Another "voice" question

It's impossible to say without reading your voice. Any kind of voice can fail to connect with some readers. You might not even have a problem here. It just might be that your voice and the agent's wishes didn't coincide.

Connect to a narrator's voice... did she really say that verbatim?

I can see having a strong voice and connecting to a character, but how can you feel for a character's voice? I know some people are attracted to deeper/higher pitched voices, but reading them... and being attracted...


To "punch up" a character's voice you look into their diction and style of speech. How do they--as creative individuals--describe what they see? In what unique fashion do they explain something to the reader? Pretty much, what is their character and how can you transcribe their character into how they tell the story?

If it's First person POV, the Agent could have felt there was a disconnect between the character's portrayed actions and personality and the feel of the narrative that portrayed it.

Doesn't mean the Agent is right, but...

I'm guessing the same thing as Bufty is.

Another thought. Is it YA? It's my understanding that with modern YA, the piece should be written in the voice of a teen as a teen, not an adult talking about his or her life as a teen.

Another thought is that you've actually punched the voice up too much and created something that's either hard to believe (a caricature of the kind of person you want to portray), or it's just feels annoying.

It's also possible that this isn't this particular agent's cup of tea. How many have you queried so far? Is this the first person whose read any pages of your work and commented on them?

I don't think "punching up" is what it needs. It sounds like the voice either doesn't match the character, or isn't realistic enough. These are both common problems in first person.

Other things also affect first person voice, with filtering being at the top of the list. Too much navel gazing is another problem, as is needless rambling. A POV character who is simply annoying or irritating won't get you far, either. Nor will a character who tries and fails to be funny.

In other words, there is no way to know what the agent meant without actually reading a decent portion of your manuscript, but "punching up" really doesn't mean anything. Without knowing exactly what needs changed, there is no good answer to your question.

But one agent saying something doesn't automatically mean there is a problem at all. It means you should think about what the agent said, but it doesn't mean you should worry too much about it at this point, unless you've had a string of rejections.

Voice is often very subjective, and very hard for an author to self-edit because we're too close to the character. I'd definitely recommend getting more eyes on the piece (maybe in Share Your Work). If a significant number of people have a problem connecting with the character, then it's probably an issue and hopefully more specific feedback will help you see how to rectify it. Good luck!

You had a previous rejection in August from an Agent who said she wasn't drawn in by the pages or something to that effect.

If you can't see what the latest Agent meant by her comment, you're not really going to get anywhere on this issue until you post the relevant opening in the Share Your Work Forum.

You may just have got what the Agent regards as a 'standard' form of rejection but at the moment it's guesswork.

As far as voice and connecting with the character goes, I've always found it important to include sensory details. Part of a strong, interesting voice (IMO) is not so much in the character's surroundings, but what the character notices about their surroundings. If you have five people walk into a room and then walk out, they'll probably all have noticed different things.

Best of luck! I do agree with Bufty that it might be a good idea to post in SYW.

I would suggest asking the agent to be more specific with their critique. She may want to you add infections or manners of speech unique to the main character; perhaps have specific words or turns or phrase that are said, or even a certain way that you main character looks at the world so that it is easy to recognize their dialogue or thoughts apart from someone else. Good luck.

This is difficult to explain, but a mistake I see in slush is when a writer uses first person, but writes it like third person. The voice doesn't work because the writer never really gets inside the character, as first person demands.

K.S. Crooks said:

I would suggest asking the agent to be more specific with their critique.

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Unless an agent invites a writer to revise and resubmit, or in some manner invites continued correspondence, it's considered very bad form to write back and ask for explanations.

K.S. Crooks said:

I would suggest asking the agent to be more specific with their critique. She may want to you add infections or manners of speech unique to the main character; perhaps have specific words or turns or phrase that are said, or even a certain way that you main character looks at the world so that it is easy to recognize their dialogue or thoughts apart from someone else. Good luck.

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As Beth says, unless you've been invited to ask, or unless you're on a friendship basis with an agent, don't ask. It is bad form, and chances are the agent won't even remember your manuscript well enough to make comments. The agent has probably read a hundred since then.

Anyway, the agent said all she wanted to say, so let it go at that.

Jamesaritchie said:

This is difficult to explain, but a mistake I see in slush is when a writer uses first person, but writes it like third person. The voice doesn't work because the writer never really gets inside the character, as first person demands.

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I can second this - I was just critting something last night which was written in third but had lines of thought injected. The thoughts didn't feel like thoughts, just like narrative turned into first person and italicised. It had a lot to do with word choice and lack of emotion of personal reactions and observations.

I'd find a narrative in limited/subjective third person to be pretty dull if the I couldn't feel the pov character's thoughts and emotions. And I'd find an omniscient third narrative to be pretty dull if the narrator didn't have an interesting voice and personality, for that matter.

"couldn't connect with the MC's voice" could really be ANYTHING. The agent I'm interning for often gives this as a reason for turning down MSs, and the real reasons have ranged from:

-MC is too abrasive to other characters, thus making him unlikable.
-MC is too quiet, so she became kind of boring to read.
-No real character arc to MC. He does not grow throughout the novel.
-MC is a terrible person, but his terrible characteristics (e.g. narcissistic, spoiled, unreasonably demanding) are portrayed as positive things.
-MC is a 12-y-o girl who sounds like a 30-y-o adult. This could work if the MC is meant to be precocious, but in this case, the author just did not grasp the character well and we felt it wouldn't appeal to young readers.
-MC is a child who is too evil, thus making the MG book too gory for young readers.
-MC is too unpredictable and shrieky, making her incredibly annoying.

And so on and so forth. It's a throwaway phrase that you can't really glean much from, unfortunately. :-/

I agree with the others. Are you sure that the response was personalized? I've seen/heard agents use the inability to connect as a generic response to anything they just didn't love.

If it was personalized specifically for your novel, it could be any of the things Putt mentioned and more. Or it could be that the 1 agent didn't like the voice. Unless you have several agents (or beta readers) who say the same thing, I wouldn't worry about it.

Have you considered posting an excerpt in SYW? That might help identify whether several people have similar concerns about the voice.

Good luck! I know it's hard when you're querying, and any little thing an agent says can make you question/doubt things. (At least that was true for me.)