Different voices
Each writer has a voice, but then characters have voices, too. Once upon a time, after I first sent The Secret Year off to my editor, I worked on other projects. When the novel came back for revisions, I had to channel its main character again, and I worried that I might have lost his voice.
No problem. As soon as I started working on the book again, there he was, speaking in my ear.
I've been working on a project that I'd left alone for quite a while, and I've been struck by the main character's voice--and how, even though he is a teenage male like the narrator of my first book, his voice is different. He doesn't look at things the same way; his sense of humor is different. He chooses different words, and the rhythm of his speech is different.
Both characters have some underlying similarities that probably spring from my own attitudes, vocabulary, and experience, but I definitely hear them on different mental channels.
If you have a copy of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women lying around, it contains at least two splendid examples of how characters can sound completely different, even when they spring from a single author's brain:
In Chapter 12, "Camp Laurence," a group of people at a picnic take turns adding on to a story they're making up as they go along. The manner and content of each one's speech is so distinctive that you could probably figure out which one adds which part of the story, even without dialogue tags.
In Chapter 16, "Letters," the main characters each write a letter. Again, you hardly need to look at the signatures to figure out who wrote which letter.
No problem. As soon as I started working on the book again, there he was, speaking in my ear.
I've been working on a project that I'd left alone for quite a while, and I've been struck by the main character's voice--and how, even though he is a teenage male like the narrator of my first book, his voice is different. He doesn't look at things the same way; his sense of humor is different. He chooses different words, and the rhythm of his speech is different.
Both characters have some underlying similarities that probably spring from my own attitudes, vocabulary, and experience, but I definitely hear them on different mental channels.
If you have a copy of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women lying around, it contains at least two splendid examples of how characters can sound completely different, even when they spring from a single author's brain:
In Chapter 12, "Camp Laurence," a group of people at a picnic take turns adding on to a story they're making up as they go along. The manner and content of each one's speech is so distinctive that you could probably figure out which one adds which part of the story, even without dialogue tags.
In Chapter 16, "Letters," the main characters each write a letter. Again, you hardly need to look at the signatures to figure out who wrote which letter.
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