The Secret to Impressing Agents and Editors? Developing Voice in Your Writing
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When a manuscript gets dropped on a literary agent’s or publisher's desk, what are they looking for in the pages? Let's start with the obvious: they want strong writing, compelling characters, and a gripping plot. But there's another element every literary agent and publisher is looking for that we don't discuss enough, and it's absolutely essential to crafting an engaging, unputdownable story.
What is this critical element?
A strong narrative voice.
But this term can be difficult to define and identify. What does it mean for an author to have a strong voice? How do you recognize stories that have a strong voice from those that don't? And most importantly, how do you find and develop your writing voice as an aspiring author?
I'm going to walk through what voice means in fiction writing, why it's so important, and give you three practical exercises you can do today to help you in developing voice in your writing. Make sure you read all the way to the end because the last exercise is something a bit out of the box that I think is going to be super helpful in identifying and developing your writing voice.
What is Voice in Writing?
So, what is narrative voice, exactly? Voice is not one singular thing but an amalgamation of different elements of your writing that, put together, create your signature style. It includes elements like:
Tone
Sentence structure
Word choice
Think of it as your authorial personality. Every author has their own distinct, unique narrative voice that only they can write in. Voice is what makes your story feel authoritative and intentionally crafted; a storyteller with a strong narrative voice will stand out to a reader, and we will trust in their ability to deliver a compelling reading experience.
Voice is often what carries us through a story and what grants it that elusive, unputdownable quality that we all want to achieve. You might have a solid plot and great characters, but without a distinct narrative voice, you might not engage your readers. Voice can be what makes the difference between a story that's just okay and a literary masterpiece.
When literary agents and publishers post what they're looking for in stories, they will often discuss voice. In fact, if you look at profiles from the Manuscript Wishlist website from literary agents, you’ll find countless examples of agents who are looking for a “compelling voice,” who “always, always need a strong voice,” or who are “looking for authors that have a wonderful, engaging voice that makes me want to read a sentence again and say ‘wow,’ just because of how you worded something.”
So, we know that many literary agents are looking for voice — but how can you make sure your voice is coming through in your own manuscript?
Examples of Strong Narrative Voice
Voice is one of those elements of writing that is a lot easier to learn and recognize through examples, so I put together two examples of strong voice-driven passages from recently published novels: one in first person and one in third person.
Here's the opening paragraph from Circe by Madeline Miller:
“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities. We spoke to fish and nurtured flowers, coaxed drops from the clouds or salt from the waves. That word, nymph, paced out the length and breadth of our futures. In our language, it means not just goddess, but bride.”
Can you sense the author's voice in this passage? It feels like every sentence was crafted with this palpable voice in mind. I'd call the voice mysterious, lyrical, even a touch ominous. It makes the reader want to learn more about what it means for the narrator to be a nymph in this world.
Here's another example of a passage that exemplifies a strong voice, but written in third person. This is from Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin:
“Before Mazer invented himself as Mazer, he was Samson Mazer, and before he was Samson Mazer, he was Samson Masur—a change of two letters that transformed him from a nice, ostensibly Jewish boy to a Professional Builder of Worlds—and for most of his youth, he was Sam, S.A.M. on the hall of fame of his grandfather's Donkey Kong machine, but mainly Sam.”
I'd describe the voice in this passage as attentive, forthright, and even a bit playful. Notice that the composition of the passages are quite different — in Circe, Madeline Miller establishes her narrative voice through shorter, punchier sentences, whereas this passage from Gabrielle Zevin is all one sentence strung together with punctuation.
How to Develop a Voice in Writing
So you know that having a strong authorial voice is important to writing a gripping story and attracting literary agents and publishers, but how you go about identifying and developing your own writing voice? What practical steps can you take?
The truth is that the most effective way to develop your voice is deceivingly simple: it's to keep writing. You can't force your narrative voice; it's something that will emerge and evolve as you develop in your craft and continue your writing practice. But I know that voice can feel so intangible and nebulous, so I put together three practical exercises that I think will help you identify and hone your narrative voice.
1. Remix a Scene
The first writing exercise to develop your voice is to remix a scene in your work in progress. This fun exercise will help you experiment with your narrative voice, help spark new ideas, and enable you to discover what style will best suit your story.
Take one of the most consequential, dramatic scenes in your story and then revise it in four different ways:
Switch the point of view — if it's written in first person, write it in third person. If it's written in third person, write it in first person.
Switch the tense — if it's written in past tense, write it in present tense and vice versa.
Write it from a different character's perspective — maybe you're following the protagonist, but instead write the same scene from a secondary character's point of view.
Write it in dialogue — craft a conversation where one character who was present for the scene tells another character who wasn't present what happened.
The idea here is to explore how changing the POV, the tense, and the narrative angle allows you to flex different parts of your narrative voice and different stylistic choices. How does all of this impact the tone of the scene and the reader experience of it?
For example, I recently worked with an editing client who had a dual POV first person novel, but the first person voice really wasn't working for his secondary protagonist. He found it really hard to write in her voice, so instead he revised the entire novel to be in close third person, which he found came much more naturally to him, especially for that secondary protagonist. In that case, he discovered that the third person point of view better suited his narrative voice.
2. Solicit a Voice Check
It can be really difficult for you to see or hear your own narrative voice because it just comes naturally to you. In fact, you might think your voice sounds a certain way, but it comes across totally differently to readers. So, try sharing your work with a beta reader or a critique partner and specifically ask them questions about your voice. Here are some prompts to give them:
Can you describe my storytelling style in three words?
What stylistic patterns do you notice in my writing?
What lines or passages stand out to you, and how do they make you feel as a reader?
When writers get feedback, they often brush off the good feedback and then immediately focus on all the negative or constructive feedback — but pay attention to any good feedback that you get because you will learn a lot about your narrative voice through it. What are you particularly good at? What are your unique strengths as a writer — what I call your “writing superpowers”? How can you own those and leverage them as hallmarks of your authorial voice?
Embracing feedback and engaging with it is going to help you become more aware of your authorial voice and develop it.
3. Interview Yourself
Here's that outof the-box exercise I talked about in the beginning: it's to interview yourself. It may sound cheesy, but imagine that you're being interviewed for a feature piece in your favorite literary outlet, and ask yourself questions about your writing, your literary intentions, and your inspirations. You can write down your answers or simply just think about them, but ask yourself things like:
Who are your favorite authors, and why are you drawn to their stories?
What emotions do you want your readers to experience as they read your work?
What life experiences have shaped your perspective as a writer?
What themes are most important to you to explore in your work?
The answers to these questions inform how you approach your work and the stylistic choices that make up your authorial voice. Ultimately, voice is what you as the author bring to the story — your literary trademark that makes this your story and no one else's.
Think of your voice as your literary signature, like an artist's signature on their paintings. The art itself may be different, just like your style may vary from book to book, but that signature is the same and is always recognizable.
Now, if you don't feel like you've fully developed your narrative voice yet, don't worry — authors spend their whole careers honing their narrative voice. It's totally okay if you don't feel like you've quite found yours yet. It will come with time and practice, and remember that the more words you're putting on the page, the more you are developing your narrative voice.
Thanks so much for reading, and happy writing!