Voice in writing
Having a clearly defined literary voice can have a timeless appeal. In a piece of fiction, voice can mean –
- Author’s voice,
- Character’s voice and
- Narrator’s voice.
The Narrator’s voice –
The narrator is the ‘all-seeing eye’ of a story. In a case where there can be no specific attribute or name given to the narrator (Hills like White Elephants by Earnest Hemmingway), it can still have that omniscient point-of-view or POV, which can access characters’ feelings and thoughts and knows where the story is taking the reader. The narrator’s voice is the voice of the character or personality narrating the story. This voice can be different from the author’s voice, unless the author is narrating the story herself, like in case of personal essays, where she would consciously try to reveal her style of writing to the reader and would like to adopt an honest, natural tone to stay as close to her own personality as possible. While doing this, she would also understand how this style of writing relates to her audience.
So, narrator’s voice is the voice of the person telling the story. Just like in a Radio drama, we are able to tell the character’s voice from the narrator’s voice, while reading fiction, we can discern the same. We can tell one voice from the other. The narrator will have his own set of diction, mood and style of telling the story and can take a particular POV (Point of View.), different from the Author’s.
Character’s voice –
A story can have multiple character voices. A character’s voice tells us about their personality, disposition (characteristic attitude) and background. In a story every character has their own way of expression. He may sound casual or cautious, terse or verbose, traits revealed by the way they use words and react in a dialogue or scene.
The precise elements that may be studied to understand a character’s voice are their –
- Tone
- Diction
- Dialect
- Level of introversion or extroversion
These elements may also reveal their age, nationality or life experiences.
For example, in E.B. White’s Charollete’s Web, Charollete, the female spider is like an old teacher with a caring and selfless demeanor when she speaks to Wilbur, the pig. She speaks with clarity and there’s an inspirational slant in her language.
“These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days…”
- Charollete, from Charollete’s Web.
Wilbur, on the other hand is diffident and low in self-esteem.
“But Charlotte,” said Wilbur, “I’m not terrific.” – Wilbur (when Charollete decides to spin the word ‘Terrific’ through her web, for the him.)
Author’s Voice
The author’s voice is her personality coming through on the page. It includes everything from her tone (attitude towards a problem), her word choice or diction, punctuation and sentence structure. Her thoughts, part of her voice, are also conveyed through the voices of her characters and their background like age, nationality etc.
An example of voice could be the long, crafty sentences of Dickens or, cut to the chase sentences (without much use of adverbs) of Hemmingway.
An author’s voice is also determined by –
- Mood
- Or worldview
- Point of View
Voice of the following authors transcends their individual work –
- Earnest Hemmingway
- Toni Morrison
- James Joyce
- Joyce Oates
- Margret Atwood
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Meaning of the worldview –
Every author has a picture they paint of the world. There’s a certain way they think about the world according to their own values, experiences and learnings. A worldview or perspective, is what an author thinks about worldly topics like – love, family, terrorism etc. and this can be narrated through the characters in fiction and through first or second person point of view in case of Non-fiction.
For example, if I am standing facing the façade of a large building and if I were to tell somebody how the building looks, I would give the description of the facade. It’s like seeing something from one angle and only talking about that angle in detail. Like talking from a young man’s perspective, the story might take us into different action-oriented scenes, making us feel that life is really adventurous, and from an old man’s perspective it might be more observational and analytical.