-
Basic Writing questions is not a crit forum. All crits belong in Share Your Work
Literary Voice
- Thread starter Busha777
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2011
- Messages
- 23,130
- Reaction score
- 10,901
- Location
- Where faults collide
- Website
- doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
No. I don't think a literary voice is a fixed thing anyway. It will likely vary with where you are in your life and with the nature of what you are trying to write. If I'm writing a YA fantasy novel from the narrative viewpoint of a 17 year old, I'd be using a different voice than if I were writing an omniscient pov novel in a different, or even the same, genre (and thus maybe using my own natural voice). I suppose there are ways one's inner personality, tastes, values, experiences, and attitudes will come through, but those are things that evolve over one's lifetime too. And I might try to alter some of those things, depending on the story I am writing and through whose eyes I am showing it. Voice might even change within a book if there are more than one viewpoint character, and I am writing in first or a deep limited third type narrative voice.
I can think of certain writers in the genres I read whose work and style are pretty recognizable, but that doesn't mean there weren't changes over the course of their careers or between different works.
I don't think writers should be afraid of experimenting with different voices, or of evolving. You'll find an approach and style that works for you and for the stories you are writing.
I can think of certain writers in the genres I read whose work and style are pretty recognizable, but that doesn't mean there weren't changes over the course of their careers or between different works.
I don't think writers should be afraid of experimenting with different voices, or of evolving. You'll find an approach and style that works for you and for the stories you are writing.
Last edited:
New Members is for new members greets. I'd guess this thread will be transferred to another forum when a mod/admin becomes available.
I assume you mean author voice (instead of character voice). I think author voice can, but does not have to, change over time. This does not suggest change is a bad thing, but it can be (if such things as loss of readership occurs).
I assume you mean author voice (instead of character voice). I think author voice can, but does not have to, change over time. This does not suggest change is a bad thing, but it can be (if such things as loss of readership occurs).
^^This. If anything, with writing experience, one can develop one's voice, refine it, and most importantly gain more control over it, so that it becomes an intentional part of one's writing, and not just a thing one has or loses.
Busha777, since you asked this question, what are your thoughts? Are there some concerns leading you to ask about it?
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2018
- Messages
- 2,987
- Reaction score
- 605
- Age
- 24
Your voice changes depending on the character (at least in a deep POV). I don't expect one character's narration to sound like another narrator.
Literary voice is style, sentence length, and the amount of prose. I always wanted to have a certain literary voice, but when I tried it on my WIP, it sounded fake. My FMC and MMC just wouldn't talk like that (in first person).
Literary voice is style, sentence length, and the amount of prose. I always wanted to have a certain literary voice, but when I tried it on my WIP, it sounded fake. My FMC and MMC just wouldn't talk like that (in first person).
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2013
- Messages
- 3,044
- Reaction score
- 1,500
Literary voice is called "voice" for a reason. Like your speaking or singing voice, you can alter it temporarily by affecting an accent or shifting the pitch higher or lower than you'd normally use (like writing in different genres). Also like your speaking voice, it can change over time, either intentionally (like my father, who worked very hard as an adult to remove the accent of his youth), or unintentionally (what's the literary equivalent of chain-smoking)?
However, you'll never lose the underlying youness of your voice*. When they speak, in writing, of "developing" a voice, you're not building something from nothing. You're taking voice lessons. You're training your ear to hear subtle differences, training your body to reach highs and lows it couldn't before, maybe poking around in different genres to see where your voice can really shine. You're taking what's already there, and making it the best voice it can be.
The only way to truly lose your literary voice is to stop writing.
*Even if you sometimes wish you could. There have been times when I've wished so hard that I were a bass or had a proper rock-music growl so I could perform certain songs that will just never sound right coming out of my mouth.
However, you'll never lose the underlying youness of your voice*. When they speak, in writing, of "developing" a voice, you're not building something from nothing. You're taking voice lessons. You're training your ear to hear subtle differences, training your body to reach highs and lows it couldn't before, maybe poking around in different genres to see where your voice can really shine. You're taking what's already there, and making it the best voice it can be.
The only way to truly lose your literary voice is to stop writing.
*Even if you sometimes wish you could. There have been times when I've wished so hard that I were a bass or had a proper rock-music growl so I could perform certain songs that will just never sound right coming out of my mouth.
Last edited:
I don't know how you'd lose it, though it might grow rusty with disuse, or it might change over time.
Yes, I worried about that when I was trying to figure out what my voice sounds like. I'd figured that an author must follow self-imposed rules to maintain a distinctive voice. Then I realized changing voices for different works is more fun than following rules, and I don't often care if the reader hears only the narrator, not me as its writer.
No. Your voice is what it is, you can develop it as Taz says to be more clear and consistent, but I don't think you can alter it much, and I'm sure you can never lose it, so long as it's your natural voice and not one you're trying to effect. In a story, each character's dialogue and thoughts should be different, but I don't think that's the same thing as altering your own voice.
You can learn to control your style by closely examining it, and examining the styles of other writers.
One of my favorite editors once said "Style is what you can't help doing."
But if you learn what it is you do, what your styles are, you can control them.
A lot of that has to do with learning to closely read, to analyze text. It's the equivalent of taking apart an engine to see how it works, or learning to analyze a recipe by tasting the food it creates.
I really enjoy shifting and experimenting with my voice, too. Once in college, I had two works on anonymous submission to the literary magazine, and both managed to get to the final round. At the meeting, when the editor said they had two works from the same author still under consideration, everyone acted stunned. For better or worse, that made me happy; I liked the idea of people not being able to look at two pieces of writing and ID both as mine.
