Hi Writer.
Welcome back to another episode of the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host Stacy. And this is episode number 11. Today is a solo show and we are going to talk craft. Today, we're going to dig into one of the mower ambiguous terms in the writing industry. And, uh, there's a lot of ambiguous terms. But this one in particular can give writers a lot of trouble.
And this ambiguous craft topic, is that a voice?
What is voice? Whose voice are we talking about? What is this thing? So I'm sure you've heard statements float around the literary world that say things like. Um, “the writing wasn't voicey enough for me,” “I'm looking for a fresh voice in the genre”, or “I just don't understand the voice of the piece.” And those statements often come from agents and editors. Uh, sometimes other writers or critique partners, or maybe a beta reader. And it can be really frustrating. If you don't know what voice is.
I know when I started writing fiction, I was like, whose voice are we talking about here? Are we talking about my character's voice? We talking about my voice or my narrator's voice. I was like, whoa, who is this? And how do I fix a problem when I don't really have a good understanding of what this thing is?
So it turns out. When we're talking about voice, we're actually talking about. All three of those things. We're talking about, the author's voice, the character's voice, the narrator's voice. And we're talking about them all at once. And where it gets really confusing is that everything stems from the author's voice.
In today's podcast, we'll discuss the three layers of voice: author, narrator, and character. We'll break them down so that you can learn how to lean into yours and know what you don't need to worry about.
So first let's talk about the author's voice.
What is the author's voice? Okay.
Here's my dry definition. The author's voice is their unique attitude, personality, and worldview. It's forged from their lived experience and conveyed by their writing style, which is part natural inclination and part study.
So, in short. Your voice. Is not something that you find outside of yourself. It's you. It's your interests, your tastes, the questions you have about the world, and how you choose to explore them with your words. In my opinion, voice. Isn't something you actually discover. It's something you uncover through writing.
Semantics, maybe. But when we're just beginning to learn the craft, most of us. Are trying really hard to write something good. And we're usually trying too hard. So at this stage, we can do all sorts of funny stuff. We can write it fluffy. We purple our pros. Maybe we run away with metaphors and similes. That's what I like to do. I mean, the point is, is that we get real busy trying to make our writing sound like writing. Instead of just telling the story, like it is how we'd naturally tell it to a buddy. Now, if you're a new writer and, you're guilty of doing these things, Please. This is not your fault. Don't worry. It's, it's just part of the evolution of becoming a writer and learning the craft.
I'm going to give you an example. That's what I mean by trying too hard. And this is a line from one of my first novels that went into a drawer. I was trying really hard to make the writing good by using a super smart simile to express my character’s conflicting thoughts. So here it is. “ Her thoughts, unschooled like a ribbon, then twisted and wound back on themselves”
Okay. Fine, but here's the problem. I don't speak like that. I don't think like that. And neither did my angsty 17-year-old protagonist, who happened to be born in the 21st century. I was trying to be a writer instead of just writing. But I really didn't know how to do that yet. It took me time to learn, to trust my voice and what I liked by writing and reading. What I enjoy and learning how to use my narrator.
Now today. I know that my preferences are short, punchy phrases, sentence fragments, deep points of view, and characters who are super snarky and are never going to really tell you what they're thinking. And they definitely would not compare their thoughts to the un-schooling of a ribbon. But at the time, you know, I thought it sounded pretty good.
Today, I'd say something like she couldn't think straight or her thoughts were as scrambled as the eggs she had for breakfast. Now, listen, I hold no shame around my first attempts and I hope you don't either. That was just me learning the ropes and learning myself as a writer, and I'm still learning.
So, I urge you to give yourself the same grace.
So here's how to think about these different layers of voice. We said that everything stems from the author's voice, right? The voice of the narrator and the voice of the character all come from the author's voice. It's all connected. So imagine yourself on a patio, surrounded by a bunch of lovely potted plants. The author's voice is like the dirt inside the pots.
