Capturing your narrator’s voice

Here’s a post from Writers Helping Writers: How Do You Find Your Narrator’s Voice?

Voice is one of those elements that can make or break a manuscript. If you get it right, the novel will live in the reader’s mind long after they put the book down. Without it, the story won’t quite achieve what you’ve intended even if all the structural elements are in place. …

What doesn’t work? asks this post.

Answers: verbal tics and habits. Sarcasm (because it’s overused). I bet we could come up with other things that don’t work. Modern slang in a world far removed from the real world. That can work, but only if the author is doing it on purpose. I’m thinking of the Andromeda tv show here. I quite liked that show — well, some episodes — and I specifically noticed how the modern slang added to the humor of the show. I would add that sarcasm is fantastic as long as it’s not the only aspect of the narrator’s voice. I mean, look at the Scholomance trilogy. Sarcasm, sure, but that’s not at all the sum of El’s voice.

Of course the linked post goes on to propose answers to the question: What does work?

Understanding who your narrator is. That’s the fundamental answer. This post starts by talking about character backstory: how old are they, are they married, what do they do for a living, stuff I guess I do automatically and don’t think about. I’m glad to see this line: I don’t think character questionnaires are the way to nail voice. Right, I don’t think so either. So the post offers just these very broad questions, which I think is fine. You’re going to know the answers to those things, probably.

Here’s the key: slip on their shoes and see the world through their eyes. 

Yes. I agree with that: This is indeed the key, the only thing that actually does the job. I like this line:

Unless the author is the narrator, they have no business speaking up.

That made me chuckle. I think that’s true — I think that’s where a lot of “message fic” fails. We ought to be in the pov of a young woman in a steampunk Victorian-ish setting, but golly gee, amazing how all her opinions are identical to conventional wisdom that’s current today. Wait, I thought we were in a futuristic version of Singapore, but turns out all the protagonists opinions are … yep, still totally identical to current conventional wisdom.

I’m thinking of specific books that failed for me for this exact reason. One was well written in every other way, but though I liked it while I was actually reading it, I liked it less and less in retrospect and finally moved all the way through the spectrum and wound up disliking it. The other book I’m thinking of is quite popular, so it obviously works for many readers, but I rolled my eyes all the time while I was reading it and never touched anything else by the author. In both cases, the author’s voice was loud in my ears; the voice of the supposed pov narrator voice faded into the background or didn’t exist at all.

Back to the linked post:

Voice is not the only thing in a novel. But if you don’t nail it, you won’t have used point of view to its fullest potential, nor will you truly know your story—because you won’t know the main actors who are driving it forward. It won’t feel authentic, and your readers won’t feel the same emotional draw that they’ll experience when a character comes to life on the page and says, Let me show you what the world looks like through my eyes.

Yep, that.

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