Voice (Part 3): Silence is Golden

Have you ever started reading a novel that just captivated you right from the start, draws you in, only to lose you halfway through the book because you realize you're actually...reading?

When you pick up a pen, pencil, or touch fingers to a keypad to begin laying out your story on paper, it's only too easy to lose ourselves in the world which we are creating. When we are in that 'zone' it's easy to forget everything else and become so focused that we literally become one with our writing. Your characters come to life in ways that surprise even you--every detail pours from your fingertips effortlessly.

Then the unthinkable happens...We confuse our author's voice with our opinions and in the process--obliterate the character's voice. Let's jump right into this with an example. This is an excerpt from my novel Yours for a Day before editing was applied....

Kiley felt dumb sitting on the back of a motorcycle with no idea where they were going. She had her arms wrapped tightly around him. There was only one helmet and she was wearing it, along with a bandanna, which covered her eyes. "I can't see."


Royce had to slow down to be heard. "You don't have to." He was the one driving after all.

“That’s what I’m worried about. Motorcycles are for young people. You’re a thirty four year old man.” When he didn't respond, Kiley knew she'd rubbed him the wrong way, so she changed the subject."Where are we going?"

“You’ll see.”


She sighed, clinging tighter when she felt the bike tilt to the right.

“You’d better be nice to the driver," he told her.


“Or what? You’ll push me off?”


“Maybe.” He sped up suddenly and then laughed because it made her yelp.


Not horrible but not good either. I let my opinions be heard in this by telling what the characters were doing and feeling instead of letting them show it. That is a common mistake. We might be tempted to 'set the stage' for our readers but we need to resist that urge and allow the story to reveal itself through the actions and dialogue of our characters. Make it a part of the story instead of creating a pause to tell what's going on. Nothing will make your readers close your book faster. It makes them realize they're actually reading. We don't want any of that. Now here is that same passage, revised....


“This is so dumb,” Kiley complained loudly. “I can’t see where I’m going behind this stupid blindfold.”



She felt Royce’s chest rumble beneath her arms as she clung to him. "You don't have to,” Royce slowed the motorcycle down to be heard. “I’m the one driving.”


“That’s what I’m worried about. Motorcycles are for young people. You’re a thirty four year old man.” Kiley felt him stiffen beneath her and she suppressed a grin. “Just kidding. But seriously, where are we going?”


“You’ll see.”


Her sigh was lost in a sharp left turn. "Hey! Watch it!" She tightened her grip, feeling a thrill prickle her skin.

“You’d better be nice to the driver.”


“Or what? You’ll push me off?”


He sped up suddenly, laughing when she let out a yelp. "Maybe."


Still not great but that's the wonderful thing about editing--it never ends. :) Well, it should at some point but we all know the feeling.

The author (us) should never be present in our stories. Our characters come to life in our minds for a reason--they want to come to life on paper. They have a story to tell damn it and you should not get in the way of that. Don't confuse your voice with that of your characters. A way to do that is a.) Practicing, as in write! b.) Learn how to show and not tell. It's true that most of our characters portray us in one way or another. We make them act and handle situations in a fashion similar to what we'd do but we have to remember that they are NOT us. It's hard to separate ourselves--our opinions--from that of the narrator (the character) but we have to! Otherwise how will our characters be heard?

So as you glance over your writing, repeat after me:
"I am not my character."
"I will not use my character to echo my opinions/views."
"My characters will have their own voice in telling their story."

Embrace your author's voice. Resist adding your opinions. Show--don't tell.

Write your story and write it well.

Happy Writing!

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero, but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~G. K. Chesterton

Voice (Part 2): A Change in Tone

In Part 1 of this discussion, we talked about finding your 'voice' and how who we are in reality affects the way we write and the tone our stories take on. But what about when something happens in our lives?

