Each author develops her own voice, it’s a style of
conversation, a way of telling the story, the use of punctuation, and where
emphasis goes. Most writers’ voices are a constant in narration and a frequent
reader can recognize the author just by “The Voice”.
"Voice is the
author's style, the quality that makes his or her writing unique, and which
conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character." (About.com)
Authors also need to develop their characters’ voices, the
ones used in dialogue; each voice should be unique so that it truly sounds as
if different people are speaking. Each character should sound like a product of
who he is, his education, social status, personality, and aspirations. The
characters should not sound like the author is doing all of the talking (okay,
maybe ONE if that is the author’s intention…)
There are times during the actual dialogue when it is all
right to misuse proper grammar or use words with unclear meaning IF IT HELPS TO
REPRESENT THE CHARACTER WHO IS SPEAKING. The author narration needs to be
proper, the correct tense, punctuation, word meanings and clear language. The
reader should also be respected for being able to understand what he or she is
reading, the narrative should not be “dumbed down” so that they feel they are
being spoken down to. It is okay to use a thesaurus or dictionary, but the
language should be simple enough so that the average (target audience) reader
does not have to constantly interrupt his reading to look up words in the
dictionary. It’s important to keep the target audience in mind when choosing
the language as well as subject matter.
The Editing Process
Every re-write, whether done by the author or an editor,
needs to respect that author’s voice. An editor should ideally work in a
cooperative effort with the author and allow the author to accept or reject
revisions in order to make sure that the voice and intended story are not
changed. At the same time the author needs to remain open to suggestions made
by editors and beta-readers — would the suggested revision make the story flow
better, maintain suspense, include the reader in the action, and make the
message easier to understand?
Writing
Exercise: Start with a pen and a blank piece of paper; sit at a
public place like a coffee shop, bus station, or public park — or sit at home
and turn the TV on to any random station. Write down the FIRST word you hear,
write two sentences using that specific word (the two sentences need be
unrelated to each other). Listen for another word and do the same thing. Do
this at least five to eight times. Next, choose ONE sentence from each pair and
string those together to make a mini story (one paragraph to one page). It may
not make any sense, it just may be a fun creative attempt!
Writing
Prompt: Make a list of five to ten “colloquialisms” YOU use in
everyday conversation that are unique to YOU.
Challenge
Assignment: Choose any five people you know from different walks of
life (for example: occupation, education, gender, age, financial status, and/or
ethnicity). Think of the unique way each person talks. Write one paragraph of
EACH person’s response to an “annoying” telemarketing phone call interrupting
sleep, dinner, or any preferred activity. Use action as well as dialogue. Are
the responses unique? Does each response really sound like the person you know?
