What Is Voice — And How To Get One

Of all the infuriatingly vague things about writing, voice is by far the vaguest one. And yet, it is THE thing everyone tells you matters the most.

“I didn’t like the voice,“ an agent will write in their rejection letter.

“The voice was so compelling I couldn’t put the book down,“ the reader will write in their Goodreads review.

But when you try and Google what voice is and how to create one, you realize it’s easier to define what constitutes dark matter or find instructions on how to split a Higgs boson.

So, from what I’ve seen in my writing circles, writers tend to treat voice as a chimera(per Oxford languages definition, a thing which is hoped for but is illusory or impossible to achieve).

The problem is: thinking about voice in vague terms, not being able to put our finger on what it is and what it’s not, makes it seem like it’s something ethereal and intangible that we can’t possibly master. It’s either there or it’s not. Or worse yet, You either have it or you don’t.

Kind of like what people must have thought about fire before they learned to strike flint against flint. It was either there or not, bestowed on them by some flick of the divine wrist—or not.

And since I believe that knowledge is power and there’s a science to things like fire, if only we look for it, and also because my brain has a desperate need for cognitive closure (term first coined by the social psychologist Arie Kruglanski, who eventually defined it as “individuals’ desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity,) I could not let the matter rest.

Until recently, when I had a coaching session with one of my clients, trying to explain what voice is and how to infuse her writing with it, and it all clicked together like sprocket and chain.

The Main Function of the Voice

Before I offer my definition of what voice is, let’s make sure we’re on the same page in regard to which voice I am referring to.

In the context of this article, I’m talking about the NARRATIVE VOICE. The narrator can be the protagonist (if the work is written in first person POV, or close third), but it can also be an outside narrator (omniscient, a choir, etc…). In multiple POV books, each narrator has to have their own voice—but also the whole of the voices combined has to be harmonius and with a distinct quality of its own, much like a symphony has its own identity even though each instrument plays its own separate line within it.

In other words, narrative voice is the voice of the whole piece (whether it be novel, short story, poem, memoir).

When you start reading (in whichever form), this is the voice that is immediately in your head. You can literally hear it. When done well, it is transportive and atmospheric, and it works like an anesthetic.

Well actually, exactly like an anesthetic, because how storytelling works, neurologically speaking, is by numbing our awareness of our immediate environment so that we can sink deeper into the world of the story—experiencing other people’s trials and tribulations as if they were our own, all from the safety of our couch. This is what allows us to learn that tigers are dangerous without putting ourselves at risk of getting torn into pieces.

This is why as soon as you hear the words Once upon a time, you feel yourself soften, your eyes mellow their gaze, and you are primed for the words ahead, for storytelling—much like Pavlov’s dogs drool at the sound of the bell.

So, the main function of the narrative voice is to anesthetize us. To suspend us. To transport us. To grip us with its invisible hand. In that sense, the voice is a sensation, an atmosphere. We feel it more than we know it. Like an oncoming storm, or the anticipation of snow.

That it’s more a sensation, a felt thing, than a knowledge—is exactly what makes it so hard to define.

What Can We Learn from Examples?

Now that we know what the voice does, how can we figure out what it is?

Let’s start with examples.

Read the opening of this novel.

I was born in a trailer park on an early-fall day. It was Wednesday, and when the contractions came, my mother had already passed out. She had taken a handful of pills and was lying unconscious on the floor, her body doing all the work without any help from her mind.

There is interesting stuff happening here, sure, but the voice itself is lacking. Now how’s this for a voice:

First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they’ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let’s just say out of it.

This is the opening of Barbara Kingsolver’s masterpiece, Demon Copperhead. The voiciest book I’ve ever read.

Let’s look at another example:

I woke up in the morning, and got out of bed. I needed to get ready. Soon, it would be time to walk my landlord’s dog. I lived above his garage, and Adam gave me a discount on the rent for walking the dog. It also gave me something to do so I wouldn’t think about all the depressing things in my life. My mother dying last winter. Or Luke, who broke up with me. Or my unfinished novel.

We get a lot of information here, and it’s not very poorly written (though not really good, either). But is it anesthetizing your brain? I would bet not.

Now, the original.

I have a pact with myself not to think about money in the morning. I’m like a teenager trying not to think about sex. But I’m also trying not to think about sex. Or Luke. Or death. Which means not thinking about my mother, who died on vacation last winter. There are so many things I can’t think about in order to write in the morning.

This is the opening of Lily King’s Writers & Lovers. Note that as the reader we get the same information from both excerpts—the person is a writer, and she is not doing well financially, and her mother died and this guy Luke is no longer in the picture. But the first excerpt feels like an automaton is giving us the info—while the second one is coming from the very depths of this person’s tortured soul.

So What Are We Really Seeing Here?

Let’s dissect what exactly these excerpts deliver:

• INFORMATION

Each of these excerpts tells us something. In Demon Copperhead, we see the birth of this baby boy while his mother is lying unconscious following an overdose. In Writers & Lovers, we get the character’s whole set up—where she is in her life.

• EMOTION

Neither of these excerpts is delivered matter-of-factly. You can feel the underlying emotion in both these pieces.

