Welcome back to our discussion about the writer’s voice! If you’ve worked through the exercises in Oh, Those Voice (Part 1), you should have some idea about the nature of your raw voice. That is your starting point. As writers we need to be able to shape our voice each time we write. And for each thing we write it may be a differently shaped voice. Still yours, but molded to fit what you are writing. And, hopefully, a voice with a personality that readers are drawn to.
So often our stories, novels, plays, are rejected because editors say they can’t connect to the voice. Or even, that it’s non-existent. How do you create a voice that’s out there, and pulsing with life? You need to infuse that voice with three things: attitude, authenticity, and authority.
Attitude
When we look at a photograph of a person, often what interests us is the attitude of the subject. Is he/she crafty looking? Wise? Full of joy? Seemingly filled with inner peace? Attitude is one of the first things that strikes us. The voice in your writing should be up-front and filled with attitude as well.
This harkens back to a point I made in part 1 of this study of voice: Who is telling the story and how close that person/object/animal/abstraction is to the action is one of the most important decisions you’ll make about voice—even if the storyteller never appears in the story. Your attitude toward what you are writing is filtered through your choice of narrator. Attitude reveals how you feel about your characters, your plot, or the points you are making in a work of non-fiction. Let that attitude show! It’s attractive to readers. But, be forewarned, if you dislike your characters that will show as well and can be off-putting. Love even your villains. (Or, at least, admire them.)
Here’s a short excerpt from Sandra Cisneros’ book, The House on Mango Street, that is filled with all kinds of attitude (anger, disgust, weariness):
Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.
But we aren’t afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the Baby’s brother and the tall one is …
Authenticity
Authenticity is attractive to readers. We feel you are playing fair with us when you are honest about your attitude to the work and you write honestly about emotions. In other words, how willing you are, as a writer, to expose raw feelings—and your own attitude to your characters. When you’re willing to write close to the bone, we can identify with your characters—even the unreliable narrator or the antagonist. And if all shifts in the emotional journeys of your characters are underscored by some action that created that change/growth, the reader begins to trust the author.
Here’s a snippet full of emotion from The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. In it we can clearly see that, although Death is the narrator during this WWII novel, the author has an underlying care, even love, for his beleaguered narrator:
The question is, what color will everything be at that moment when I come for you? I do, however, try to enjoy every color I see—the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. It takes the edge off the stress. It helps me relax.
[…] (From Death’s diary) It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, goddamn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a vacation.
Authority
When you have firm control of your subject, characters, emotions, readers sense that. We, as readers, know we are safe in your hands. It is then easy to settle into the world of the story. This authority comes from how unhesitant you are about where you’re headed with the plot, or points you are making if writing non-fiction. It means picking a direction/voice and sticking with it. It means having a narrator (even an invisible one) that is invested in the story/work.
Here’s a bit from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens that has a real authoritative sensibility:
Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and more unacceptable than dirt itself.
Authority doesn’t always mean opinionated and punchy as in the Dickens quote. It can be long and leisurely as in this excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. In it, we sense that the storyteller is getting comfy in his story and there’s authority in that we trust these are “real” memories he is bringing forth:
In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.
The Best Voices
The clearest voices ring out with attitude, authenticity, and authority. Below is an example of a powerful voice that has a straight-up I’m gonna give it to you attitude, authentic feelings of anger, disgust, tiredness, deep sadness, and a feeling of authority that says I know what I’m talking about. It’s from The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas:
Funny. Slave masters thought they were making a difference in black people’s lives too. Saving them from their “wild African ways.” Same shit, different century. I wish people like them would stop thinking that people like me need saving.
Recommended reading:
- Finding Your Writer’s Voice, by Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall
- Writing Voice from the Editors of Writer’s Digest
- The Art of Voice by Tony Hoagland
- Free handout on voice
Lee Gramling
All valid advice, and useful. But the FIRST thing I had to learn when I started writing fiction — after perhaps a million words of academic writing during 8 years of college — was to FORGET ALL OF THAT!
It’s important to keep in mind that we’re all STORYTELLERS — just like the bards of ancient Ireland. Write as if you’re sitting in someone’s living room and telling them — orally — something they ought to find interesting.