FINDING YOUR VOICE
Something that can be hard when you're writing a new project is finding where your voice is. It can be pretty common to not recognise either your authorial voice, or the voice of each project. These two can be the same, and they can also be different, depending on the genre, the age category, and the way the story is told, like first person compared to third.
When I was first writing, I felt like the story I was crafting had a pretty unique voice to it. Some of that is newbie ego, and some of that is not having the experience to really know what all these things meant. That's not a bad thing, but I thought that today I was talk more about both kinds of voice, and also that it's completely okay if it takes you a while to spot and know yours.
I have drafted nearly fifty books. They are all young adult, and have all been a range of genres from thriller to mystery to paranormal to dystopian and urban fantasy. I usually, write solely in first person, and they are usually all told from one POV, though I do have some that are dual POV and such. I have published twenty-four books, with my next two, hopefully, coming out next year. I tell you this to give you an idea of where I'm coming from. I am, by no means, an expert, but I do have some solid experience to pull from, I was first published in 2005, and have been continuing with publishing since.
So let's focus on the first, the author voice. What do I mean when I say that? What are people looking for when they talk about wanting an author who's 'voicy'? How can you know, and work out, what that means for you?
AUTHOR VOICE
An author voice is quite simply, their way of telling a story that is so unique to them that you could pick up a random book, have no idea who the author is, and be able to tell from the prose, the descriptions, the way the characters sound, who the author is. It can be something writers have naturally, and it can also be something that develops over time. The more you write, the more you discover it.
As for what people are looking for, while this usually is something I see attributed to literary agents and publishers, and I have no experience with either, I'm going to focus more on the readers who talk about wanting this. A lot of the time what they want is a voice or story that is told similarly to one particular author they love. They're looking for recs of books that might meet their needs. Sometimes it's not always about the author's voice, but the characters, but it's a way to find new to them authors who they might enjoy.
A lot of the time, finding your author voice comes with practice. My debut was not the first book I'd written, but it was the first one I felt really had my voice to it. Now, granted I wrote it when I was 19, and it was published when I was 23, and while aspects of my author voice remain the same, others have changed as I've grown as an author. If you are someone who is just starting out, I would not stress on finding your voice in your words. It might take time, it did for me, and that's okay. Write your stories, enjoy yourself, and just lean into growing and changing.
CHARACTER VOICE
The character voice has a similar description as the author one, in that you could work out who these characters written by blindfolded simply because of the way they talk and go through the story. The difference is that it's not the same voice for every single character. If that happens, there's problems. But for me, usually, the character voice comes into play with the main character. Again, just to be clear, I do not mean that every main character I've written is exactly the same. That would not be good!
Character voice to me is more subjective, and leans more into the reader experience. Some readers will see it straight away, and others won't, and neither of them really are wrong there. I do feel like it's somewhat easier to lean into character voice than author voice, but that, of course, is subjective to each author!
So there we go, while I do think author voice is something that can take a while to develop, it doesn't mean you are bad at writing, or that your work is not worthy of publication. Everyone moves to their own pace, and that is completely okay!
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