YA first person perspective voice.

Remember to think about word choice, as well as overall voice and personality. Think about the characters' education levels and how that would affect their voice and the words they use. Think about where they're from and if there's any regional dialect they might use. Think about whether each character is an optimist or pessimist and how that would affect the way they think.

Um... yeah, that's my advice

milkymoon said:

Hey everyone!

For my current project I'm toying with the idea of using an entirely different MC in the sequel (who meets the first MC at the end, i.e. as though their plots are happening concurrently but in separate books!). Another poster pointed out that I would need to distinguish the voices really clearly to pull it off. My first character is quite confident and bold, and I want the second to be more mild mannered. If any one has any advice on how I could achieve this I'd be really grateful! Has any one already done this successfully or know of any good books that do this successfully? Any tips, hints or advice would be amazing! Thanks so much in advance.

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Many, many YA books have multiple POVs from different characters - the same principles would apply for different POV characters in different books.

Mainly, the way they speak and think should be different - different word choices, different patterns and rhythms to their speach, they'd bend/break different grammatical rules, etc.

Look at emails from different people you know - can you "hear" them speak by reading their emails? Could you pick out which email which person wrote if their names were covered?

I'd suggest reading some multi-POV YA books for how the author(s) makes the voices distinct. Some suggestions off the top of my head:

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, by Levithan and Cohn
The Chocolate War, by Cormier
Nation, by Terry Pratchett
The Walking Chaos series by Patrick Ness
Incarceron and Sapphique, by Catherine Fisher

~suki

I've never read anyone who captures multiple, completely distinct voices like Jaclyn Moriarty. Man.

I like Becca's advice. Also, I hate when I get invested in a multi pov book and the perspectives blend. (Not saying you're dong that, just saing.) They need to be as different as two people would be -- assuming we're using first person.

One of my favorite parts of the "process" of writing in first is getting to know your characters. Its kind of like method acting. LOL

There was a little trick in one of the books on writing I've read: if you have two characters with similar background, etc, and you need to make their voices different, give them a recognizable (but cute) speech-related habits. Some signature phrase. Though it's important not to overuse it.

milkymoon said:

Hey everyone!

For my current project I'm toying with the idea of using an entirely different MC in the sequel (who meets the first MC at the end, i.e. as though their plots are happening concurrently but in separate books!). Another poster pointed out that I would need to distinguish the voices really clearly to pull it off. My first character is quite confident and bold, and I want the second to be more mild mannered. If any one has any advice on how I could achieve this I'd be really grateful! Has any one already done this successfully or know of any good books that do this successfully? Any tips, hints or advice would be amazing! Thanks so much in advance.

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I say have a favorite one of the characters that NO ONE else say! The reader will automatically recognize the MC and then it should move smoothly. This is just in very general terms though! Hope this helped =)

you should read "If I Stay" and the sequel, "Where She Went," by Gayle Forman. They revolve around the same two characters and their story, and they're both narrated in first-person, but the second book is narrated by a different character than the first. And she pulls it off very smoothly. Definitely something for you to study Good luck!