I’m a teen, a man, a girl, from here, there and everywhere
Do you need to be everyone, or just yourself?
Tone of voice is vitally important as a writer.
But do you need to be yourself or try to be someone else? There are many stories to be told. Whether you find a story in the voice of an Indian man looking back over his life or a time-traveller bent on saving JFK, the voice you choose makes or breaks the story.
So, how do you ‘get’ any voice that isn’t your own? How do you make your story sound believable?
I’d suggest that the first step is to include at least some of your own voice in the story. You don’t have to be one of the most heard voices such as -
- The lead character
- The narrator
- The most frequent speaker
But it really does help if you are in there in some way shape or form at some stage of the proceedings. In my first novel, David’s Goliath by Steven Thompson, the main character does have some of my life, traits and personality in him.
But I also made sure of two other things -
- There was plenty of personality in there that wasn’t me
- There was some of me in the other characters too
What about this in reality?
Here’s a short excerpt of the book, where you can see some personality and style coming through -
They went back home on the bus. It wasn’t totally necessary, David thought, but it was a pleasant break from the cold of the walk. As they got on the bus David felt immediately surrounded by the germs of the world. There were people sat left, right and centre coughing and sneezing. David felt the germs closing in on him and couldn’t find anywhere to turn. One woman caught him trying to cover his face as she coughed. She didn’t look happy with the fact he wanted to protect himself from the germs she was spraying across the bus without even as much as a hand to cover her mouth.
“Is there a problem?” she said with a large degree of aggression that indicated she though there was.
“No, I’d just like to avoid a cold if at all possible,” David replied. Although he only took a few seconds to reply, the time was spent wondering how best to approach his response. He didn’t want to escalate the discussion, but also didn’t want to appear weak. As it turned out, it didn’t really matter. She wasn’t listening.
“Do you think you are better than me?” she spoke in a louder pitch than the first question. She had gone straight for escalation.
“I don’t know you. Just like you don’t know me,” David resorted to the tactics that would put some distance between them. He assumed that this would work.
“Just stay away from me,” was the reply, not one that he had been expecting at all.
“That is what I was trying to do. You see we usually go by car. This way we can keep all our germs in-house. We don’t feel the need to import any. Our kids go to school and bring home quite enough without looking for any new illnesses or germs,” David strung his sentence out because he knew it was his stop coming soon. He was more than happy to speak and alight. And this is just what the four of them did. The eyes of the bus were on him and this other passenger but David knew it would be over soon. All he would have to deal with instead were the eyes of his wife and kids. He had dealt with that hundreds of times before.
I actually empathise with both people in this situation. I can see why someone wouldn’t want to catch germs as well as seeing why someone would be offended if a stranger pulled away from them.
I wouldn’t act in either of these ways but have seen similar confrontations in different stages of my life. Being able to incorporate this in my writing has made it feel more real.
I don’t need to be either character to make it look like a real encounter on the page. You should look at this for your writing.
One of the things I did was speak to people who had been in situations like this. I absorb stories and talk all the time. It is part of being a writer. If this isn’t a natural thing then make notes as you go. The more of these little stories and ideas you build up, the better your work will be in the long run.
In conclusion, to be a good writer, authenticity is crucial. Don’t take on a writing task where you have no connection at all to the people in the story. Put some of yourself in the story and it will feel as real as is necessary.
