Voice by Nancy L. Eady

Remember how I told you a while ago that I would be writing a short story from a golden retriever’s point of view? Alas, that will not happen. I can’t figure out how to explain that the golden retriever can converse with the cat and the parrot without the three making an ungodly amount of noise that would cause any normal pet owner to kick them out of the house. Nor can I decide how smart (or snarky) the animals will be. And if the animals understand each other, how realistic would it be for them also to understand humans when they are speaking? I’ve had several dogs over the years, and while I know each of them understood some things, each dog’s intelligence was different. Some were limited to words like “out”, “go”, “food” and “sit,” while there were others you could converse with. And how much would a cat or a parrot understand? 

A golden retriever wouldn’t be snarky? Would she? Most goldens I know of are simply dying to be told what good dogs they are. Unless chewing is involved – then they don’t care whether they’re good dogs or not. And potato chips. I’ve never yet known a dog that didn’t lose his or her mind over potato chips. Our first dog was a labrador retriever/cocker spaniel mix. She had snarky down pat. She used to gaze lovingly at my husband when he was eating a snack and looking at her. As soon as he looked away, her face would turn grumpy and you could hear her thinking, “Yeah, yeah, big man with the opposable thumb holding out on the little doggie.” You also would see her switch immediately back to “I love you!” as soon as he looked back at her. But, as I said, she was not a golden retriever.

Now a cat, I can see being snarky. Never having owned one, I am not comfortable even imagining the story from the cat’s point of view. African grey parrots, I understand, may come with a sense of humor, but I know less about them than I do about cats. 

So, alas, my story is now being told not from the point of view of the animals, but rather from the owner’s. At least the animals are still part of the story. Life without a pet or pets would be rather sad.  

What is the most complicated “voice” you have tried to use while writing?

Some Thoughts on Voice in Fiction

As you read this, I’m driving home from two conferences in Alabama—Murder in the Magic City and Murder on the Menu. I’m writing this post before I leave for them, for obvious reasons. While I’m getting ready to leave, I’m also thinking about one of the panels I’ll be on, “Murder: How Do You Give It Voice,” and about the whole problem of voice in fiction.

I often find confusion surrounding the issue of voice in fiction. It may be mixed up with point of view and with the voice of one or more characters. Narrative voice in fiction is what allows us to identify a writer’s work, even if one book or part of a book is told in one character’s first-person viewpoint and another book or part is told in a different character’s first-person viewpoint. The two character voices will be different from each other, but the writer’s voice will be apparent throughout.  The writer’s voice, the narrative voice, is comprised of the author’s values, control over the material, narrative structure and strategies, attitude toward characters, tone, and the distinctive way the author employs language. This last item is also called style, and I place it last because I’ve seen so many new authors struggle to “develop a style.” The truth about style is that it’s usually and at best unconscious, a result of all those other choices a writer makes.

I’ve written fiction in first-person and in third-person viewpoints. My first-person viewpoint characters have ranged from a child in a troubled family to an elderly middle-class African American man who loves to garden to a young hillbilly seamstress who’s a battered wife during World War II to the strong female Cherokee campus police chief protagonist, Skeet Bannion, in my mystery series. Each of these characters has had a different voice, a different way of seeing, talking to others, and telling the story, but any perceptive person reading them all would realize they were written by the same person.

A writer’s narrative voice involves her obsessions, the topics of interest that she returns to again and again to explore. A writer’s voice involves where he stands on various issues, even if his characters disagree. If a writer is innovative and reckless or careful and controlled with the material she’s working with and the narrative strategies she chooses to employ, her voice will vary accordingly. A writer’s tone and attitude to his characters play heavily into the way in which he manipulates the language he uses and heavily influence his voice.

I know of writers who decide to imitate the work of authors they admire, trying to attain their style, but style is as individual as a fingerprint, and all they end up doing is failing at being the admired author while they also fail at being the writer only they could be. A failure on both counts and doubly sad.

The best way to develop your own unique voice, the one only you can offer the world, is to read a lot and write a lot, always trying to get better at the craft of writing, learning new techniques and trying them out to see if they are a fit for you or not. The more you write, actively trying to improve at the craft all the time, the more you will find yourself settling into your own way of doing things and thus developing your own individual voice, that one thing that, in the final analysis, is all we writers really have to give to the world, our own unique vision.

Are there writers whose narrative voices you really admire and enjoy even as their character voices are different? I think of Margaret Maron, whose Sigrid Harald books are so different from her Deborah Knott books, and yet I think no one could ever think anyone but Margaret Maron had written either of those series of books.

What the #&%! is Voice?

Earlier this year I was asked to give a small speech at a friend’s birthday party. Unfortunately, I had a sore throat made worse by the dry air and high altitude of Denver. As I began speaking, my voice cracked and squawked like an angry Macaw stuck in a cage. Amplified by the mic, audible screeches rolled over the audience in waves, assaulting the ears of ninety people. Was that really my voice? Needless to say, I cut my talk short and slunk back to my seat.  

This incident made me consider my writing voice. What exactly is “voice”? Do I have one and if not, how do I find it? When I returned home from my trip I read books and blogs and more books trying to make sense of this concept. While I have learned some things, honestly, I’m still confused.

What I do understand is that voice is a writer’s signature. In order to put our personality on the page, it’s important not to emulate other writers. There are several ways to do this such as making sure the language we use is our own. Also, banishing the inner critic and avoiding a safe (beige) voice can help bring out our unique way of viewing the world. Some authors even caution against reading while writing because another writer’s style can creep into ours.

But what is the difference between voice and style? This is where it begins to get hazy for me and apparently for other people. One author wrote that, “Voice is part of style” and another just the opposite, “Style is part of voice.” Yet a third, “Voice is style, but not only style.” And my favorite, “I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.”

Befuddled, I turned to my Screenwriting for Dummies book for clarification. The author wrote, “Your voice stems from imagination; style stems from knowledge of craft.” Apparently voice is what we want to communicate and style is the technique and language used to communicate those ideas.

So, what’s the best way to discover my unique voice? I searched high and low but couldn’t find a good answer. One book suggested I ask myself questions such as, “If your voice was a drink, what drink would it be?” Well, sometimes my voice seems tart and salty, like a Margarita, although it can be light, clear and bubbly like seltzer water. Another exercise was to sing a paragraph of my story then decide if it sounded like rock, folk, opera, rap etc. Truthfully, it can be any of those depending on how I sing it--which begs the question…

Does a writer have just one voice? What if someone writes in different mystery genres like cozy and hardboiled that are at opposite ends of the spectrum? One author wrote that we have a number of voices in us. Another thought that we have just one voice but there are many choices within that one voice. He believed “tone” allows flexibility and variety in a writer’s voice. (Maybe like a child’s soft indoor voice versus the deafening one used on the playground?)

After all my research I understand voice somewhat better, but I’m still perplexed and frustrated by the concept. Perhaps the best advice I read was that while the issue of voice is important, it’s nothing to lose sleep over.

What is your definition of voice? How did you find your voice?