1. DEVELOPING YOUR VOICE
Kimmery Martin
kimmerymartin.com

2. WHAT IS VOICE?

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

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

5. WHAT IS VOICE?
Language
Native Tongue
Time Period
Cursing

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

8. WHAT IS VOICE?
Content
Genre Conventions
Subject Matter

9. WHAT IS VOICE?
Punctuation
Exclamation Points
Semicolons

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

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

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

14. HONING YOUR VOICE Target Audience Analyze Other Works
Assess Weaknesses
Practice

15. EXAMPLES OF VOICE

16. 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

17. 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

18. "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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. QUESTIONS