Chapter Four

A Voice of Your Own

“Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.”
—Meg Rosoff

Voice is who you are as a storyteller: your language, your syntax, and your diction for sure, but, more important, your truth. Finding your voice is as simple—and as difficult—as finding your truth.

Readers recognize that truth when they see it—and they seek it out. Readers, agents and editors and reviewers among them, are suckers for a strong voice. When readers fall in love with a writer’s voice, they will follow it, line after line, page after page, and book after book.

As a reader, I prefer writers with a strong voice; as a writer, I look for voice lessons from writers known for their voices. And as an agent, I search for writers with a distinct voice—because I know that voice alone can sell a story.

Discovering your voice—your true north—may be what makes readers fall in love with you, too. Think of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Millions of readers fell in love with Salinger’s voice when they read his classic novel of adolescent male angst, not just because his voice was funny and compelling but because it rang true. (I should note that when I first read the book when I was a young girl, I never finished it. It didn’t ring true for me at all. Twenty-five years later, my teenage son had to read the novel for school, which meant that I had to read it again to help him with his book report. This time I read the story all the way through with great pleasure. The voice rang true for me and engaged me thoroughly, because as the mother of an adolescent male, I could finally see the truth in it.)

Tell a story in your own strong and authentic voice, and you may win readers based on the voice alone. Tell a great story in your own strong and authentic voice, and you may win the kind of readership these writers have:

These are all writers with strong, unique voices that continue to engage, entertain, and enlighten readers over the test of time. Each tells the truth of life as the writer knows it:

• Dickens crusades for a better life for the underprivileged in Victorian England—and his truth emboldens change.
• Morrison shines a bright light on the realities of racism, identity, and community in a voice that is part herald, part destroyer, and part shaman.
• King brings the truth of our very nightmares to light in a voice all the more terrifying for its commonness.
• Austen tells the truth about men and women in a time when women were often defined by their relationships with men, like it or not.
• Sendak reveals the truth about the mysteries and miseries of childhood in a voice as mischievous and magical as children themselves.

Achieving that voice—the authentic expression of your unique truth that you use to engage, entertain, and enlighten your own readers—is one of the biggest challenges you face as a writer. Some writers do it naturally, but most of us have to dig for it. It’s a discovery process that will not only inform your writing, but your life as well.

Note: This chapter is full of invitations to write. Accept those invitations, even when you are tempted to skip them.

Creative Imitation

“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed from one another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.”
—Voltaire

When we first start to write, many of us imitate those writers whose work we most admire and/or have read most widely. This is fine; such imitation can be instructive in more ways than one. Not only can you learn the ins and outs of writing in a given authorial style, you can learn what to co-opt in developing your own voice.

I’ve mentioned my admiration of Alice Hoffman. I own first editions of all her work, attend her readings whenever I can, and have half a novel written in an unabashedly faux Alice Hoffman voice. But attempting to write that novel helped me expand the horizons of my own voice and taught me how to tell stories in a more meaningful way, and to take risks that I would not normally have taken.

Ask yourself which writers you most admire, whose voice's you are most apt to adopt, other than your own, when writing. Now ask yourself what appeals to you about their writing and what you can incorporate into your own work.

Early in her career, best-selling thriller writer Hank Phillippi Ryan was advised to consider the question “Who do you want to be?” That is, whose career did she want to emulate? This question can be related to voice as well. The trick is to discover which aspects are organic to your own work and which are not. Which are yours to steal—and which are not?

Writer, Know Thyself

Knowing yourself—and accepting your strengths and weaknesses, possibilities and limitations—is critical to identifying and developing a distinctive voice. Describe yourself, on a separate sheet of paper, in the first ten words that come to mind.

Now, contact your best friend, and have her or him describe you in ten words. Which words are the same? Which are different? Make a master list that combines both lists, and then match up those qualities at random with your favorite writers, the ones you’d like to be when you grow up.

For example, my list might look like this:

Consider your own list. What clues to your authentic voice can be found there?

Walking Your Talk

Part of realizing your full voice and speaking your truth is marrying what you say to how you say it. Ask yourself: What do you really want to say—and how would you like to convey that message?

Your voice can dictate how you tell your story—from pacing and plot to tone and theme. Consider the following classic stories, all about war, and all with different and distinctive voices:

• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
• Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Night by Elie Wiesel
• The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• M*A*S*H* by Robert Hooker
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
• Henry VI trilogy by William Shakespeare
• A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

Each of these stories is shaped by the voice of the writer telling it. Choose one of the above stories; it can be one you’ve already read and loved or one that you haven’t read before. As you read it, note how the writer’s voice informs all the other elements of the story.

