune” is dark and Gothic, and one leaves its closing page feeling in need of a bath, and sunlight.
* “Starbridge”, while dealing with subjects at least as serious, is uplifting and heartening, and the last page is turned with regret…and the hope that there might someday be more.
* I read ‘Starbridge’ first, and then was excited for find WoF…if I’d tried to read WoF first, well…I probably would have just given up, it was so dark (I kept hoping for the Starbridge Light to come!). And if I’d read it first, I would never have picked up one of Howatch’s books again.
Michael Emmanuel
Voice! An author defines it as: Character background and language filtered through the Author’s heart, and rendered with craft on the Page.
I think Voice is You. How you see the character (POV). How you want the readers to view the story. Your pace at getting information across. My voice shouldn’t be different from my person. I’m a witty person (maybe) and it should reflect in my characters (even if it’s suspense/thriller) however rare that might be…
Not sure my comment should be taken into view. I’m just a year + in writing.
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
I am printing out your comment and taping it to my computer, Michael. You got it exactly right.
Carol Ashby
I really like your definition of voice, Michael.
Mary Keeley
Yup. You addressed all the elements, Michael. You have a good understanding of your unique author voice.
Heidi Gaul
Thanks for a great blog, Mary.
Mary Keeley
You’re welcome, Heidi.