Voice
I heard over and over in my fiction novel proposal rejection letters that I needed to work on my voice. But I never understood what they meant or where to find information on voice techniques. Recently I attended a writer's conference and learned a lot about voice. It finally made sense to me. I learned what I'd been doing wrong in my fiction. Why my non-fiction sold but my fiction didn't do so well, even if it did sell.
Authoritative voice is the person telling the story, the narrator. It needs to have character in and of itself. This voice leads all the other voices. This is only needed in third-person. When you tell a story, there needs to be metaphors, similes and uniqueness, only to the narrator. It sets the tone and mood for the entire novel and stays similar in personality and style. The difference between voice and simply writing are dramatic.
For example: He walked out to the stream. . He looked out into the water. He ran into a dog. He looked at the sky and noticed it had stars and clouds.
Here is an added authoritative voice to the story. There are countless ways to add your own unique voice. Here's an example: The home-filled cabin went up in flames. The dark rain clouds revealed a blood-colored moon. The cold, menacing water turned red.
Later on you can add the character's voice and point of view. ( Scott's relief washed over him as the water cleaned the blood of his cops uniform. so on so on. Here you can narrow in on what the character is thinking. I'd assume he's a sociopath who just hurt someone and doesn't care. He wants to admire his handiwork. He is a cop so he is probably going to get away with his crime and keep on committing more. The authoritative voice sets the tone for the character and the plot.)
Make your authoritative voice solid. If it is going to be British, keep it British. Is the story formal so should the voice be. Is the story a comedy, then keep the tone light and humorous.
The point of view character needs to assimilate well with the authoritative voice, yet it has to be different.
In first-person the character voice takes the lead. What one character says has to be unique to only that character. So the main point of view character has to talk in a way that none of the other characters would talk. What they say can't fit easily into other characters. A hillbilly doesn't sound the same as a teenage New Yorker girl. Obviously.
Let me know if you have anything to add below or anything you can recommend for me to learn more about voice. I still have a long ways to go.
Thank you for reading.
