That's a very good idea, flash is something that comes (relatively) easy to me, and it's pretty obvious if a piece is working or not. Thanks!
As to my voice as the writer, I don't think I would change it, as it is me narrating the story, partly factual, partly descriptive, partly humorous. With only two fictions published, I haven't seen a need to change that. As for my characters, in the E&D, my characters have different voices, partly depending on what language they are speaking at the time: the centurion speaks a cockney-like dialogue representing the "vulgar Latin" that is his normal voice, but speaks grammatically and syntactically correct Greek, his birth tongue (last name Aristides, father a tutor). When he speaks Aramaic, he uses a King James "thou sayest" style, my way of distinguishing that Arabic language from others for all speakers, but he speaks it very brokenly as he doesn't speak it very well, just what he picked up stationed in Syria and the Middle East. But he surprises his traveling companion, a senior officer, when on one occasion, he speaks perfectly correct high Latin... he is actually well-educated and well-read, but finds it to his advantage to not reveal that side of himself, either to the junior soldiers below him or the officers above him.They see in his day-to-day speech what they expect to see, a gruff common soldier with no pretensions.
If you want to write a different kind of voice then just, well, write it. Write in first person as someone with that kind of voice and see how it goes. It's not easy to change voice but you can do it if you really want to and being in first person will give you something more objective to work with in terms of saying 'does this fit or not?'
Pretend you are a voice actor, role playing as your characters or narrators. Listening to audio books can also help you.
Something that has helped me in the past when it comes to experimenting with different voices or characters is definitely research. Try writing something based on a protagonist in a different country. I'm currently working on a Scottish horror story at the moment, so it has definitely helped to write with that accent. Not obnoxiously of course, but enough to give the piece credibility. Maybe try something like that?
To be honest, no-one not from Scotland knows how they really talk anyway so you can get away with whatever you want. And don't worry about the Scots getting offended; they're savages up there. I heard tell they had a book once, but they burned it because it was English.
Not sure if this helps, but I write close-third with multiple POV characters, so I let their voice leak into the authorial voice, and I haven't totally nailed down how to do this (I still have trouble writing non-sarcastic charcters), but I generally try to write with some basic rules for each voice to make them distinctive. So these are a few of the rules: 1) Main character "Nina's" voice: No cursing in either the dialogue or the authorial voice, occasional use of the term "heck" in both dialogue and the authorial voice. Character notices people's behavioral ticks in some detail. Occasional use of sci-fi references in analogies - including in the authorial voice. 2) Side character "Vinya's" voice: Occasional authorial-voice cursing, authorial voice uses west-coast American slag, Character focusses on the way rooms are decorated, any sound equipment providing background noise, and how people dress. 3) Side character "Madison" - Heavier authorial voice cursing including authorial voice "f**k", more sarcastic and clipped authorial voice that lapses into biting and often insulting commentary on the people around her. 4) Side character "Emma": Southern-US dialect leaks heavily into the authorial voice. Both the character and the authorial voice use adjectival "damn" repetitively and heavily despite not cursing too heavily - which none of the other characters are allowed to do. Authorial voice consistently and habitually uses the terms "that girl" or "girls" to refer to other female characters. Authorial voice focusses less on proper grammar and often uses sentence fragments. 5) Side character "Sinead": Authorial voice has a college-level vocabulary and uses long words that would never be used in another point of view ("heteronormativity," "prestidigitation," etc.). Grammar is correct but authorial voice is prone to long, meandering run-on sentences that are either unpunctuated or broken only by commas. Paragraphs are longer when character is excited, and authorial voice often lapses into absurd logic-chain arguments with itself as the character obsesses about her own mental state or what other people think of her. Character and authorial voice NEVER use the term "girl" to refer to an adult woman. I don't know if that helps in terms of changing voice from project to project, but it's how I try to differentiate.
Hi, everyone, I was looking for some help in writing a line. My MC hear's a shape-shifter with his voice talking to him on the phone. I wanted to drive home the weird feeling of hearing your own voice. Like when you hear a recording of your voice. Making an eerie feeling, kind of. I've always been criticized for telling and not showing. Here's what I have: After a few rings, a voice that sounded a lot like him picked up. It was weird, like hearing a recording of your own voice.
I think it's less about the timbre and more about word usage. I know I don't know how my voice sounds on the phone
Maybe instead of flat-out stating "it was weird", try to describe the weirdness in terms of how he reacts to it? I think that's the basic principle of "show don't tell". If it's an unpleasant sort of weirdness, consider something along the lines of: "He cringed at the tone . . ." "Something about it made him want to take a cold shower . . ." "The fragment of an echo sent a shiver down his spine . . ." "Like hearing a recording of your own voice, it made him want to stop talking."
Might be worth noting that most people don't actually know how they sound on the phone. We have three different ways we sound: 1) The way others hear what we say 2) The way we hear our own voice from mouth to ear 3) The vibration inside our own skull The third one is the one that most people forget about and is the biggest reason that your voice sounds little like what you think it does. The bone transmits high frequencies easier, so we all think our voices are slightly higher than they really are. I also hear things that are extremely close to my own voice any time I talk to my brother or father, so even if I heard my own voice played back to me, I may not recognize it as such.
