"Voice" is about the author's style of presenting his/her story.

[Ronald T.]

"Voice" is about the author's style of presenting his/her story.

I've noticed that many people on the various forums make the mistake of thinking that "voice" deals with how individual characters speak. I believe that "Authorial Voice" has nothing to do with an issue as small as how each character talks.

Some people say that "Voice" means they should be able to determine who is speaking without name tags. And an author who can do that is gifted, indeed. But that's not a difficult thing to do if one character is from Maine, one is from Alabama, one is from North Dakota, and another is a Valley Girl from southern California. Each of these people will speak with varying regional dialects, different accents, and with particular word selection and sentence-structures. All the writer has to do is "know the dialect". But how is that achieved if the all the characters are from the same place, and have lived there their entire life? This becomes problematic without name tags. In this case, individual distinctions can only be determined by what is being said. But then, that's an issue of "character', not "voice".

When agents and publishers talk about "Voice', I think they are referring to an "author's voice", not about how individual characters speak.

"Voice" refers to the distinctive way a particular author presents the story. And yes! It can include how certain characters speak. But it's a much larger issue that incorporates all aspects of what writers put into their stories. Voice refers to the idiosyncratic way an author handles their individual choice of words, their way of presenting dialog, narrative, scene, and every other element that makes a good story.

At least, that's my individual perspective on the issue of "Voice".

As always, I could be wrong...I was, once.

So, what do all of you think the agents are referring to when they say that a distinctive "voice" is an important reason they choose an author?

My best to you all,

--Ron--AKA...The hermit in the woods.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Nicely put. One can certainly tell the "voice" of, say, Hemingway from Faulkner. Without this distinctive voice, there is nothing to make the author stand out. This might be OK for certain types of ordinary popular fiction (the reason why pulp publishers had house names, and why so many potboilers are credited to BIG NAME BEST-SELLING AUTHOR [with unknown writer who actually did the writing from BNBA's outline]), but there must be some kind of voice for writing which will live beyond the moment it is read.

I would imagine that an agent needs to see something different in a work of fiction (unless the agent is so cynical that only a blatant rip-off of something else is desired) to make it stand out from the huge number of works being offered.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Some authors have a more definite & consistent voice, which adds to the immersion I think?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Voice is how you tell the story. The author's voice is how that writer naturally tells a story - but most writers I think go through a long phase of trying to interrupt that natural narrative to provide unnaturally extraneous details, background information, and other unnecessary experience. I can only speak from my own experience.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

It's just you, the writer. It comes with time and confidence and can't be forced.

 

[tinkerdan]

There really is such a thing as narrative voice; which can be the author's writing voice, but is not limited to that.
It shows up best in first person writing where the voice is more often the voice of the character and does not have to reflect the voice of the author; though I'd admit that separating the two is not simple.

It's also possible to do the same with close third; and the voice of an omniscient narrator doesn't have to be the authors, in fact, if it's objective omniscient it might work better when it strays from the author's voice.

Still in all of those there is the possibility of the author's voice coming through.

The point is that the narrative voice is not necessarily that voice that author's often strive to find in their own writer's voice.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Agree with the others that voice generally means the author's voice. But it goes way beyond simply how the author tells a story. It is shown in the stories they want to tell, in the characters and plots they create.

Consider for just one example Dean R Koontz. I love him as an author. But one thing that would tell me I'm in a DRK novel immediately would be his heroes. Are they quiet, typically "average" people who just happen to have amazing abilities to make extraordinary amounts of money or be otherwise uber successful etc? Who are naturally moral? Who are naturally super intelligent like everyone else? If so it's a DRK book! Not complaining. I love his work. Just pointing it out. In one - and I always loved this because it was so out there - he had a former drug dealer who'd turned his life completely around and was buying exquisite furniture because he had taste of course, making a success of his life, and giving back to all his victims and others who had made mistakes in his life. And I thought to myself as I suffered yet another bout of feelings of inadequacy while reading his work, even "average American drug dealers" are so much brighter, more capable and more moral than me!!! (As for their prowess in bed - lord don't even get me started!)

As for Agatha Christie would I be reading a plot absolutely filled with red herrings? Would all the characters have secrets? Do things which looked highly suspicious? Yes? Well guess who I'm likely reading then!

How about Stephen Donaldson. Would I find absolute pages loaded with description of the scenery? Convoluted long sentences /passages describing aesthetics? And characters all with their little pieces of darkness in them? (or giant screaming faults in some cases!) Yes? Well then guess who wrote it!

Voice covers every aspect of a writer's work in my view.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[LittleStar]

Hi,

Voice covers every aspect of a writer's work in my view.

I agree with your points, all of those things are what I think of, and try to identify in my own work, as writer's voice. But just to keep the conversation going, surely there is more too it than this suggests... It can't be that simple or at least that simplified.
If Christie's voice, her way of telling a story, was simply red herrings and secrets, then I'm sure there would be a hundred Agatha Christies out there.

Does it go as deep as sentence structure and word choice, or focussed description on flowers or gardens rather than cars etc. For me, as someone who for the most part tries to write POV that deep, these things come across as character voice instead, muddying the line.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm not sure that the themes we write about, or our storytelling methodology, are the same as our voice. We can have preferred approaches to telling a story and things we like to use - like characters with flaws - but that's not the same as the way we tell them. And the way we tell them is our voice, I think.

 

[Ronald T.]

Thank you all so much for your input.

Subjects such as these are chances for each of us to do more investigation of an issue -- to increase our education on various topics. If it stimulates our interest sufficiently, it makes us willing to do the research work required in acquiring additional knowledge. So many of your threads have done exactly that for me. And I thank you.

As always, I wish you all the very best,

--The hermit in the woods--

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Voice is the author's personality but I wouldn't suggest a character's voice is small. Every character's voice is a big issue and contributes to the story.

 

[Juliana]

And the way we tell them is our voice, I think.

This. For instance, I have a writing buddy (non-Chronner) who has such a strong voice that I can pick up a segment of any novel of hers and immediately identify it as hers. That's how unique it is.

Also, whenever I mention this to her she has no idea what I'm going on about. I think it's easier to identify 'voice' in other people's work than in our own.

 

[James118]

Oh, I totally agree. 'Voice' is your way of conveying a narrative. It can be your writing tone across all genres and styles, or each story or even chapter could have its own voice (though individually-voiced chapters would probably be a stylistic mess).

 

[Ray McCarthy]

though individually-voiced chapters would probably be a stylistic mess

I think in the Silmarillion, Tolkien attempts different Archaic voices, like you get in the Bible (Luke & Acts are obviously the same. John is quite different from the other four gospels and Paul's writing have a distinct flavour with style quite like 1st C. Educated Jewish religious writers). Of course the Bible is a collection of 66 books. I think Tolkien was trying to mimic this with Silmarilion in the diverse archaic styles.

Style isn't the same as voice though, Hobbit and LOTR are different styles but similar voice.

 

[aThenian]

Agree that voice is to do with feel of the narrative overall, although if the story is first person, then that "voice" is going to be associated with that character - e.g. To Kill A Mockingbird, there's no authorial voice that isn't Scout, although the narrative voice is probably a more adult Scout than the dialogue of the child Scout in the story.

I don't think that a great or bestselling book has to have a distinctive voice, though. I don't think the Harry Potter books have a distinctive voice, for example. What they do have is amazing plotting/storytelling.