According to no less an authority than the New York Times, the writer’s voice “is the way his or her personality comes through on the page, via everything from word choice and sentence structure to tone and punctuation.”
In a recent post, Zara Altair adds that genre and subgenre will influence the voice you use to tell the story. “The way you tell a young adult cozy mystery will differ from the way you tell an action-oriented story or a dark noir mystery,” Altair explains. “The story of the YA cozy could be sassy and quick while a hard-boiled detective might use longer sentences, philosophical thought, and stronger language.” The voice makes a promise to the reader about the kind of story they can expect.
But what if you don’t know your voice? Until you have it, voice can be difficult to define and therefore difficult to understand and develop. The good news is that the more you write, the stronger your voice becomes, Altair says. To develop your voice for a specific project, consider the elements that go into one.
Those elements include sentence length, the level and amount of description, POV, the formality of your language, the use of narrative. Consider which fit the type of story you’re writing and which don’t. Focus on developing facility with the elements that are most important.
Another exercise is to write the same scene with different voice techniques. Altair suggests tackling a whole chapter. Write the chapter in first person, then third person. Which feels more natural? Importantly, consider which you can sustain over the course of a novel. Repeat the exercise adding in more style elements. “Through a combination of writing, testing, and evaluating, you’ll arrive at a writer’s voice that suits your story,” Altair says.
