Just to clarify, people talk about several types of voice. One type, what Garretson refers to as authorial voice, refers to the author’s writing style. A while back I blogged some tips from Cathy Yardley for developing your own voice. Dee’s presentation focused instead on character voice, which is the style of a specific character in your story.
So on to the tips:
1.What kind of observations does your character make? What would that character notice about someone they just met, or a room they just entered? It would be different for a 12 year old girl than it would be for a middle aged man.
For example, if a character were to say:
“She was a German and made brilliant meatballs,” - Gideon, the Cutpurse
What impression do you get of the character? What kind of person would mention meatball making ability as a defining characteristic?
2. How does your character react to situations?
“I felt a drop of sweat trickle down my side like a spider and disappear into the waistband of my itchy, brand-new suit pants, which I hoped never to wear again.” -I,Q
From this reaction, we can tell the character is young and uncomfortable in formal clothes.
3. Word choices In the first example, change "brilliant" into “yummy” meatballs and you get a very different voice. There are also some good word choices in the quote from I,Q -- spider, for example.
Another example:
“The fog hung over Booker Mountain like an old ragged coat.” - The Dragon Heir
If you change “old ragged coat” to “malevolent ghost”, again, you get a different feel.
How do you invoke character voice in your own writing?
*Garretson’s middle grade adventure book Danger’s Edge: Wildfire at Camp David
will be released in September.
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