# Writers' Voice



## bdcharles (Jul 31, 2017)

I've been thinking alot about voice. What do people think it is, and how do they go about accessing it? For me it seems to be tied up with bypassing one's ego, and trusting one's subconscious to make good use of techniques and raw materials picked up over the years and apply some unfiltered personality to writing. Share your voice hacks here!


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## Smith (Jul 31, 2017)

[video=youtube;SW_Di_eDTj4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW_Di_eDTj4[/video]

Skip the first minute.

The best advice in that whole video is towards the end. Take something you're working on, and swap it with a writing friend who is also in the middle of something. Finish each other's scene, or chapter or whatever. Give it back and see if you can figure out where the words seem a little bit "off". Easy way to detect that you have a voice.

Anyway, I do agree that voice seems to be at its best when it's happening subconsciously. In general it seems like voice is something that is learned naturally. It uses all sorts of material and knowledge that you've gathered over the years, as you said, and manifests itself in _how_ you go about writing something. And just like singing, don't strain your voice. Let it happen.


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## Terry D (Jul 31, 2017)

Your voice is your fingerprint as a writer. It is something you have from the first moment you start writing, but it continues to develop as you use it. Your voice is constructed from every choice you make on the page, the unconscious ones as well as the deliberate ones. It is as unique to you as is your speaking voice. Style can be copied and manipulated, voice cannot. That's not to say your writing voice won't evolve over time just as your speaking voice does, but it will still be unique to you and fundamentally similar to what it always was.


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## bazz cargo (Jul 31, 2017)

Is there a writer's voice? I am always trying to give my characters a voice.


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## Nicholas McConnaughay (Jul 31, 2017)

I try to have a different voice for most of the works I do, oftentimes doing thinks that are central to that character. In other-words, I'd say I have to find the "voice" for each of my books. I just do what I do and see what happens, I don't have any real tricks, I just have fun with it, then, fine-tune it afterward.


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## LeeC (Aug 1, 2017)

bazz cargo said:


> Is there a writer's voice? I am always trying to give my characters a voice.


Even Moby Duck


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## Newman (Aug 1, 2017)

bdcharles said:


> I've been thinking alot about voice. What do people think it is



Premise and theme. Style is different.


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## bdcharles (Aug 1, 2017)

bazz cargo said:


> Is there a writer's voice? I am always trying to give my characters a voice.



I think so. It translates, to me, into the voice you would like to hear read it out in an audiobook. Of course characters would have their own unique voices too. 



Newman said:


> Premise and theme. Style is different.



Mmm I'm not sure I agree, because you could have a similar premise - events in the story; the plot - as another writer, presented differently. To me, the voice is the presentation rather than the content, though it's even more subtle; the personality of it. I'm interested in how to get into a mindset of being able to "write with personality" (if that makes sense).


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## Terry D (Aug 1, 2017)

bazz cargo said:


> Is there a writer's voice? I am always trying to give my characters a voice.



Your character's voice is completely different from your writer's voice. Can you tell the difference between Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway, Assimov, and King? Sure you can. That's because you can recognize each writer's voice. Even if they were all writing about the same thing, they would sound different.



Nicholas McConnaughay said:


> I try to have a different voice for most of the works I do, oftentimes doing thinks that are central to that character. In other-words, I'd say I have to find the "voice" for each of my books. I just do what I do and see what happens, I don't have any real tricks, I just have fun with it, then, fine-tune it afterward.



You might write each work with a different style, but style is not voice. Your voice develops over time.



Newman said:


> Premise and theme. Style is different.



You are right, style is different, but premise and theme have nothing to do with voice. Premise and theme are what you have to say; voice is how you say it.


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## andrewclunn (Aug 1, 2017)

Full on method acting + multiple personality disorder.  Isn't that right Drew?  You said it Andrew.


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## bdcharles (Aug 1, 2017)

andrewclunn said:


> Full on method acting + multiple personality disorder.  Isn't that right Drew?  You said it Andrew.



That's kind of it, isn't it? Inhabiting a character, or some other person's headspace.


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## Terry D (Aug 1, 2017)

bdcharles said:


> That's kind of it, isn't it? Inhabiting a character, or some other person's headspace.



