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Two questions will help you make this tool work. “Can you give me an example?” will drive the speaker down the ladder. But “What does that mean?” will carry him aloft.
“Voice is the sum of all the strategies used by the author to create the illusion that the writer is speaking directly to the reader from the page.”
What is the level of language?
What “person” does the writer work in?
What are the range and the source of allusions?
How often does the writer use metaphors and other figures of speech?
What is the length and structure of the typical sentence?
What is the distance from neutrality?
How does the writer frame her material?
To test your writing voice, the most powerful tool on your workbench is oral reading.
The editor may see an unnecessary phrase, but what does its deletion do to the rhythm of the sentence? That question is best answered by oral—and aural—reading.