It's a mix of all kinds of organic material. It's completely unique. The dirt here is not going to be like your neighbor's dirt. So in one pot, maybe you have a Fern, and in another, you've got some petunias and maybe in another, you got a vine. Those are your stories. And the stocks and the leaves and the shoots and the flowers.
Those all represent your fictional choices—your narrator, your character, your plot, your conflict, and so on. But it all starts with the dirt. Without the dirt, you have nothing.
So here is my advice. Uh, When it comes to. Your voice. Don't worry about finding your author's voice instead, get busy, uncovering it by using it frequently. What do I mean by that?
Write. Write.
Write a lot. Write about the things that interest you, that you're curious about. Read a lot, read what you enjoy and what you're curious about and learn the craft so that it reads well, but it still reads like you
I love this statement from Donald Masa's book, Writing the Breakthrough Novel. This is what he has to say about voice.
He says my own feelings is that voice is a natural attribute. You can no more control it, then you can the color of your eyes, nor would you want to, to set your voice free, set your words free. Set your characters free most important set your heart free. It is from the unknown shadows of your subconscious that your stories will find their drive and from which they will draw their meaning. No one can loan you that or teach you that your voice is yourself in the story. And I just think that's beautiful. Okay, so now let's talk about the narrator's voice.
So when you come to a story, you are going to have to decide who's going to narrate this tale who is going to handle the action, the context, thoughts, and descriptions that are all woven between the character's dialogue. And if you're not familiar with the terms point of view or a narrative viewpoint. Uh, don't worry. Right. There's no shame in not knowing there's no shame in the not knowing yet game.
Nobody rolls out of the womb, just knowing how to be a writer and, and having, you know, this arsenal of knowledge to work with it. Doesn't, that's, that's not how this goes. So if you're not sure what point of view is don't worry, just think. That point of view. Is the narrative perspective through which your story is told.
Think of it as the lens through which your reader experiences the story. I have a blog post on point of view, and I will link to that in the show notes if you want more information. So, okay. Your narrator can be a character, using a first-person or third-person close point of view.
It might be an omniscient all-knowing or non-obtrusive entity, or you might want your character to be noticeable, meaning it has opinions and attitudes. So think of like lemony Snicket or the unnamed omniscient narrator that opens up the Harry Potter series.
And today's genre fiction. Most of the time, the narrators are viewpoint characters. And they're either in first or third person. And for them, you are going to need to find a way to access their character voice, which we're going to talk about in a second. So, when you're considering your narrator here's what I want you to think about. Decide early, who is going to narrate your story. and from what point of view?
If that point of view is in the third person, you want to decide on their level of objectivity. Will they know everything about everyone in the story and about all the situations? Within the story. Meaning it's an omniscient point of view narrator, or would they be limited to only one character?
Will they have access to character, thoughts, and feelings? How much do they know about the story in general? Like, are they standing at the end of the story and relaying it back to the reader, or are they along for the ride watching the story unfold as the characters experience it? When you read books that you love, ask yourself those questions, pick apart with those narrators know and how they present.
See if you can narrow in on how the narrator anchors into the point of view, and character's personality, to see everything through their particular lens. When you find a distinct narrator, ask, what is it that makes them that way? What do you notice? Do you notice their attitude?
Could you describe it?
Here's a couple of things that you don't want to do with your narrator. You don't want to break the fictional dream by author splaining. So what is that? Well, a story needs to be an immersive experience and, you know, there's nothing worse than getting in a comfy reading groove. And then suddenly, you're pulled out of the fictional world because the author stopped to drop an explanation bomb.
We call this author intrusion or "authorsplaining." So, this is where the author is injecting information into the story they believe the reader needs to know, and they're forgetting to apply the viewpoint character’s lens. Sometimes it looks like stuffing dialogue with, you know, what characters already know, but the reader doesn't. And the result is pretty forest. It's usually pretty clunky. I'll give you a really bad example. So, for example, your character might say, “Hey, Dad, remember back when you and Mom kissed in front of all my friends that first day in middle school? How embarrassed I was. And, you know, I'm still scarred by it. Like 15 years later. That's probably the reason why I'm having trouble with my girlfriend.”
