Finding Your Writer’s Voice
Rowan Coleman
A writer’s voice is a tricky thing. Every writer knows that they should have it, every publisher is certain that they want it, and every reader needs to trust it in order to be able to enjoy the reading experience. And yet it is also a nebulous thing, a curious thing, and an instinctive thing. It’s not actually something you can teach.
However I do think it’s something you can try to understand, to unlock and to explore, in your own writing. Since I’ve been asked to lead a workshop on voice for Artists & Writers Yearbook to support Book Aid, I’ve been thinking about my own process, and the process of other writers, when it comes to knowing your ‘Voice’ and I’ve come up with some ideas for exploring your voice.
For this article I’m focusing on one particular niche of voice, which is finding the voice of your characters.
A couple of years ago I was engaged in writing ‘The Memory Book,’ a novel about a woman in her early forties who has been diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s. It’s a novel, not just about the disease itself, but sense of self, identity, and above all else, love. Crucially, it is told in the first person, much of it from Claire’s perspective.
For me it would have been impossible not to write from Claire’s point of view, because so much of the book was about her coming to terms with everything that she was losing, but finding her voice was a challenge.
When you are creating a character, there are a number of tools that you have in your armoury. Ways of discovering their past, their likes, their passions, the moment in their lives that have defined them, that have brought to the point that represents page one of your novel.
For me, that part of creating Claire was relatively straightforward. However, finding her first person voice was an altogether more difficult challenge and one that was full of false starts and wrong turns. She had a kind of ‘base camp’ voice, created from the history that I imagined for her, but it was a voice that was being altered and eroded by the disease. And that was something that I don’t, and hope never to have, first person experience of.
It’s important to remember when you are creating a character’s voice, and also with your own authorial voice, that it is an evolving process, it is like so much of your first draft. You won’t get it right the first time. It takes time to settle into the particular zone where achieving the voice you want becomes possible. And it takes certainty. And achieving certainty takes experimentation.
During my weeks of experimentation I discovered everything I could about Alzheimer’s, and people living with the disease. I was able to gain a certain amount of insight into thinking patterns, fears, thoughts, and the progress that the disease took, from the perspective of both the person who had it, and the people that loved them. I found a lot of fear, and a lot of grief.
A lot of anger, bitterness, and above all of that, so much abiding, strong and determined love. As yet there is no happy ending for families affected by AD, and so I also discovered acceptance, and adjustments. I found that people pick up the pieces of their lives every day, knowing that as each day passes one more piece will be missing and a kind of grim certainty that there was nothing that could be done to alter to path of disease, a certainty, which in turn, created courage.
From all of the external research I created the building blocks for Claire’s voice. I knew she loved her life fiercely, and I knew she didn’t want it to be gone. I knew she feared for her children, and most of all dreaded forgetting them. I knew she was a person who would burn her brightest at the very last. I had the building blocks for Claire’s voice.
But how confident could I be in her voice, and the way she expresses herself, as her Alzheimer’s increasingly took over her life? How did I know I was getting it right?
For that I went to written first person accounts of living with Alzheimer’s from people that have been diagnosed with the disease. And that taught me an awful lot, it taught me that there is a disconnect between how someone with AD can express their thoughts externally, and what is going on inside.
A person might not be able to articulate what they are thinking or feeling clearly, they might be losing language, but they are still thinking and feelings those things.
It was a vital insight in AD as a whole, and particularly for Claire’s voice. It gave me the freedom and the confidence, the certainty – as much as I could ever be certain – that the voice I was creating for her was as authentic as I was able to make it. And from that moment on she became a three dimensional person for me, and to- date is still one of my most favourite characters.
That was one process for finding the voice of one character. For the novel I have just completed it was a different process again, and I know I will have to find another path for the next book I am about to begin work on.
But for me, the greatest key to unlocking your voice as a writer, and the voices of your characters is to be sure, and to be certain that you are choosing the right path to express your ideas, and your self. Explore all the possibilities and then when you have, settle on the one that works for you. Believe in yourself.
—
Rowan Coleman is the Sunday Times bestselling author of twelve novels including ‘The Memory Book’ and the award winning ‘Runaway Wife‘. She lives in Hertfordshire with her large family and dog.
Category: How To and Tips
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Women writers writing about women, or about men,or any topic is a good idea.
we should not be restricted to writing only about women
Rowan – what a thoughtful piece. I especially liked where you remind us that we are not only creating a character’s voice, but also have to stay grounded with our “own authorial voice.” That’s a mind-bender. I recently wrote a memoir and truly had no clue as to how or what my own voice would turn out to be. So I stumbled through and through the act of writing (and writing…and writing) discovered that I do have a voice. I just can’t name or describe it. You dig into that conversation and bring up a lot of ways to think about the process. Thanks!
Rowen- fascinating insights into the process of finding your character’s voice. I agree that it’s a little like method acting, and research is vitally important.
hello Elizabeth, up until The Memory Book, I wrote almost exclusively in the 3rd person, its my most comfortable state! I think the same principles apply in evoking emotion and heart for a character, perhaps you need to lets yourself feel the way a little more instinctively instead of trying to analyse what you are doing. You might want to have a look at ‘Runaway Wife’ my novel prior to The Memory Book which is about a woman running from domestic abuse, and told in the third person. For all character and voice, its about letting yourself inhabit the character and falling into their ways of thinking, moving, reacting. Sounds a bit pretentious, but I think of it a bit like method acting! If you are feeling what they are feeling and usually you are expressing the emotion in a convincing way. Does that help?
Yes, thank you! Because I have been a nonfiction writer (and some of it pretty academic) until now, I am finding it hard to let go of analytical modes of thought. I am encouraged that you feel the same principles apply as in first-person narration, and I will read your ‘Runaway Life’ because observing the practice of a process is more immediate than analyzing the theory of that process. I think the crux of it is about letting go, and I shall try. You have helped. Thank you very much, best, Elizabeth
I applaud your decision to tell the story of Claire from the inside rather than the outside. It humanizes the afflicted person. (My mother had early onset Alzheimer’s that lasted over a decade.) Many of my favorite books are told in first person, for example, Esther Freud’s new book, Mr. Mac and Me. Often the “voice” can be so much more tender than in a third-person limited narration.
I am struggling with a project that I am writing using a third person limited point of view (I know that “voice” and “point of view” are different but intermingling terms), and I am baffled how to introduce “voice” into this more objective way of telling the story. It feels judgmental rather than tender. Do you have advice about adding voice to a story told in the third person limited point of view? Can you suggest any novels that have a tender voice, despite the more objective narration?
Thank you for your post!