Don't confuse voice with point-of-view. You can crawl into many different character's heads while writing, but that won't change the author's voice. You and I could each write a 250 word story from the POV of a depressed, winged alien standing on Mt Rushmore watching eighty black bears wearing blue dresses dance, and both stories would read differently. Even if we had the same theme, the same premise, the same characters, the stories would be different because our voices are different.


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## JustRob (Aug 1, 2017)

I have no idea what this thread is about. Can someone please give examples to show the distinction between writer's voice, character's voice, POV and style etc., because assertions have been made here but they haven't explained much to me at all.

I just heard my angel mutter "Show, don't tell." That's because I was typing out loud. Maybe that was my writer's voice at work then, or am I being too literal rather than literary?


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## Tettsuo (Aug 1, 2017)

I find writer's voice to be related to what the writer focuses on, and how they present it.

For example, we could all walk into a room we're asked to describe.  When we come out of the room and start giving our description, I'm 100% positive no one would describe the room in exactly the same way.  We wouldn't even describe the same things and/or notice the same things and discuss them at the same time.

All of this feeds into your voice.

There are so many variables to juggle when your writing, and we don't all juggle those variable in the same way.  But, what we do focus on, gives the reader some level of insight into what the writer finds most important all the way to what the writer finds not important at all (and thus ignored).


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## Terry D (Aug 1, 2017)

Tettsuo said:


> I find writer's voice to be related to what the writer focuses on, and how they present it.
> 
> For example, we could all walk into a room we're asked to describe.  When we come out of the room and start giving our description, I'm 100% positive no one would describe the room in exactly the same way.  We wouldn't even describe the same things and/or notice the same things and discuss them at the same time.
> 
> ...



Well said. (Emphasis mine)


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## ppsage (Aug 1, 2017)

I would say that word choice and syntax form the core of what I'd prefer to call the narrative voice. There's more of course but if you're looking for objective standard of comparison this might be a good place to start.


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## JustRob (Aug 1, 2017)

Tettsuo said:


> I find writer's voice to be related to what the writer focuses on, and how they present it ...





Terry D said:


> Well said. (Emphasis mine)



Agreed. That explanation I can understand, but is that all there is to it, the emphasis of the writing? That additional "how they present it" is a bit general as well. I, for example, tend towards incorporating the focal character's thoughts into the narrative, so there is an emphasis there, but that could equally be called my style, couldn't it? Also I am inclined to indulge in wordplay which hopefully doesn't distract too much from the story, but is just a linguistic embellishment. Is that my style or my voice? Certainly I would consider these to be characteristic of my writing. Whether so much not to be reproducible by others, so therefore not simply a style, is another matter. In fact, does a writer have a unique style as such, or are you saying that his voice _may_ conform to a predefined style, one being specific and the other generic? In fact, are we just dealing with semantics here?


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## bdcharles (Aug 1, 2017)

JustRob said:


> Agreed. That explanation I can understand, but is that all there is to it, the emphasis of the writing? That additional "how they present it" is a bit general as well. I, for example, tend towards incorporating the focal character's thoughts into the narrative, so there is an emphasis there, but that could equally be called my style, couldn't it? Also I am inclined to indulge in wordplay which hopefully doesn't distract too much from the story, but is just a linguistic embellishment. Is that my style or my voice? Certainly I would consider these to be characteristic of my writing. Whether so much not to be reproducible by others, so therefore not simply a style, is another matter. In fact, does a writer have a unique style as such, or are you saying that his voice _may_ conform to a predefined style, one being specific and the other generic? In fact, are we just dealing with semantics here?



I suspect, JustRob, that you already write in quite a voicey way, so you don't even think about it, which is great, which is as it should be. A lot of writers don't, though. I am reading American Gods right now and, I dunno, it's okay but it is totally lacking in voice as far as I can tell.


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## bazz cargo (Aug 1, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Your character's voice is completely different from your writer's voice. Can you tell the difference between Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway, Assimov, and King? Sure you can. That's because you can recognize each writer's voice. Even if they were all writing about the same thing, they would sound different.


I suspect you are right. Although I wonder if my narrator characters can assume a different accent on occasion. What happens to well known writers is something becomes successful and the writer sticks to what works. Money talks. By the way, I'm playing De'vil's lawyer. :tongue:


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## Newman (Aug 2, 2017)

JustRob said:


> I have no idea what this thread is about. Can someone please give examples to show the distinction between writer's voice, character's voice, POV and style etc.



