Welcome back everyone to the second post in the prose series. Glad you all came back for another one. The last post was a little short but this one should have a bit more explanation and detail since now we’re getting into some of the more specific characteristics and rules of prose. So without further ado,
Prose: Writing Voice
Voice is one of those characteristics of prose that you just never quite seem to understand until you have read/listened/experienced lots of different forms of writing or lots of different books in a singular genre. Once you do you can begin to understand what the difference between voice and writing style really is.
I remember one time when I was in third grade we had a daily writing assignment. My third grade teacher (who was awesome) gave us each a small little notebook at the beginning of the school year. Every Tuesday and Thursday at the beginning of our lessons after lunch we had a short writing period. We were given around 30 minutes to write as much of a story as we wanted. This was the first time I ever realized as a kid that I liked writing.
Whenever we were done with these minutes she would collect our writing notebooks and on Wednesday and Friday we would get them back. We could write one continuous story or a new story each day. Mondays after lunch before our lesson, instead of writing time or time to look at her replies to our stories like the rest of the week, we had sharing time were if we wanted to we could read our story out loud to the class.
It was when receiving these little notes on our writing that I started to notice that my teacher was writing, “Really good understanding of voice.” I remember reading that and getting really confused and that day after school I asked my Mom, “What is voice?” I remember her telling me that it was the way that my story sounded and so for a long time that is what I thought writing voice was – my voice.
It wasn’t until I was in high school in an AP English class that I really learned what voice was. Voice was not necessarily my voice.
Writing voice is the combination of vocabulary, syntax, tone, punctuation, point of view, and a variety of other things that indicate a specific narrative personality.
When writing those stories in third grade they were usually about someone very similar to me with a very similar age to me so writing in exactly the way I thought or spoke indicated a great use of voice because the variety of things that make up a voice matched the character and narration style. However, when I used this type of writing voice as I had been told that it was when I was young in an AP English class focused on academic style essays I was losing points for using the wrong type of voice.
Voice then is different from writing style because writing style is specific to a particular writer and voice can be manipulated. For example, when you think of your favorite author they may have a specific writing style. Maybe they always use chapter headings, or maybe they always torture their characters, or other things that you associate specifically with that writer and their style. Writing voice can change from genre to genre and book to book but could be written by the same author.
For example, if I were to write a book and change my writing voice to a more normal speech style pattern using informal speech it makes the book feel like it’s written for more younger middle grade or elementary audiences. If I use a lot of extraneous words or a broader vocabulary in longer style sentences to indicate larger points, then perhaps I am writing an academic paper aimed at a highly educated academic audience.
Throughout this series we will discuss the different aspect of writing prose that make up writing voice such as syntax, writing style, the different types of vocabulary, and other writing things related to the writing voice.
Whatever kind of writing voice you are using though, it is important to pay attention and use the right voice for the story you are working on. It doesn’t make sense to write a fictional romance novel aimed at adults and write in a voice that fits better with children’s novels. It also doesn’t make sense to use a writing voice for YA fiction when writing an academic paper.
So, in conclusion, although voice is often mixed up with writing style, they are a little different. Writing style is the specific style of a writer and their stories while a writing voice is the narrative personality of a story made up of the vocabulary, syntax, and other writing rules.
Writing voice is something that has always been fascinating to me as a writer and became even more fascinating to play around with once I learned what it really was. If you really want to improve your understanding of writing voice try changing the syntax, vocabulary or other things of your writing and see what that does to the feeling or personality of your narrator. Read other kinds of writings in different genres and try reading both fiction and non-fiction. Identify what the writing voice is in each piece of writing and what makes the voice work or not work.
I hope that this week’s post was helpful and that you can learn now what writing voice is and how to play with it. That’s all I have for this post. Let me know if you have any thoughts about writing voice that I didn’t mention. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the link on the bottom of the page. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
Comentarios