What Exactly is "Voice"?

When asked what makes or breaks a manuscript, acquisitions editors overwhelmingly agree that voice is the most important thing. But what does that mean? Even those of us who are studying writing and have taken whole novel courses struggle to pinpoint the definition of this word. 


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However, I got a more solid understanding while at the LTUE writers conference this past weekend. The following advice is adapted from what I learned in a presentation by the author Shelly Brown. Any brilliance found in this blog post should be credited to her. 


What is a Writing Voice?



In its simplest form, voice is personality. Through voice, actors and characters show who they are. 

Author Voice vs. Character Voice


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Author voice and character voice are two very different things. However, I write in the first person, so I've got a bit of a cheat code (hehehehe). But what's the difference? Well, a character's voice needs to be uniquely them. It needs to express their personalities in all its glory. An author's voice needs to express their artistic personality. What types of similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, and other forms of figurative language do they use to express their story? What is the general cadence of their words, sentences, and paragraphs?

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How I Use Voice in my Novel

In an attempt to solidify this point a little more, I'm going to use an example of voice from my novel. Of course, this is not the be-all-end-all way of writing voice, but it's how I've been doing it. So, let's use one of my side characters, Caelynn Daughtler, as a case study.



Before I could give Caelynn a voice, I had to really focus on who she was as a character. By the end of this process, I ended up with a character outline that looked something like the image above. From there, all I had to do was determine a few things: 
  • What type of vocabulary would Caelynn use?
  • Would she be likely to speak in slang?
  • What should be the general tone of her dialogue?
  • Does she use figurative language?

After that, I was able to write Caelynn some very distinct dialogue. An example of one of those moments can be seen below. 


Do you see how Caelynn's personality feeds into the way she speaks? Can you hear some of her character traits in her intonation and action? That's voice. And no one else in my book sounds quite like her.

Summing it up

Every writer, character, and person has a unique voice. As writers, though, we sometimes struggle to show our voice. We try so hard to sound like our individual literary heroes that we can't begin to fathom sounding any different. But when we accept our personality traits and write with them in mind, that's when our voice really starts to sing. Who knows? Your Caelynn Daughtler may be right around the corner. 

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