The "work's voice" (or "narrative's voice" etc) is the premise/theme, what the work is trying to say.

The "character's voice" is the point of view the character is taking relative to the theme.

The "author's voice" (or "writer's voice" etc) is the consistency of themes and style that the writer is known for. For example, we all have an idea what Woody Allen's voice is. If Woody Allen got the job of writing X-Men 17, that would be "off-voice" and inconsistent.

The best way to write with voice, in my opinion, is to have a clear premise/theme with clear character points of view reflecting those. Consistency and style comes with a body of work.


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## bazz cargo (Aug 2, 2017)

^ ^ Hmmmm....

I wonder how much of the writer's voice is caused by the expectation of the reader? 

Thinking of Douglas Reeman and Alexander Kent.


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## Newman (Aug 6, 2017)

bazz cargo said:


> ^ ^ Hmmmm....
> 
> I wonder how much of the writer's voice is caused by the expectation of the reader?
> 
> Thinking of Douglas Reeman and Alexander Kent.



The audience may find more meaning in work that is already meaningful. Very unlikely they'll find meaning in work that is vacuous to begin with.

We're not doing a good job if we leave it to hope and chance. Our job is to know exactly how to make it meaningful, which is part of the craft.


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## midnightpoet (Aug 6, 2017)

My writing voice is all the things that make me an individual, including where I was born and how I was brought up, including word choices, and often my own prejudices and feelings - including all my experiences, education level, and basically everything that makes me, me. Of course, a talented author can create a voice, but if you think about it most voices come from within.  Hemingway is different from Steinbeck, who is different from Shakespeare, and they are all unique individuals and therefore have unique voices.  I would say don't ever try to fake voice, be yourself and it will come through.


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## Smith (Aug 6, 2017)

Could somebody explain to me how voice is different from style?

I just finished reading "The Elements of Style" and here are some passages from it. (I have taken the liberty of shortening them)


1. "Style is an increment in writing. When we speak of Fitzgerald's style, we don't mean his command of the relative pronoun, we mean the sound his words make on paper. All writers, by the way they use the language, reveal something of their spirits, their habits, their capacities, and their biases. All writing... is the Self escaping into the open. No writer long remains incognito."

2. "With some writers, style not only reveals the spirit of the man but reveals his identity, as surely as would his fingerprints. Here, following, are two brief passages from the works of two American novelists. The subject in each case is languor...

'He did not still feel weak, he was merely luxuriating in that supremely gutful lassitude of convalescence in which time, hurry, doing, did not exist, the accumulating seconds and minutes and hours to which in its well state the body is slave both waking and sleeping, now reversed and time now the lip-server and mendicant to the body's pleasure instead of the body thrall to time's headlong course.'

'Manuel drank his brandy. He felt sleepy himself. It was too hot to go out into the town. Besides there was nothing to do. He wanted to see Zurito. He would go to sleep while he waited.'

Anyone acquainted with Faulkner and Hemingway will have recognized them in these passages and perceived which was which."

3. "Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is an expression of self, and should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style--all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity."

4. "Style takes its final shape more from attitudes of mind than from principles of composition... style _is_ the writer, and therefore what you are, rather than what you know, will at last determine your style. If you write, you must believe--in the truth and worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is patronizing."

I might be mistaken, but reading these passages and comparing them to what people have said here about voice, it sounds like we're giving two different labels to the same thing. As in, gray and grey.


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## haribol (Aug 7, 2017)

Everybody has something to say or share. But all inner voices cannot find their manifestations and they have to remain unexpressed. Only writers are fortunate to give their thoughts an expression. That is the marvel of writing. But writers' voices go recorded implicitly.  As a writer I switch to a variety of vices depending upon the context and character. The writer has to have many voices but somewhere in all there is a string of constancy and homogeneity, generally nontransparent.


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## moderan (Aug 7, 2017)

Style is a tool, the craft of using words. Voice is the degree of authority with which you wield that tool, and the persona reflected in the doing. At least, that's the way I see it, without getting pedantic.