No matter what your genre, your voice should shape the story you tell. You need to reveal your truth, as best told in your own authentic voice.

If you’re not sure what your truth is—or even if you think you do—you may need to dig to get to its core. Your truth is where your vein of gold lies; you need to mine it. Here’s a brainstorming exercise to help you do just that. Using the following bubble chart, jot down entries for each list on a separate sheet of paper. Do this quickly—don’t think about it. When you’re finished, think about what comes up in this process. Which bubbles resonate with you? Which stories do you want to tell? How could they best be told in your own voice?

When a writer is telling a story to best effect, his voice rings with confidence, conviction, and creativity. Consider Salinger, whose exploration of adolescence, honesty, authenticity, and the pretense and hypocrisy of adult life are all reflected in his one-of-a-kind voice, whether he’s writing about Holden Caulfield or Frannie and Zooey.

Honesty Rules

As an agent, I get very excited when I find a writer with a great voice because I know that it’s easier for a writer to learn structure than to discover her truth. I often meet talented writers who have yet to sell their stories because they have yet to find their voice—or they are fighting the truth about their voice.

Part of my job is helping my clients recognize their authentic voice and tailor it to the best commercial project for them. Let me tell you four stories about four very different clients—and how they developed a distinctive voice, used that voice to tell great stories, and got published in the process. Each story offers a different voice lesson for the perceptive writer.

Reveal Yourself: A Cop’s Story

When I first became an agent, I was overwhelmed by queries; my first week on the job I got more than one thousand queries from writers I didn’t know from Adam, and the numbers have grown exponentially ever since. I needed an intern. (As it turns out, I always need an intern.)

I got a call from a professor friend of mine who also writes popular traditional mysteries for St. Martin’s Press. She had an MFA student who was looking for an internship. She warned me that this was not your typical grad student but rather a middle-aged writer who’d spent thirty years as a homicide detective for the Oakland Police Department. I was thrilled because (1) I represented a lot of crime fiction writers who would benefit from a cop’s perspective on their work, and (2) I’m a sucker for a good police procedural.

His name was Brian, and he rocked. He read my queries, he edited my clients’ work, and he finished his thesis, which just so happened to be a police procedural. I liked it and offered to represent him and his work. But first he had to refine his voice.

For Brian’s voice was his selling point, the leverage I needed to pitch his work when I shopped it. Cops who can write are few and far between, so when I find one, I sign him—or her—right up. But voice is a two-edged sword: Brian’s experience on the force informed every word he wrote and gave his prose a confidence and authority born of that experience. All good. But not enough. What was missing in his story was how he felt about that experience. Readers would love his cop hero—but they would love him more if they got to know more about his heart—and not just his head.

This wasn’t easy for Brian, who, like most cops, kept his feelings close to his bulletproof vest. I knew he thought I was making a big deal out of nothing. But he did what I asked (another reason I like working with former law-enforcement and military personnel, as they actually listen to me and follow my advice). He beefed up his protagonist’s inner life, and I shopped the series. Within short order, I got Brian a three-book deal. (Look for the first in the series, Red Line by Brian Thiem, wherever you buy your books.)

The only real significant revision request from his editor: Beef up the inner life of his hero even more. (I love being right. And I love Brian.)

Voice Lesson #1: Readers respond most to emotional honesty in a writer’s voice. Don’t be afraid to reveal yourself.

Remember Who You Are: A Novelist’s Story

I’ve known Meera for many years; we met decades ago when we were both beginning writers in San Jose. We hung out at writers conferences and participated in writers workshops and read our work aloud to each other in writers’ groups. Meera was one of the most interesting people I knew; originally a farm girl from Missouri, she’d traveled the world in search of enlightenment. When I became an acquisitions editor for a mind/body/spirit imprint, I sought out Meera to write books for the new line—and she made a career for herself as the author of nonfiction titles, wonderful how-to books on the secrets of living an authentic life.

She wrote fiction, too—fabulous stories starring the exotic people and places she’d met on her travels. While technically proficient, these stories fell flat on the page. Meera was imitating the voices of other cultures, other customs, other writers—and drowning out her own voice in the process. In the meantime, she moved to the country and settled on a little farm in Northern California she called the Henny Penny Farmette. She started blogging about her chickens, bees, and goats.