Pretty clunky, right? Author intrusion can also happen when an author steps outside the point of view character's experience to explain something that the character wouldn't know or feel.
So, for example, Imagine my point of view character is, is a woman. Who is visiting a ranch that knows nothing about cows or horses or anything like that? So. If, as the narrator, I choose to describe this character's point of view. How sparse the hay crop looks or that there's a bunch of Herford cattle out in the feed lot, or there's a buckskin horse in the pasture.
I am stepping outside my character's wheelhouse of knowledge and experience. As a person who comes from that background, I'm inserting my lived experience into the story. I'm intruding. We don't want to do that.
So, the solution here is to stay true to your character’s lived experience. Filter that lived experience through your narrator. And then you'll stay true to the voice in the story.
The other thing to be mindful of is shifting narrative distance. Shifting the distance between the reader and the narrator is something you want to watch out for when you are in revision. So, if you're telling a tale in a very deep point of view with a narrator who is essentially the character, you want to stay there, stay close, and stay tight.
Don't lock the reader outside the character's head or heart if they've had previous access. Doing so will frustrate your reader and break the fictional dream.
Now, there are always exceptions. There are definitely times when you can intentionally use author intrusion, and there are pieces of fiction out there that do it wonderfully.
And it's fantastic.
There are times when you can shift the point of view around in the narrative distance, but the key here is that you are being intentional about it. You have a good reason for it. So we'll cover those exceptions in a different episode, on a different day.
Look at some examples. But for now, just remember: You need to decide early who is going to narrate this story and what point of view you are going to use.
Okay, so now let's talk about Character Voice.
This is the voice you need to focus on finding in your fiction.
The character's voice is their personality and their attitude presented on the page.
So it's what they think. It's what they say. How they say it or don't. And when.
This, my friend, is your pay dirt, right here because your character's voice is what you want the reader to experience. It can give your pros an auditory quality.
You can hear it when you read it. And it's what makes a work of fiction voicey.
So I'm going to give you an example from one of the voice easiest books. I think I've ever read. And it's from a young adult suspense novel called Sadie by Courtney Summers.
And I probably won't do it a whole lot of justice by reading it to you but highly recommend it as a study on voice.
So I'm gonna read you a passage.I find the car on Craigslist.
It doesn’t matter what kind, I don’t think, but if you need more than that to work with, it’s boxy, midnight black. The kind of color that disappears when it’s next to any other. Backseat big enough to sleep in. It was offered up in a hastily written ad in a sea of hastily written ads, but this one riddled with spelling errors suggested a special kind of desperation. Make an offer, please settled it for me. It means I need money now, which means someone’s in trouble or they’re hungry or they’ve got a chemical kind of itch. It means I’ve got an advantage, so what else can I do but take it?
How do you feel about this first-person narrator? Or they shrewd. Heck. Yeah. Are they calculating?
Do they seem like a person on a mission? For sure. Can you hear their attitude, their judgment? Their grit?
So, a character's voice is steeped in their identity, which comes from their lived experience—the full lives they've led before we meet them on page one. It's a combination of desires and past influences that merge into a predictable pattern of behaviors that the reader can experience. So, I'm going to read you one more passage from the same book.
I’m going to kill a man.
I’m going to steal the light from his eyes. I want to watch it go out. You aren’t supposed to answer violence with more violence but sometimes I think violence is the only answer. It’s no less than he did to Mattie, so it’s no less than he deserves.
I don’t expect it to bring her back. It won’t bring her back.
It’s not about finding peace. There will never be peace.
Dang, right. So Sadie, our point of view character, is a 19-year-old girl who is on the hunt for her younger sister's killer.
And she is determined and she is vengeful and she's grown up rough and I'm not going to spoil it for you, but her desires and lived experience creates a palpable page-turner.
