Author Voice – Maintaining
This is the third of three articles on the topic of Author Voice. This considers how to maintain author voice throughout the editing process. The first defined what author voice is. The second looked at how to find and develop an author voice.
Introduction
Outside Influences
Roundup
Related Articles
Maintaining author voice can be surprisingly difficult. Outside influences can impact. In an eagerness to produce the best possible outcome authors may lose sight of their determining voice by taking into account all amendment suggestions. Of course, they should consider suggestions but before implementing stand back and consider the impact such a change will have upon the work as a whole and on their voice in particular.
Outside InfluencesSome of the outside influences which may impact:
Beta Readers – The generosity of people willing to help authors by accepting and reading advance drafts of a work and providing feedback cannot be understated. However, the author should be aware each person is different and has their own outlook upon life. For example, what one see as positive another may consider negative. There are also social and cultural influences. Of course, the author should take into account all the feedback but ensure they are not led away from what was their original intent for the work or the voice they chose.
Editors – It will be easier to explain this by sharing a couple of examples:
1. One author who succeeded in having their manuscript accepted by a traditional publisher suffered with multiple editors. Apparently his editors kept leaving meaning the publishing company had to keep appointing new ones. Each had their own ideas, sometimes completely varied and contrary to those of previous colleagues. As may be imagined the author ended up in a confused and frustrated state. They could have tried to take on board all suggestions which, without doubt, would have undermined their author voice and probably the story. (In the end the author gave up and independently published the book, keeping their own unique voice.)
2. Another author employed an editor to help make their book the best they could. However, they found the editor did not ‘get’ the story. Had they accepted the suggested alterations their voice, as well as their book, would have been damaged. (They self-published without the editors amendments and went on to find success.)
Advice for editors, written by editors, includes:
Avoid revising text if there is no technical issue.If the content is correct and clear leave it alone.Leave punctuation, word choices, sentence and paragraph structures as is. (These usually form an integral part of an author’s voice.) Naturally, if there are glaring inconsistencies or conceived errors they can mention them but should not insist upon automatic correction/amendment.Grammar Tools – Usually very helpful but may lead the author to makes style changes which diminish their established voice. Naturally, authors should take note of suggestions and apply changes where they consider them appropriate. However, with a desire to produce the best writing possible, it is easy for them to feel under pressure to comply with all recommendations. This is not necessary. Some points may be ignored without diminishing the final product. To be able to make the right judgment authors should always keep the overall style of voice they have chosen to the fore.
Review Comments – Authors would be wise to read all reviews of their works. The positive, high rating ones provide encouragement. The less positive, or outright negative, often provide insights the author may not have recognised. Some reviewers not only review the content but go further by mentioning the writing style and presentation. These can be very useful to the wise author. No one ever stops learning. No one may confidently state they know all there is to know about a subject. The only mitigation to this are those reviews which are clearly malicious (sad to think there are people who consider such behaviour acceptable). However, though an author should never respond to, or feel disheartened by, such reviews it is still worth reading them to see if there are any valid points amongst the detritus.
RoundupThere are many influences that can undermine the voice an author has chosen for their work. Most are external though a lack of confidence or uncertain personality may also impact.
To maintain their chosen author voice throughout the writing and publishing process, authors need to know the voice they have chosen and keep it before them all the time. They may find it useful to utilise, and keep handy, the free worksheet available from this website.
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