Her blog was a big hit—and the ammunition I needed to convince her to write a novel set on the Henny Penny Farmette. She’d found her fictive voice right there on the farm. (Of course, she’d never lost it; she used it when writing nonfiction. But her love of other cultures and faraway lands blinded her to it in her own storytelling.) She wrote the first in a traditional mystery series set on the farmette—and I got her a three-book deal. (Look for Beeline to Murder: A Henny Penny Farmette Mystery by Meera Lester, wherever you buy your books.)

Voice Lesson #2: If you’re having trouble finding your voice, start close to home. The truth is often right under your nose.

Listen to the Sound of Your Own Voice: The Historian’s Story

When I first moved to Massachusetts, I had no writer friends, and even though I was working at a publishing house with book people, I missed hanging out with writers. (Editors are not the same as writers, though I love editors—especially editors who are also writers.) So I joined the online chapter of Mystery Writers of America and started interacting with the other members online.

There I bonded with fellow Rainer Maria Rilke–fan Brian Thornton, who was from the Northwest (and not the same Brian who writes police procedurals—my world is full of great writers named Brian). We became fast friends and met in person several times at writers conferences. Brian, a history teacher by day, even wrote a couple of great history-related nonfiction books for me while I was an acquisitions editor.

But what Brian really wanted to do was publish fiction. We exchanged some stories for critique. I read Brian’s modern private-eye novel and one of his historical mystery stories. I told him that he should focus on historical fiction, as his historian’s voice seemed better suited for it. Commercial historical fiction is not easy to write; only people who are passionate about it and can make it relevant to the modern reader succeed. The good news is that if you can write solid historical fiction, you can usually get published. So I wasn’t at all surprised when Brian sold his first piece, a historical short story, to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Now he’s working on a historical mystery—and now I’m an agent—so here’s hoping that he lets me shop it when he’s ready. (Did I mention that I love being right?)

Voice Lesson #3: Capitalize on your voice’s strengths. Not only can this help refine your work, it can help you sell it.

Do Not Confuse Voice with Plot: The Artiste’s Story

Sometimes I’m so bowled over by a writer’s talent that I ignore the lack of market potential for the work and sign the writer anyway. That’s what happened when I read Richard’s writing for the first time. Richard’s talent was obvious, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so; he’d been celebrated for his brilliant short stories. But he’d yet to break into commercial fiction with his novels.

Richard’s work was überdark—and überdark is not an easy sell. Even your True Detective stories have some (wan) light at the end of the dark tunnel of prose. I warned Richard about this, and he did some revision as requested, but he resisted my appeals to explore his not-so-darn-dark side. Eventually I caved—and I sent out the novel as it was to all the editors I knew who loved dark material. One by one they passed, saying it was just too dark, even for them. But if he wrote anything else, they’d love to see it.

I didn’t give up. (I hate giving up.) I knew that we just needed to find an editor who’d fall in love with Richard’s work the way I had. And I’m happy to say that we did; it took two years, but finally I got Richard a two-book deal with a Big Five house.

Unsurprisingly, the editor wanted a little (wan) light at the end of the dark tunnel of prose. Richard balked. The editor called me, and I called Richard. Richard was worried about “compromising his voice.” But voice really had nothing to do with it. If he found an audience, he couldn’t risk engaging them with his compelling voice only to lose them at the end of the story by refusing to make a slight shift in plot from a “so dark you can’t see” ending to a “dark but not so dark you have to slit your wrists” ending. I explained to him that the first page sells the book and the last page sells the next book. He didn’t have to change his voice; he just had to rethink the emotional impact of the ending on his reader. Leaving a bad taste in the reader’s mouth—no matter how beautiful the voice—is not the way to build an audience. (Richard Thomas’s novel Disintegration recently debuted to great reviews and endorsements by such literary lights as Chuck Palahniuk, Irvine Welsh, Chuck Wendig, Paul Tremblay, and more.)

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Voice Lesson #4: Voice is how you tell the story—it’s not the story itself. Be sure that you don’t compromise the emotional impact of your story to protect what you mistakenly believe is your voice.

Ultimately, the challenge is this: Figure out who you are and what you care about, and let your voice reveal both.

In the next chapter, we’ll explore how the subtleties of style and substance can enhance your voice and your storytelling.