The Writer's Voice

 In the prison writing classes and writing groups, the topic of a writer's voice came up for a while. Nathan Bransford published a post, What is the “narrative voice?” on the topic. I do not know that I read anything on this subject that was so on point. This has been something concerning myself, who still feels he has all the style of a flat-footed elephant. 

Some comments from the article I want to repeat:

A narrative voice is the non-dialogue storytelling that communicates description, action, thought processes, and context to the reader in a manner that’s infused with the anchoring POV’s personality.

Got all that? Ha. Don’t worry, if that sounds like gobbledygook, we’re going to spend the rest of the post unpacking it.

In essence: It’s the storytelling voice. Dialogue gives you a chance to let secondary characters speak for themselves, but the narrative voice is the guide that pulls the reader through the novel and provides all of the information that’s necessary for the reader to understand what’s happening.

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The narrative voice provides crisp, clear physical description and action that helps anchor the reader in the setting and, better yet, immerses them in the setting. Even if your novel is dialogue-heavy, it shouldn’t mean no physical description, it might just mean economical physical description.

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Show don’t tell is often misunderstood. It’s okay to hit pause and simply explain unfamiliar concepts to the reader (such as how the protagonist met their significant other).

Unless you’re writing something very experimental, the narrative voice is not a stream-of-conscious transcription of a character’s literal thoughts in another time and place. It doesn’t have to be strictly true to the world of the novel.

The narrator is storytelling to someone in the reader’s place and time. It’s breaking the fourth wall. That means that the narrative voice needs to provide the reader with the information they need to understand what’s happening in the present narrative.

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Narrative voice is not “and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened.” Always look for chances to weave the anchoring POV’s personality into what’s being described. It’s a filtered view of the world.

Even with a true omniscient voice that’s not a named character, I still encourage authors to think about who the omniscient narrator is and to think of that voice as its own character. It should still have a personality and perspective, which will help you keep an omniscient voice unified and consistent.

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A narrative voice really and truly is what will make or break your novel. All of the most scintillating dialogue in the world isn’t going to overcome a weak or nonexistent narrative voice, while a beautiful narrative voice can more than outweigh some pretty generic dialogue.

I read something about Thackeray's Vanity Fair years ago, just before I did read the novel, to the effect that Thackeray had such a strong narrative voice there had never been a proper film adaptation. I came to agree with this opinion when I read the novel. So, I suggest reading the novel to better understand what Bransford means by narrative voice.

The post has examples, so do give it a look.

 sch 9/5/22