It can be simple, like moving or switching jobs/careers to something huge like losing a loved one. We go through things that change us not only on the outside, but on the inside as well. It happens to all of us at one point or another...Such is life. We live, we breathe, and we grow up. Older. Wiser. (sometimes both)

These things change us. Nobody is the same now as when they were younger. If that was true, I'd be desperately in love with Johnathon Taylor Thomas and still believe the moon was made of cheese. The stuff I've gone through has turned me into who I am now and I know that will probably change ten, fifteen years from now. I'll still be me--nobody really changes so drastically that there is no trace of who they started off as--but new experiences will take its toll on your personality.

For example: I used to believe in love at first sight. Oh yes, that Your-Eyes-Meet-Across-A-Crowded-Room-And-You-Know-He/She-Is-The-One type love. Every time one of my girlfriends gushed over how her latest guy was 'the one' I would gush right along with her. And I gushed sincerely. As I grew older, things happened, and I came to realize (ok I was jaded) that hmm...love isn't always that great. Sometimes it sucks. If you were to read the things I wrote throughout my teen years compared to now, you would definitely notice a difference, and it's because of what I went through. Not only did my mindset change, but so did I.

I could list dozens of situations like this that could affect your writing voice.

Loss can play an important role in your life. You lose a loved one, lose your home, lose in love. Those things can change a person. What if you lived a sheltered life? And suddenly you're living on your own with no help from anyone.

Maybe when you first started writing you swore you'd stick with it no matter what--even if you were broke and living off fifty cent boxes of mac and cheese--you were a writer and by God you were going to be published! Then you fell in love and suddenly it's not just you who's eating those cheap dinners or struggling to keep the heat on in that little apartment of yours. So you put your writing on hold to get a 'real' job. Years may pass by before you put pen to paper again and by that time you're ten years older with a small passel of munchkins that look like you. Suddenly, you no longer feel like writing those gory tales you used, or those slightly naughty stories ;) but instead something those little ones can enjoy. (When they learn to read.)

Now, there is also genre jumping. (not sure if it's a coined term but I like it) like the example above. You start writing one genre and then switch to another--that's something a little different. A genre is something you enjoy writing--you're good at it and you want to keep doing it. Your voice is the way you write it. Your voice is the one thing that stays pretty much the same no matter what genre you choose to write. Changes to the tone of your voice is what happens when changes in your life occur.

Let's stray from writing a bit and take music artists. Singers in particular. Let's use....Barry White.

If you haven't heard anything from him--omg!--I suggest YouTube.

Barry White has a very distinct voice. It's not hard to pick his voice out amongst the clutter of music blasting from our stereos because he is known to have that smooth, devilishly deep baritone that melts women's bones. But what if Barry decided to take on the rap culture and bust a few rhymes here and there? Would we still know it was him?

The answer: YES. His voice is distinct, it's known, and it will still be recognizable even if he decided to rap like Mr. 50 cent.

Much like your voice is (should be) recognized no matter what storyline or characters you write. It is not YOU but more like bits and pieces of you that makes the words fall on the page a certain way. An essence of who you are. Think of your voice like a fingerprint--readers should be able to identify you by it.

Now let's take Hinder. While this singer has a voice that is pretty recognizable, I'm not going to talk about whether or not you'd be able to pick him out at a country concert. Instead, take two of this artist's songs: "Lips of an Angel" and "Get Stoned." Yes, yes, his voice is there, but look past that for a moment to the words of the songs and the way he uses his voice in both. Does he scream in "Lips of an Angel"? No. His voice sounds pained, there is longing in it. In "Get Stoned," the artist sounds a little more edgy, louder, even angry. He doesn't change his music genre to folk or polka--he changes the tone of his voice because the story behind the song changes.

Sometimes the tone of your writing voice changes because the story behind it (i.e., your life) changes.

What about you? Has your tone changed at all since you first picked up the pen x-amount of years ago? How has it changed? Or--has both your genre and voice changed? Why?

Untill next time :)

Happy Writing!

