Every Writer Has a Voice: Learn How to Capture It In Your Fiction
Writer’s voice is what makes every author unique. All writers have personalities that need to shine through the page, and their voice makes it so.
People talk about finding your writer’s voice, but how do you do that?
How do you own your voice to make your writing more distinct and unique?
You can use tone, sentence structure, and literary elements to convey yourself to your readers.
Using Tone
People talk about the mood of a story. Here’s the thing about readers:
Your readers’ emotions will reflect the author’s emotions. If you use a tone conveying sadness, the reader’s mood will turn sad as well. However, if you use a cheerful tone, the reader’s mood will follow.
The Author’s Tone Guides The Reader’s Mood
That’s what you have to remember. The reader will eventually connect the words to a feeling, and your tone to an emotion. This is how you create a bond with your reader. The reader will associate a feeling to your writer’s voice, and consequently, to you.
How do you put a tone to your writing?
A word has two meanings. One is on a logical comprehension level, and the other is on an emotional level.
Connotation and denotation.
Denotation is your definitions. What does the word mean as it relates to the sentence?
Connotation is the emotion that the word arises. For example…
The scream made her blood run cold.
Scream. Blood. Cold. We associate those words with fear. The readers can sense fear in the air. That’s connotation.
But the denotation of the words has nothing to do with fear. The denotations of the words simply mean this:
The loud, high pitched sound that came from somebody’s vocal chords caused somebody else to experience a decrease in temperature within the red liquid that flows through their veins and arteries.
The words have the same definitions. They “mean” the same thing. However, one has a connotation of fear, and the other has a neutral connotation reminding us of a boring science text book.
That’s how writer’s voice is developed through tone. Emotion is the only way a writer can connect with their readers, so use tone, mood, and connotation to your advantage.
Using Sentence Structure
Sentence structure can be the word choice, or simply the way the words are strung together. Some authors may use short, choppy sentences to emphasize something or make a clearer point. For example…
Milo was wrong. He would never see her again. Because she was dead. There was nothing he could do. Not now, anyway.
Another author may choose to make the same five sentences into two.
Because she was dead, Milo would never see her again and he was wrong. Now, there was nothing he could do.
But a third author may wish to make it poetic and flowy, a third way to dramatize the scene.
Death is the one thing that would tear Milo away from the girl. Death was unstoppable, and no act could alter the course of fate anymore.
All three authors had the same tone: sad and powerless. However, one conveyed this in choppy sentences, one made it with straight forward, matter-of-fact sentences, and one did it with flowy sentences. These are ways that authors can individualize themselves from other authors, and create a pattern in their writing, keeping their voice stable.
Because that’s the most important part: Keeping your voice stable through the whole piece. Your voice is unique to you, so own it and use it.
Using Literary Elements
The main elements in fiction are narration, dialogue, description, characters, and suspense. I talk about these subjects and their purposes in another one of my articles, so if you are unsure about one of them, click the link for a refresh:
These five elements are crucial. Without them, you wouldn’t have a story.
But here’s the thing…
Every story is a ratio of these elements. If we were all being even, each element would get 20% of the story. This will probably make for a terrible story. You don’t want all of the elements to be 20% of your story. No thanks.
Instead, you have to decide for yourself how much of each element to include. One fun exercise to find your writer’s voice is to look over one of your pieces (or just parts of it, if it’s long) and estimate the ratio you use.
It doesn’t have to be perfect or exact. Just write down your findings and think: Do I like it? Do I want to continue using it? Does it enhance my piece? Does it reflect me?
If the answers to these questions are yes, then you’re well on your way to capturing your voice!
Here’s my results:
Dialogue = 50%
Characters = 20%
Narration = 15%
Description = 12%
Suspense = 3%
As you can see, I’m heavy on the dialogue and characters, but I don’t spend much on suspense. Not that I don’t like books with a lot of suspense, just that my particular voice doesn’t call for it.
Main Points
here’s the take aways:
- Your tone will guide the reader’s mood.
- Connotation (not denotation) affects your writer’s voice.
- The way your sentences are structured individualizes your voice.
- Keep your writer’s voice stable throughout your entire piece.
- Have a ratio of your literary elements (narration, description, dialogue, characters, and suspense)
- Keep practicing your writer’s voice, and it will get clearer and more distinct. The more you work at it, the more unique it will become, and the more it will reflect your personality.
I’m Evie Campbell and I write these blogs to support other writers on their journey. I’m right there with you, writing novels myself. You can help out your fellow writer by following me and clapping for this post. Also comment if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
Keep writing and I’ll see you next time!