I hate the sound of my voice - especially my laugh - but the only time I really hear it is recording voice mail or when the man is taking video of the animals and I'm talking or laughing in the background and I know it was me talking. I don't know that I would recognize it as my voice if I heard it out of context though. Another option is maybe there's someone else in the car. Your character puts the phone on speaker (because he's driving) and the other passenger recognizes the voice as your characters, gets a creeped out look on his face, and tells your character, "OMG, that's you!" Just a thought. Might take you less time to write in another character than it would to figure out the best way to write something so difficult to imagine.
I've written a couple books, and beta readers have given me pretty consistent feedback on all of them though one book seems to be higher in quality than the rest. The issue is that this book is a lot more grotesque/horrifying and just flat out violent than the other books, and the other books are primarily child friendly. I'm not sure if this has to do with voice though, this seems more like a content dilemma, but the content may be changing the way I go about writing it. I might also have forgotten how to write like I had in that "gruesome" book in the first place! Does anyone have any advice for staying on track with your voice and/or finding it after losing it? Many thanks.
I wish I had advice instead of just commiseration, but I discovered a similar problem not too long ago when I went back and read an older piece of mine. I had been really proud of it at the time, considered it one of the best things I'd ever written. Just a few months later I read it and realized. It. Was. Boring. Possibly I had picked the most boring way a person could use to convey the ideas I was writing about. The prose was fine, pretty even, but it sounded very generic. I realized that what I had been considering 'good' writing was just writing scrubbed clean of my voice. I'm still struggling to find that voice and stay true to it, but possibly in your case you enjoyed the gore and mayhem more and that enthusiasm came out in your writing?
Wow this is nearly exactly what I feel. But I don't really enjoy gore or mayhem. I may perhaps enjoy darker and more serious themed novels, and that could very well be the case. Interestingly, I've always loved Disney and child friendly tales filled with magic and wonder and stuff, that feeling is what I strive for in some books, including the one I'm writing now. I don't know why my style would migrate to something opposite. Actually, the thought just occurred to me as I was writing this reply, but it may be because the more "friendly" stories I write usually involve characters I care deeply to build upon, and since I'm more of a pantser I have to keep myself in check and that could hinder my voice... As opposed to the more "unfriendly" stories where most characters are probably not going to survive and I can just "pants all the way through".
I think voice changes somewhat anyway depending on what your writing. My fantasy book has more of a contemporary poetic kind of voice which I love. But my general fiction story has more of a down to earth casual voice to it but it sort of just happens naturally. I WANT it to have that poetic feel to it but I just personally find it hard to do with this type of story. Another thing that changes my voice is how much I enjoy the story and invest into the characters. When I love them, spend time with them, polish them (As well as the story) The voice changes quite dramatically. I think multiple factors play a part. When I or anyone else reads my two different stories, the fantasy always wins the higher quality test and nice voice. but that is the one I feel most passionate about and put the most time into, polishing with many drafts. I don't know if this is your case or not but something to think about. If you want to find it again the only thing I can think of is to read back over what you wrote and try to get a feel for it all over again. I know this happens with my chapters every now and again where I have to re-read over an older chapter to keep the same voice flowing to the new one.
I will agree that voice will change with tone and theme of the story. Sometimes it can just take some time to find that 'voice' again when you are writing something focused in a certain way, but you will find it again.
I am just beginning to write seriously. I have been asked to describe my writing voice. Can anybody give me any advice please.
Who asked you, and why? I mean - is it important that you be accurate, or can you just make something up? (b/c I've written about thirty novels and couldn't begin to "describe my writing voice". It's hard for me to imagine that someone who's just beginning would have even established a voice yet, let alone be able to describe it...)
Sorry I did not explain myself fully. I have started an open study course on creative writing. And this is my first assignment. I don't know where to start. Thanks for coming back to me ☺
So it doesn't really matter if you're completely accurate... I'd say just look at your writing and try to see what makes it YOURS. Do you use humour? What kind of humour? Do you write in a flowery way or are you more prosaic? What do you want readers to feel or think when they're reading your work? That sort of thing.
It's a bit of a mean assignment for project number one. Is it 500 words? 800? Is it for the tutor to get a handle on her crew? Just say how being of the wartime generation you like to keep a stiff upper lip regarding most things, and how you don't appreciate any filthy manners and filthy talk from the 'baby boomers' who let everybody including society down with their hippy appetites. Write about your hatreds for boomers and for babies for two or three hundred words, and use bullet points. Write about how despite all of the hippies and babies in your street you keep your pecker up, still enjoying a gasper or a fag like during the Blitz but that 'ironically' - really labour the 'ironically' you had to have and suffered the removal of most of your cancerous organs including a tar-stained voice box. The Macmillan nurses call you Kermit because of your voice box or because of your green legs? You are uncertain on this issue for 100 words. Write how now that it is autumn time in the autumn of your lifestyle you are looking forward to finding your 'writer voice' and grappling finally with this internet technology with the tutor's assistance, and then you might reveal some of your Intelligence stories from WW2. Include two hundred words written in code 12sjaks khssa kdokas. Describe how throughout your life you inserted secret code in your baking recipes but nobody ever unravelled your messages, and people suffered needlessly. You have just this morning baked a cake and you are en route to share the cake in the tutor's house as the concluding clause/sentence. Include your telephone number at this point.