Voice (Part I): Finding Your Voice

If someone handed you a book and told you to read without looking at the author's name, would you be able to tell who it was?

I could dump all my books into one big pile, pick one at random for you to read aloud, and I could tell you who wrote it. Why? Well, first of all, they are my books and therefore, from my favorite authors. Most importantly, however, I've learned to tell each of those favorite authors apart by their writing 'voice.'

Take Susan Elizabeth Phillips for example. (One of my all time faves!) Her characters are usually witty, charming, and her stories are always as funny as they are deep. There is not a book I've read from her where the characters aren't stuck in some unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate, situation that calls for humorous banter.

I went to the library the other day and picked a novel at random, flipping through the pages and reading here and there so I could get an idea if I'd like to read it or not. It was one of those three-fer--three lovely romances by three lovely authors. Though, I didn't glance at the names right away. As I read, one of the stories caught my attention in an instant. Yes, I looked at the front cover to see if I was right (which I was!) but honestly, I didn't have to. I knew it was Robyn Carr from the very first paragraph of her short story. Her way of paying attention to even the tiniest details, and love of realistic story settings is unmistakable.

But what is author voice??

Well, I typed in above question (minus the but) in a search engine and guess what I figured out? It seems that there are a LOT of definitions out there and yet it's hard to find one that is 'just right.' Frightening, isn't it? We work so hard to get everything right, down to the punctuation in our query letters, and now we have to figure out what the hell this 'voice' of ours is supposed to sound like so we can get it down as well.

We all have a voice. In fact, if you're a blogger you can probably tell what that voice is just by going back and reading some of your previous posts. Who we are in reality often has a great effect on the way we write and the tone we take in our stories. It's the way we our turn a phrase, the words we choose to say certain things, why we choose them, and our overall style of telling a story.

My voice is often sarcastic--I like to think witty--and full of humor. It doesn't matter what the plot, character, or subject is--if I wrote it, you can be sure to notice it's mine. Yeah, my stories might have some heavy subjects in them sometimes and pretty strong characters, but they will never be filled with elegant details or fluffy makes-me-weak-at-the-knees, heroes. Why? Because I can't escape who I am and being sarcastic, funny, and yeah...sometimes a little snark...is who I am. That's the beauty of author voice--It's already in us! We just need to figure out what it is and own it!

How do you find your voice?

I so wanted to write horror. In fact, one of my very first novel writing attempts was a horror. I know what you're thinking--Oh no!  Ha ha, oh yes.

I started writing something dark and terrifying and bloody. Or so I thought. What ended up happening was a very frightening murderer making sarcastic comments where he should have been serious, inserting funny dialogue when there should have been people screaming, and getting a little nauseated when trying to describe the insides of a human body oozing out on the concrete. I also had the guy (the murderer, keep up) falling in love with his victim and actually trying to change his ways.

So I stopped halfway through and moped about it for weeks until I got over my failure and picked up a pen to write again. This time, I decided to write a romance. Guess what? I practically melted onto the page. Here was a genre where humor and snark were welcome with open arms! I didn't have to work so hard to get the right feel anymore--I was free to unleash my funny bone while doing what I loved.

The problem that comes from not knowing your own voice is that sometimes we try to imitate someone elses.
"I want to write books like..."
"I think my voice is like..."
Be very careful not to let who you want to write like or think that you write like, take over what your true voice is. You are who you are, so be the best at it. Trying to imitate will always leave you looking like second best. You can't change your voice but you can hone it. Keep it from getting out of control, or strengthen it so it shows more. And we do it all by--what?--writing! Write, write, write!

So here is my challenge to you:  Take a moment to think about who you are.
Are you serious or carefree? Do you find humor where most don't or do you lean toward viewing things in a more darker perspective? Are you blunt and honest or more politely reserved? Would you be more prone to follow that mysterious stranger to scream "Boo!" and then run off screaming? Or would it be to stalk him?

How would you describe your author's voice?