What we don’t see here because of the brevity of these excerpts, is that the underlying emotions shown in these excerpts are not only there in the opening paragraph. They paint the whole piece—these entire novels are mired with the exact kind of emotion that is established in this opening. This emotion, in other words, becomes this character’s disposition.

Why do we need information and emotion? Because, what the reader wants is something to be curious or concerned about. Something peculiar that will pique their interest. Information sparks curiosity. Emotion sparks concern. Both concern and curiosity are the building blocks of narrative drive. In (neuro)biological sense, curiosity and concern make us perk up our ears. They give our brain the signal that this is information worth noting—worth of excluding our immediate surroundings for a few minutes/hours.

If you infuse your opening with curiosity and concern, you will have caught your reader’s attention.

But in terms of voice, that is not enough. As you’ve seen from the examples I offered, I gave the exact same information in both my excerpts as the original excerpts, and also hints of the underlying emotion. But there was no voiciness to that writing.

Because the third ingredient was missing.

• SPECIFIC WAY OF SPEAKING

It’s the difference between hearing your very old uncle tell you about that one time when he… (insert an anecdote), and listening to Margaret Atwood’s book on Audible. Both are stories—but not the same experience.

In other words, voice isn’t necessary for storytelling (in general, I mean, because try to find a publisher if you don’t have one). But it elevates storytelling and gives it the undeniable artistic, immersive quality.

So, the narrator (whether they are an outside narrator or the main character of the novel) has to have an interesting way of expressing themselves. A certain way of speaking. A mannerism to their tone. It can be interesting use of grammar, or a particular way of arranging the information (see Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton series). An accent (look up Abi Dare’s The Girl With The Louding Voice). The way their brain makes the connections (Forrest Gump). The things they pay attention to (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow).

Or to put it more succinctly: Voice is information and underlying emotion packaged in a specific way of speaking.

Case in point. Read the following novel opening:

Things come from nowhere. The mind is empty and then, inside the frame, a pear. Perfect, green, the stem atilt, a single leaf.

Makes you lean in and listen, doesn’t it?

This is the opening of Miranda Cowley Heller’s The Paper Palace. What is she telling us here (information)? That she sees a pear. Not really interesting. Imagine if she said just that, That morning when I woke up and came downstairs, I saw a pear. Bo-ring!

But she is conveying more than that. Things come out of nowhere, she says. And you just know that she isn’t talking about the pear. Something happened here. The status quo is stirred. She notices the pear the way people notice all the details when they are on high alert (emotion). Which begs the question, what happened? Why is this protagonist on high alert? What happened to her out of nowhere? (Hello, curiosity + concern!).

You didn’t actively think any of these things reading that sentence, but you were anesthetized reading it nonetheless. And while you were numbed that way, your brain put two and two together, even if you were consciously thinking you were reading about a pear with the stem atilt.

And stem atilt? See how every word is said in a very particular way? She didn’t put it as plainly as she could—I got up, got downstairs and saw a pear. Something happened, by the way, that made me very alert. She elevated it in an artistic way, not compromising neither the information she wanted to deliver, nor the emotion.

Similarly, in the quoted excerpt from Demon Copperhead, the information is that the baby boy is being born while his mother is lying overdosed and unconscious. The underlying emotion is tenacity, audacity, gumption, the indestructible spirit of this boy—the narrator. First, I got myself born, he tells us. It’s not a self-pitying voice, it’s not an indifferent voice, there is a distinct feeling of spiritedness in this kid. And the way it’s all worded? “…my mother being let’s just say out of it.” Couldn’t get more specific than that.

In Lily King’s excerpt, the information we get is the set-up about the main character. She is poor, dumped, grieving, and a novelist trying to write a book. You get this strangled feeling in your throat when you’re reading—pain and grief that the narrator is trying so hard to keep in check (emotion), and she said it in a way that resembles a real person’s train of thought. Or Luke. Or Death. Which means not thinking about my mother who died on vacation last winter.

We don’t yet know how (not) thinking about Luke makes her (not) think about death. But later on, we learn that Luke also lost someone, and so of course that thinking about Luke will make her think of death, which makes her think about her grief and losing her mom.

So there you have it.

Voice = information + emotion + specific way of expression.

So How do You Get One?

How do you infuse your writing with this ethereal thing that is voice?

• Go back to your work. Start with your opening line—make sure you’re opening the novel in a place where the status quo is stirred in some way.

• Identify the information you want to get across.

• Identify the main emotion you want to convey. Make sure it’s the emotion that will in some shape or form linger throughout the MS, despite all the changes the narrator will endure. All novels have a big underlying emotion underneath them—a disposition— that, no matter what happens inside the novel, stays present throughout. In Thirst For Salt, it’s longing. In Tom Lake, it’s this warm enveloping, with a touch of nostalgia. In Yellowface, it’s this (funny) irreverence.

• See if there is a specific detail only your narrator would notice, a train of thought they could follow specific only to them. A particular way of weaving wordstogether. Interesting simile or metaphor only they might use that would take the reader by surprise. A brazen or funny way they might quip back to something.