Tuesday, May 18, 2010

And my favourite agent-blogger Nathan Bransford spares us a few tips on creating real character voices.


Voice is one of the most difficult writing terms to define and pinpoint. We might know it when we see it, but what's voice made of, really? You hear so often that agents and editors want "new voices" and "compelling voices" and voice voice voice. So what is voice? How do you cultivate it? And how many rhetorical questions do you think can I fit into one post?

Voice, at its most basic level, is the sensibility with which an author writes. It's a perspective, an outlook on the world, a personality and style that is recognizable even out of context. You could drop randomly into a David Sedaris story or an Ernest Hemingway novel and probably guess the author within a few paragraphs because they have strong, unique voices. An author's voice is often imitated (think: Tolkien), but a truly original voice can never be duplicated.

So what makes a good voice? How do you cultivate one?

Among the essential elements:

Style: At its heart, voice is about style. And not just style in the sense of punctuation and how the prose looks on the page (though that can play a role), but style in the sense of a flow, a rhythm, a cadence to the writing, a vocabulary, lexicon, and slang the author is drawing upon. A voice can be wordy (William Faulkner) or it can be spare (Cormac McCarthy). It can be stylish and magical (Jeanette Winterson) or it can be wry and gritty (Elmore Leonard). It can be tied to unique locations (Toni Morrison) or it can be almost wholly invented (Anthony Burgess). But whatever the flavor of the writing, a good voice has a recognizable style.

Personality: A good voice has a personality of its own, even when the novel is written in third person. There's an outlook that is expressed in a voice. It's a unique way of seeing the world and choosing which details to focus on and highlight and a first draft of how the reader will process the reality of the book. Think of how CATCH-22 captured the absurdity of WW-II by boiling down irrational rules and presenting them at face value, or Stephen Colbert's TV character, always seeing things and arguing from an invented perspective. There's a tone to a good voice, whether it's magical (J.K. Rowling) or slightly sinister (Roald Dahl) or hyper-aware (John Green).

Consistency: A good voice is consistent throughout a novel. It may get darker or lighter or funnier or sadder, but it doesn't suddenly shift wildly from whimsical to GRUESOME MURDER. (Unless, of course, the voice is capable of it). A good voice is never lost when the plot shifts.

Moderation: Even the strongest voices don't over-do it. Voices are not made up of repeated verbal tics ("You know," "like," "so I mean," "I was all," etc.) but are much more nuanced than that. They are not transcribed real-life dialogue, they give the impression of a real-life voice while remaining a unique construct.

Transportation: A good voice envelops the reader within the world of a book. It puts us in a certain frame of mind and lets us see the world through someone else's perspective, and provides not just the details of that world but also gives a sense of the character of the world. Basically: see J.K. Rowling.

Authority: From Bryan Russell (aka Ink) (full comment below): "For me, one of the absolutely key elements of voice is authority. With a great voice you know the writer is in control, so in control that the writer vanishes and you see only the story... A great voice carries you through the story, compels you through the story. I think all great voices have that... There's a sureness to a great voice. The words are simply right and the rhythms of the prose are buoyant. You won't sink, not with these voices."

Originality: Above all, a good voice is unique and can't be duplicated. It is also extremely contagious. And this is the hardest thing about starting off a novel: we have thousands of authors' voices swimming around our heads, many of them quite powerful, and they are only too happy to take up residence in our current Work in Progress. But that's okay! Don't sweat it if it doesn't come right away: We all have to find our voice, and one of the best ways to do that is to just write, even if what you're starting with is derivative. You may need to keep writing until you find the voice. Just remember to revise revise revise the opening in said voice once you have it.

Authenticity: And this is the key to finding the voice: your voice is in you. It's not you per se, but it's made up of bits and pieces of you. It may be the expression of your sense of humor or your whimsy or your cynicism or frustration or hopes or honesty, distilled down or dialed up into a voice. We should never make the mistake as readers of equating an author with their voice, but they're wrapped up together in a complicated and real way. We leave fingerprints all over our work. That part of you in your work is what makes it something that no one else can duplicate.



Thanks, Nathan!
Author/Editor Erica Orloff (I am dying to read her Magic-Keepers series, but I can't find them anywhere in Singapore!) has some writing tips and experience to share.


1. Write a million words.

2. Write a hundred short stories and master that, but don't be afraid of the novel. There are some writing lessons you just have to learn by writing one, including pacing.

3. Don't think about publishing. Wait until you've done 1 and then 2, THEN worry about it.

4. You are going to waste a few years when you had NO kids and all the time in the world . . . why weren't you writing so much then when you didn't have so many pressures? Kid, partying in Manhattan is fun, but you know . . . write a little more.

5. Despite what I am telling you in #3, learn what you can about the industry.

6. All this crap you're going through and are going to go through? You'll end up using it for your novels.

7. That crappy romance you tried to write and quit on page 81? It was because you never really had your heart into writing it. Only write what you are passionate about.

10. Never, ever, ever feel guilty for indulging this writing bug you have. Someday you really will earn a living at it. Guilt is a wasted emotion.


Thanks, Erica!
7pm, 18 May 2010: I am done with the first draft of Red December Skies! Word count: 71, 700.

That totals the writing period to about six months, since I started it around November. I remember hiding in a stairwell, writing it while waiting for my Philosophy exam to start. (Hey, it was Philosophy - and it was an open-book exam.) I banged out the last hundred pages this past week, straight after my exam (so that's an average of ten pages per day, approx). Writing seriously demands discipline. You can't edit a blank page, after all, as Jodi Picoult says. So the three-hour-a-day concentrated writing sessions really helped a lot.

And now it's done!

Well, of course, this is only the first draft, and I've got LOADS to edit. I just hope it doesn't seem too fragmented or draggy. This is my first attempt at alternating between two voices in the first person point-of-view. I felt weirded out writing from Jerry's POV initially, because first off, I don't know how to think from a guy's point of view. Guys are an alien species to me, as far as I'm concerned. So all I did was try to tone down on the imagery and insert more action, less talk, in my prose for Jerry. Another problem is that because I'm writing in Jerry's POV, I have to, like, be in love with Ethel. It's weird to be gushing over a girl (not that I made Jerry gush - still, it's weird), or at least noticing things about a girl that I expect guys to. Writing from Jerry's POV has made me consider things about him that I didn't know I had to know, and I love how that pushes me to dig deeper into my characters.

Next up: Lambs for Dinner. I'm addicted to writing in alternating POVs. I never knew it was that much fun to delve into both the heads of my main characters!

Done with the brief update. Now I'm off to do some intimate character sketches (get your minds out of the gutter). Later!