Right now I'm writing a YA in first-person present and something else in close third-person past, and the difference is refreshing to me. And when I write nonfiction for the newspaper, it's something else again. I'm sure if you looked closely you'd see many common stylistic features, but I like the idea of sinking into a particular narrator's head, or the tone suggested by a particular story, and letting that dictate a lot of the choices.
Still, "my voice" has developed in one clear way over time: I've become more adept, I hope, at getting to the point. (I used to think that "literary" writing, the kind that gets praised, involved spinning pretty words around the point. It doesn't, or it shouldn't.)
This......read enough King and you can get a pretty good guess as to when he was reading mostly Bradbury vs mostly Chandler and other Noir writers, entirely by his "literary voice."
Voice isn't a bad thing by any means, but I feel like in a lot of ways you have it backwards, your voice is as much a function of your character, tone, etc. as anything that makes you speshul personally, which is the way it should be--the handful of things I've run into that an author does as "their thing" which I assume are in part their idea of their unique literary voice (thinking off the top of my head of McCarthy and his refusal to punctuate like the unwashed masses) tend to look artificial and off-putting to me. YMMV, of course.
You write what you write. You will have a bag of quirks, themes, etc. you will tend to emphasize that collectively could be considered voice, but as mentioned it is an entirely malleable thing, both deliberately and sometimes without you having any real control over it, as time and experience changes you
Yes.
I've read through other people's responses, but I have felt concerned about this from time to time. I agree with others that writing voice can change. But, I have also been concerned at times that, as I changed, maybe it would change in unwanted ways. I've recently jumped back into writing after a rather long absence and found, upon returning, that my writing voice was quite rusty. I had become used to writing a certain way for my career in academia, and it's not at all the same type of writing involved in writing fiction. Even before I took a prolonged hiatus, I still had concerns back then that the story I was writing had more personality than other things I might write in the future. But, whether those concerns are justified or not is another issue.
I agree with others that voice changes over time, and probably often gets better. When I started writing something a couple of months ago, I had read a lot of Elmore Leonard, and as such, my writing came off really terse and matter-of-fact with some sarcastic lines here and there, which was very unlike the style I used to write like. It took a bit of time for me to "find" that same voice again.
This.
When I was younger, I went through a phase when I wanted my stories to sound a certain way. I reread one not that long ago, and it was cringeworthy. The voice didn't match the character/subject at all, and it ended up feeling like a parody.
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2013
- Messages
- 3,044
- Reaction score
- 1,500
Lol. I think everybody's done something like that. The other day I found a folder of poetry I wrote in high school, and OMG, the overwrought teenage angst! I remember writing some of it, and I thought it was sooo deep. Now, decades later... no. Just no.
Still, experimentation is an important part of the learning process. Sometimes you have to figure out what doesn't work before you stumble across what does.
There are some amazingly talented writers who can switch literary genre and style as easily as Mel Blanc changed characters (although, FWIW, I recall seeing a TV special* years ago where they ran his samples through some kind of voice recognition software and it came up a match regardless of whether he was doing Bugs Bunny or Tweety Bird or Barney Rubble - underneath it all, his voice was STILL his).
Then there are the folks who focus a bit overmuch on developing "Their Unique Voice TM." The result tends to be less Mel Blanc, and more that weird cousin who spends one week in England and returns with an affected English accent that they retain, "entirely unconsciously," for the next five years.
*I remember seeing this on TV sometime in the mid to late 90s, but sadly I've never been able to find it online.
Last edited:
I actually was for a while, yeah. But I think I'm over it. It's like JAY Z said. You want the old me? Buy my old albums.
My voice evolved naturally and I realized it made me sad to hold onto my old style, which was unique but also pretty juvenile. I needed to mature out of it, and I like my new voice a lot more. The important thing in my opinion is to write something at every stage of your voice's evolution. That way, you have the authentic originals so you don't spend time down the line trying to recreate a style that you already aged out of naturally.
My voice evolved naturally and I realized it made me sad to hold onto my old style, which was unique but also pretty juvenile. I needed to mature out of it, and I like my new voice a lot more. The important thing in my opinion is to write something at every stage of your voice's evolution. That way, you have the authentic originals so you don't spend time down the line trying to recreate a style that you already aged out of naturally.
I posed the question because in any art form there may be pressure to conform to the conventions that have been established by past authors. I don't know if this pressure might be brought on by some publishers who may want to suggest to prospective authors to alter their voice or style so their work may sell. I, for one, value and respect originality, and it is that originality that is your signature which you should share with the world. Your voice can always evolve or devolve. Devolve to me is when you compromise your artistic integrity to fit in the commercial world.
I have never been asked to alter my voice. I don't think that's something editors or agents do. It's probably not possible in most cases.
Caveat: I don't rate originality in writing, so make of that what you will lol
Caveat: I don't rate originality in writing, so make of that what you will lol
I suppose anything is possible, but I'm only seeing agents and editors looking for new voices, fresh voices.
I don't think that reflects publishing for the last 100 years or so.
Publishers and editors are deeply interested in new voices, interesting voices, and true voices.
No, the literary voice is always changing and it is always-- even if it is similar to others, evolving in uniqueness. No two are the exact same.
Just my 0.02c!
Just my 0.02c!
That is great to know. I am new in this game and I am embarking on basically making out of writing. I also write poetry. None of my work have been published yet and I am seeking to self-publish.
Hrm. If you are seeking to self publish, i would say it doesn't matter what trade publishers think either way.
That's not entirely accurate. Trade publishers have a feel for what the book-buying public likes and wants—particularly through their sales & marketing contacts with booksellers—iow, they know what sells and that info is shared with acquisitions.