DEVELOPING YOUR VOICE Kimmery Martin kimmerymartin.com

WHAT IS VOICE?

WHAT IS VOICE? Speech Patterns Slang Grammar Syntax Use of Sentence Fragments

WHAT IS VOICE? Speech Patterns Abbreviations Idiosyncrasies Jargon Culture-Specific References

WHAT IS VOICE? Language Native Tongue Time Period Cursing

WHAT IS VOICE? Vocabulary Complex Vs Simple Repetitive Use of Certain Words Coining Phrases Clichés

WHAT IS VOICE? Content Genre Conventions Subject Matter

WHAT IS VOICE? Punctuation Exclamation Points Semicolons

WHAT IS VOICE? Attitude Emotion Values Beliefs The Personality of the Story

WHAT IS VOICE? Tone If Attitude Is The Personality Of The Voice, Then Tone Is The Mood…

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN CHARACTERS Immerse Yourself In The Character’s World Read Other Authors Vary Language And Vocabulary

HONING YOUR VOICE Target Audience Analyze Other Works Assess Weaknesses Practice

EXAMPLES OF VOICE

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. —J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Long experience had taught me that absolute silence is the best way Long experience had taught me that absolute silence is the best way. Say something, and it can be misheard. Misunderstood. Misinterpreted. It can get you convicted. It can get you killed. Silence upsets the arresting officer. He has to tell you silence is your right but he hates it if you exercise that right. I was being arrested for murder. But I said nothing. —Lee Child, The Killing Floor

"I mean, nobody wishes more than I do that it had all been quick and clean, and my head had come off properly, I mean, it would have saved me a great deal of pain and ridicule. However -" Nearly Headless Nick shook his letter open and read furiously: "'We can only accept huntsmen whose heads have parted company with their bodies. You will appreciate that it would be impossible otherwise for members to participate in hunt activities such as Horseback Head-Juggling and Head Polo. It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must inform you that you do not fulfill our requirements. With very best wishes, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore.'" —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

School has started, and Frieda and I get new brown stockings and cod-liver oil. Grown-ups talk in tired, edgy voices about Zick's Coal Company and take us along in the evening to the railroad tracks where we fill burlap sacks with the tiny pieces of coal lying about. Later we walk home, glancing back to see the great carloads of slag being dumped, red hot and smoking, into the ravine that skirts the steel mill. The dying fire lights the sky with a dull orange glow. Frieda and I lag behind, staring at the patch of color surrounded by black. It is impossible not to feel a shiver when our feet leave the gravel path and sink into the dead grass in the field. —Maya Angelou, The Bluest Eye

In the morning I walked down the Boulevard to the rue Soufflot for coffee and brioche. It was a fine morning. The horse-chestnut trees in the Luxembourg gardens were in bloom. There was the pleasant early-morning feeling of a hot day. I read the papers with the coffee and then smoked a cigarette. The flower-women were coming up from the market and arranging their daily stock. Students went by going up to the law school, or down to the Sorbonne. The Boulevard was busy with trams and people going to work. —Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird. —George Orwell, 1984

QUESTIONS