Writer's Wednesday: Avoiding a Faceless Voice

 **Image snatched from Deviantart.com**

VOICE.

You know your characters have to have one. We hear it all the time: agents and editors are looking for voice.  Sounds simple enough in theory.  Your characters speak, and that's their voice.  But so many times, I feel like all I'm getting out of a character is a voice without a face (hence, the picture).  I think this is what happens when people describe characters as being flat or 2-dimensional.  These are all ways of saying the character lacks a distinctive voice.

When I think of VOICE, I'm thinking about understanding the core of the person.  Knowing a character's personality so well that I can curl up inside their brain for a bit.  I don't need to be TOLD what a character looks like, I need to be allowed to see it on my own by knowing them from the inside out.

As an author, one of the things that helps me (I hope) create characters with voice is to find faces for them.  I'll scour the internet searching for faces that represent the characters who are already playing around inside my head.  For me, having a face to look at, eyes that peer back at me from a storyboard, helps me dig deeper into that character's personality.  Each of us has many sides, feelings, thoughts versus actions, etc.

Take this personal example. I played a lot of carpool last week and brought 2 other kids home for a 4-hour playdate.  Their mom called me super-mom.  What she didn't see was me frequently checking my watch or working to modulate my routinely brusque tone so I didn't scare the 4 year old in my charge.  What I appeared to the other mom on the outside was quite different from how I felt on the inside.

Your characters have to be multi-dimensional too, or they will lack voice.

Hopefully the following examples will illustrate what I'm trying to say.  In each of them, these MC's voices are so clear to me that I can picture being best buds with this person. I understand them, where they're coming from, and that gives them "voice":

Example 1 --

Mia's words rattle something loose in me and suddenly there are tears all over my damn face again.  I haven't cried in three years and now this is like the second time in as many days.


"It's my turn to see you through," she whispers, coming back to me and wrapping me in her blanket as I lose my shit all over again.  She holds me until I recover my Y chromosome.  Then she turns to me, a slightly faraway look in her eyes.  "Your festival's next Saturday, right?" she asks.

Where She Went by Gayle Forman -- voice of Adam Wilde, 21 year old rock star

Example 2 --

The "Holy-crap-that's-a-lot-of-pink" Zone would have been a more accurate description.


I don't know what I was expecting a vampire's room to look like. Maybe lots of black, a bunch of books by Camus ... oh, and a sensitive portrait of the only human the vamp had ever loved, who had no doubt died of something beautiful and tragic, thus dooming the vamp to an eternity of moping and sighing romantically.


What can I say? I read a lot of books.


But this room looked like it had been decorated by the unholy love child of Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake.

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins, voice of Sophie Mercer, 16 year old witch

For me, each of these characters have a three-dimensional voice in completely different ways.  Their word choices, in particular, give concrete clues about what's going on inside their brains.  Whereas Adam is showing us that he's disgusted with himself for crying (tears all over my damn face, lose my shit), Sophie is displaying her shock and biting wit (unholy love child of Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake).  Just by reading a few paragraphs of their voice, I have an image of them in my brain.

So as an author, I'd encourage you to think about not only the "voice" you want to project, but the face as well.  If the tone, word choice and sentence structure aren't consistent and distinctive enough to allow your reader to form their own mental picture of your characters, it might be time to get out the red pen.

What are your tips for creating a distinctive voice?

LITERARY TERMS IV: Passive Voice

Passive voice is where the true subject of a sentence trails towards the end and is acted upon. It does NOT do the action. It's the bystander at a game or a patron waiting for a server to take their order. Or in the case below, it's the dog letting the water act upon him.

(noun) (verb clause) by (noun) ~ subject starting the thought but allowing the following verb to stimulate or move a noun (possible subject) instead.

Passive ~ Oasis for YA was asked by the passive subject (noun) to study the topic of further.
Active ~ The passive subject (noun) asked Oasis for YA to study the topic of further.

The easiest way to switch from passive to active voice is to keep the (noun) (verb) construction intact and negate the ending by (noun).

Passive ~ "The speaker is interrupted by the students."
Active ~ "The students interrupt the speaker."

Passive ~ The title, approximate word count, and a one paragraph description of your manuscript are expected in a query letter by most agents.
Active ~ "Most agents expect the title, approximate word count, and a one paragraph description in a query letter."

Passive ~ "The conversation was soured by the crass remarks of the gossip queens."
Active ~ "The gossip queens soured the conversation with their crass remarks."

In each of these examples, I've italicized where the structure went passive and bold where to move it, making the sentence active. Another word to watch out for is the word was. Using was does not necessarily make a sentence passive (I was skating on the ice...) ACTIVE, where (Jake's hockey stick was being used by Tom.) PASSIVE. It's just a word to make note of when checking and editing your writing.

Cleaning up passive construction can breath new life and 'voice' into your writing. This isn't saying that all passive construction should be avoid. Just used in moderation.

Next time I'm up for Wednesday, we'll delve a little deeper and look at Active Voice itself.

Take a portion of your current manuscript, short story, or article and check it for passive voice. See how many times you use it and try changing a few to active voice. Can you spot passive voice with ease?

LITERARY TERMS III: I Am Voice

The concept of 'Voice' can be intimidating. It doesn't have to be.

credit for image

When I think about voice, the first thing that comes to mind is distinction.

Most people would recognize Mickey Mouse's voice without any explanation. And few people would mistake Miss Piggy's voice for Kermit the Frog's voice. Both are identifiable ~ unique.

What makes a voice standout from another? What makes voice distinct? 

Tone, Diction, and sentence structure play a huge roll in defining voice. (Sounds like dialog just might be my next Writer Wednesday theme.)

Voice reflects the "who" of your character and the invisible drapery of personality, hopes, dreams, hurts, and those desires hidden even from them. It gives "sound" to your words on the page. Voice connects the layers of a character.

Miss Piggy is a snarky, stubborn verigo with a relatively stalkerish crush on Kermit the Frog. How do I know this? Diction or word choice, firstly. If you've ever listened to the dialog written for her, you've noticed the distinct rawness to her words. She rarely speaks with sweet or calming words, unless she's trying to soften some blow to poor Kermit. And then there's the bluntness she delivers her words, her mannerisms and force. That would be Tone.

Background, ethnic group, and setting of the story can also be huge in developing voice. Develop and plan, these. A character's experiences also steer voice. We've all read characters that speak hard or rough and then those who seem way too meek for anyone's good. Just as your life experiences have molded you, so have the struggles and hurdles of your character's life. Understand each like it was your life.

If you're having trouble with voice, try asking yourself these questions:

1. What is this character's background? (It may not be developed enough.)

2. What is the world they live in and how do they relate to it? (You may need more description and think about it in relation to the character.)

3. How well do I know or understand 1 &2? (If not, do more research.)

4. What are his/her motivations behind the goals I've set?

There are many exercises to developing voice.

Take a character from a book or movie you know well. I mean really well. We all had them, probably from high school. Set them in a place they'd never go and think what they'd say. If it feels out of sync, you probably understand their voice.

You can also take a staple character like a Jewish Rabbi or a traffic cop from a small town and put them in a place you wouldn't expect them to travel. Maybe put the Rabbi in a populated amusement park and the small-town traffic cop on the stand at a Superior Court proceeding. What do you hear?

Lastly, a great exercise is journaling. It can be true to your life or pretend. Just write as if it's your life.

Voice takes practice but it can be fun to play with. For me, it's one of the few aspects of writing I'm comfortable with. I love mixing it up, putting words in a character's mouth that no one would expect yet keeping them true to who they are as my make believe friends.

Can you think of a character with an unforgettable voice?