Who said that?

A few weeks ago I sat down and ‘Just Couldn’t’  with my current novel, so I wrote a couple thousand words about an idea that has been on my desktop for a while. (I often have blank Scrivener documents with just a title or a couple of sentence descriptions on my desktop, as a reminder of possible things to come.) While I loved the pacing of the first scene and the general playful feel, I really struggled with finding the protagonist’s voice. 

To be fair to my overworked brain, I have been knee deep in a very unique character voice for months now, which even my personal texts and emails often reflect. As I tried on different voices for my  unnamed heroine, I struggled to find one that fit. 

The magical John Truby in his book, The Anatomy of Story, explains Voice thus, “When we talk about letting the audience hear the character’s voice, we are really putting the audience in the character’s mind, right now as he speaks. It is a mind expressed in the most precise and unique way possible… Being in the character’s mind implies that this is a real person, with prejudices, blind spots, and lies, even when he isn’t aware of those himself.” 

Mind you, character voice and narrative voice are two different elements of a story. Narrative voice is often the tone set by an omniscient narrator in third person, or by the author themself,  in the way they utilize tools like figurative language, rhythm and cadence of sentence structure, specific vocabulary, and character voice within dialogue. Narrative voice is like decorating a house for a holiday. The house (story) is the same, but depending on the decorations, we set a different tone. 

Character voice is generally apparent in two different ways. In first person narratives, a character is relaying the story to the readers; we are hearing their version of the events as they remember and shaping it or our consumption. The narrator may be reliable or not—I generally prefer not. 

In most narratives regardless of Point of View, character voice comes through in dialogue-both conversation and internal. Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, suggests that one should be able to tell characters apart with no dialogue tags. I’ve yet to accomplish that myself with the crowd of minor characters that I have stumbling all over my pages, but it is a noble goal. Certainly, when a major character walks into a room and makes a rousing speech, we don’t want our readers to have to check back to remember who was speaking. 

So what does voice really contribute to a story? Why am I struggling find that perfect fit? 

From a character building standpoint, voice is implicit characterization. 

“NO!”

“No.”

“I would rather not.”

“Ain’t my style”

“Tis’nt proper!”

“No f—ing way.”

“Um, it’s just that I don’t feel totally comfortable with that?”

“My algorithm will not allow this behavior choice.”

Eight different ways of saying no—although at least three could probably be talked into whatever the asker was asking— and each implies something about the speaker’s education, age, personality, even humanity in the last case. 

How a character describes their actions often says more about themselves than dialogue, and can be used to show character flaws or cement the idea of an unreliable narrator. 

I stood on the shore of the lake knowing myself to be the most virtuous of the crowd. I pushed forward toward the man baptizing the weary congregants, feeling his eyes first pass over me then light as his own holiness recognized my own. “Me next.” I edged in front of a man on crutches—surely God’s punishment of some horrible sin— and stretched out my arms toward the apostle. “The Lord’s kingdom needs me.”

He radiated with joy.“My child, I have been waiting for you.” 

Plunging beneath the lapping waters, I heard the voice of God.

We can see that the person telling the above story is unapologetic in their beliefs about their self-worth and is likely to paint everything in a positive light, even though as a reader we recognize the disconnect between thoughts/words and behaviors. 

Beyond shaping the character, voice shapes the tone of the story. A narrator who is happy or scared or broody gives off that vibe. Consider a walk through the woods.

~Trees clacked their branches above us like a teacher’s fingers, hurrying us toward some distant lesson. James took my hand and tugged me forward, probably worried I would fall behind and be eaten by a bear. 

~Birds called cheerily but unseen for the leafy canopy above us. James twined his fingers through mine and pulled me deeper into the trees toward another one of his surprises.

~I could not see anything but the sludge of dead leaves and pine needles on the ground. Hoping soon to join them I let James take my hand and lead me toward my inevitable demise. 

~Dancing through the dappled dark with James’ hand in my own, I rejoiced for we were at last among the trees.

Each sample has similar content, structure, dialect, and writing style, but the interpretation of the events sets up a very different story. 

Sometimes it takes several drafts to find a character’s voice, but on the flip side it can be difficult to move the narrative forward if the tone feels off. I generally throw the first draft on paper and see what happens, adjusting as I go. The best consolation I can offer is that voice feels effortless when it is written well, but behind the scenes it can be one of the most difficult aspects of a well crafted story. 

So I am leaving you with an exercise to play with:

Write a blurb in first person, no more than 100 words or so. Have a general character in mind when writing the first version, then rewrite, changing some aspect of that character. Age, gender, education, religious or cultural background, social status, whatever. Change something else and rewrite. Play as many times as you like, but dig into the changes and really think about how they affect how a character might present that blurb to themselves and the world. 

Have Fun!