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## Bayview (Aug 7, 2017)

I like the idea of "voice" being the things the writer focuses on, "style" being the way that focus is expressed. I think that's the first time I've had a clear idea of difference between those two terms.


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## bdcharles (Aug 7, 2017)

To me, it seems that style is the kind of method a writer uses; voice is the personality expressed by the words, the bit that gives it the sense that the text is speaking to readers rather than just being read by them. I suppose there is some overlap between voice and style but IMO I would say style is a tool whereas voice is artistry.

No - tool is the wrong word; it gives too much of an impression of craftsmanship. Cratsmanship is a thing, of course, in writing - but I think it may be a mistake to believe voice can be expressed by some formula. Instead it must flow. Style flows too, but it's underlying purpose is structural rather than personal.

Maybe.


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## Kyle R (Aug 7, 2017)

What a great discussion!

I think voice (or at least, one's optimal writing voice) is one of those natural, elusive traits that hates being scrutinized. Like a shadow fleeing the light—the more you try to consciously pin it down and manipulate it, the more you're probably pushing it away.

It's like one of those circular quotes that ancient philosophers loved to spew: "Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness."

Perhaps voice is the absence of striving for voice?

I like the insights from those in this thread who've attempted to nail down the difference between voice and style. I've never actually thought about the two being separate—I've always viewed them as synonyms. Though perhaps they're more like siblings. They're in the same family. Share the same DNA. But one likes rocking out to Metallica and wearing funny hats, while the other shaves their head and swoons gently to Chopin.

I also like bdcharles' mention of ego. It's so easy, as a writer, to give in to moments of flash and flair—those "darlings" that deserve to be killed, as Mr. King would remind us—because usually those passages have been written for the pleasure of the writer, not the reader.

Not that there's anything wrong with writing for one's own pleasure. Sometimes, that's when our best work comes out. But it's almost always in a syrupy, raw sort of form. Something that needs to honed and chiseled, buffed and reshaped. That's where I believe "style" and those other oft-discussed elements of the craft come in—these tools that we consciously use to turn wordplay into _story_.

Voice seems to be those unique, identifying characteristics that still linger in the writing after all that work's been done.


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## bazz cargo (Aug 7, 2017)

The writer's voice and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, hhmmm....

We seem to have reached the 'I know what it looks like but don't ask me to explain,' moment.


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## Smith (Aug 7, 2017)

So voice is predominantly who the author is, style is predominantly what they know and how they use it, and somewhere there's an overlap?


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## Sebald (Aug 7, 2017)

Smith said:


> So voice is predominantly who the author is, style is predominantly what they know and how they use it, and somewhere there's an overlap?


Yeah, that seems to fit with my feelings about it.

The voice is you. You definitely want to be you. But you can't just splurge your you-ness all over the page. Style is how you turn that you into sentences. And paragraphs. A chapter.


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## bdcharles (Aug 7, 2017)

bazz cargo said:


> The writer's voice and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, hhmmm....
> 
> We seem to have reached the 'I know what it looks like but don't ask me to explain,' moment.



Yes, it seems to most wonderfully defy categorisation - the more one looks for it, the more ephemeral it seems. And how great is that? I love the fact that there are things that cannot be explained, but must be experienced.


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## Freethesea (Aug 8, 2017)

What an excellent, thought provoking thread. I gleaned something from nearly every post. And the video in the beginning was great. Thanks for taking the time to share it bazz cargo!


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## Freethesea (Aug 8, 2017)

Wait a second, thanks to 'Smith' for posting the video and thanks to bazz cargo for asking the question. 'Finding your voice' has always been a confusing phrase to me. Way over-used and definitely adulterated.


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## Smith (Aug 8, 2017)

Freethesea said:


> Wait a second, thanks to 'Smith' for posting the video and thanks to bazz cargo for asking the question. 'Finding your voice' has always been a confusing phrase to me. Way over-used and definitely adulterated.



"Finding your voice" is certainly akin to one of those paradoxical, zen double-binds. Like "you _must_ be free".


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## Freethesea (Aug 8, 2017)

Exactly Smith (wow, in my head I just said 'watson'). Thanks for nailing it. In it's purest form it's what the majority of posters have concluded in their words above. And the video you posted gave some great examples of it's true meaning.


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