So when you think of your character's voice, I want you to think about their attitude, their upbringing, their persona. And unsurprisingly, your character's voice is going to then inform their interiority, their thoughts and their feelings.
So, think of it this way: A person from Maine who grew up a longshoreman. We'll have a different set of lived experiences and perspectives and someone who grew up wrestling steers in Waco, Texas, then someone who grew up in Manhattan and works in the fashion industry.
So one of my favorite resources to help writers learn how to create character voice comes from James Scott Bell's book: Voice: The Secret Power to Great Writing. Bell suggests five critical questions to ask about your character. Which I think are a great base. So I'm going to present them here, and then I'll add in my thoughts. I would suggest that you consider asking these questions for every major character in your story.
Number one. What is your character's dominant or main impression?
Like for example, you walk up to them on the street and speak to them for a few minutes. What kind of vibe do you get from them? What kind of impression did they make on you? How would you describe it? Belsky Jess. Selecting a few adjectives to describe. How they strike you and then pairing that with a noun that represents who they are in the world of your story.
So for example, Maybe it's a haughty princess or a brow-beaten king or a drunk stable girl, or an anxious middle schooler, or a grieving mother or a stubborn army cadet. You get the picture. Now personally, I like to come up with three adjectives, one or two to describe the external presentation of my character and then one to link to whatever my character's internal struggle is in the story. So, for example, I might say, a drunken, but clever stable girl with a guilt complex.
So, the next question is to think about what your characters look like. Most importantly, how do they think they look? How do they feel about themselves and their appearance?
The third question is, what's their basic background? Like, where did they grow up? How did their caregiver givers treat them? What were the socioeconomic conditions that they grew up in? What was their level of education? What are their hobbies? What are they like, and what do they dislike? What are their general interests?
The next question is what major life-altering events occurred. In their formative years.
Now, Belll's book specifically says to look at age 16, but for me, that's too narrow. I like to consider any significant events and the characters' past that contribute to the worldview that they hold in the stories present. By worldview, I mean who they think they are, what they think about the world, and their relationship to it.
The final question to consider is what they want. What do they desire? What do they yearn for more than anything else in the world, and why do they want it? What is the hole inside of them that they desperately want to fill?
If you can answer those questions about your character, you'll have a really good grasp of the personality and presentation of the character on the page.
But what if you don't know anything about your character's personality or any of that other stuff yet? Well, there's no getting around it. You're going to have to make some decisions, and they may not work initially. But the good news is you can always change things if they don't fit.
So, in general, just try not to worry. Remember that getting to know folks takes time, and that is true of our characters.
So, as you create your character's backstory, be patient with them and with yourself as you write. Your characters will reveal themselves to you over multiple drafts.
So here are the main takeaways.
Remember, your author's voice is inside of you. You don't need to find it, and you cannot lose it. You can only refine it as you lean into your tastes and improve your writing craft.
One of the most critical decisions you'll make is who is going to narrate your story. So make sure you have a good reason for that narrative choice. And test out different viewpoints to see what feels right for the story.
Work on developing your characters and practice expressing their attitude and personality on the page.
Stay true to your characters, and you'll make their voice pop.
When you read, practice identifying the narrator and the main point of view character. Remember, they could be the same. See if you can describe their personalities and how they view themselves in the world around them.
Trust yourself, trust your taste. Right. A lot. Study the craft. And learn to wield point of view, like it's a weapon.
Here are some recommended reading resources that I have found extremely helpful in learning how to craft character voice. The first is Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action on the Page, Stage and Screen by Robert McKee. The second is The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, specifically pages 310 to 319. And Voice: The Secret Power of Great Writing by James Scott Bell.
I will make sure to drop a link to all of those resources into the show notes and list the five or six main questions to think about when crafting your character's personality, attitude, and attributes. So, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, you can reach out to me at Stacy@writeitscared.co. And I will see you next time.