Voice Matters: Does Yours Fit Your Genre? by Ashley March

Hello, all! It's genre Monday and today I have the lovely and talented Ashley March, historical romance author extraordinaire, to talk with us about the ever-important voice.

Take it away, Ashley...

Voice Matters by Ashley March

I recently decided to try to write my first contemporary romance. I had great characters, a great storyline, and I figured it would be as easy to write as my usual Victorian romances. However, I realized very quickly that I had a big problem I never expected: I couldn’t find my contemporary romance voice.

We’ve all heard that each author has their own voice, but I believe that each author also has their own genre/sub-genre voice. Authors who write both romance and YA aren’t going to have the same voice, and the same is true for authors who write both historical and contemporary romance. As I struggled with finding my voice for contemporary romance, I realized that this is something I don’t often hear writers talking about. But the truth is this: voice matters not only as a means of making you stand out from among the crowd, but also as a means of putting you in the right crowd.

I’m a writer who believes in giving back to other writers and the writing community, and one of the ways I do this is by sometimes critiquing partials or fulls of pre-published writers. Often one of the comments that I have to make time and time again is that the writer’s voice sounds anachronistic. They’re using words that wouldn’t have been used in a certain period, or sometimes, even if those words were used, the phrasing simply sounds modern. As someone who pays a lot of attention to words—not only which words are chosen, but the rhythm of words, or how they sound when read—I know there’s a difference that can be seen in the voice of historical romance authors versus the voice of other romance sub-genres, and this difference is important. Not only can the right voice for a genre/sub-genre help the story feel more authentic, it can also help draw your reader more quickly into your story.

I thought this point would best be made through examples.

Here is a contemporary excerpt  (from Teresa Medeiros’ GOODNIGHT, TWEETHEART):

According to the page that popped up, Abby was now Abby_Donovan and she already had seventeen Followers. Having "Followers" made her feel like some sort of kooky religious cult leader. An empty box invited her to answer one simple question—"What's happening?"

Her fingers hovered over the keys, torn between typing, "None of your business" and "I'm sipping Cristal on the beach at St. Tropez with Brad Pitt."

Sighing, she finally settled on the truth: "I'm feeling sorry for myself." She hit the Update button and waited.

Here is a historical excerpt (from Teresa Medeiros’ THE DEVIL WEARS PLAID):

For the first time since he'd muscled his way into the abbey, the stranger's mocking gaze flicked toward her. Even that brief glance was enough to bring a flush stinging to Emma's fair cheeks. Especially since his words held the undeniable and damning ring of truth.

This time it was almost a relief when Ian Hepburn once again sought to impose himself between them. "You may mock us and pretend to be avenging your ancestors as you always do," he said, a sneer curling his upper lip, "but everyone on this mountain knows that the Sinclairs have never been anything more than common cutthroats and thieves. If you and your ruffians have come to divest my uncle's guests of their jewels and purses, then why don't you bloody well get on with it and stop wasting your breath and our time?"

*** 

            I specifically chose one author who writes different sub-genres because I don’t believe showing excerpts from two authors writing different sub-genres would be fair for our analysis. We need a real-world example of how an author uses voice to draw a reader into the specific genre/sub-genre she’s writing.

            As you can see above, Teresa Medeiros’ contemporary voice is far different from her historical voice. If I were going to describe her contemporary voice, I would call it light-hearted in comparison to her historical voice. The change can be seen in the way the sentences are structured as well as the words chosen and, I would also say, the way the author engages the reader. The contemporary makes me feel as if the heroine could be my best friend, while the historical invites me to be the heroine that could make such a hero fall deeply in love. One is light and flirtatious; the other denser and more dramatic. If we were comparing movies, I would say that it’s the difference between You’ve Got Mail and Jane Eyre. This doesn’t mean that all contemporaries are light—because they’re not—and it doesn’t mean that all historicals are comparatively darker—because they’re not.

            What it does mean, however, is that writing a historical isn’t as simple as researching a certain place during a certain time and writing the story that goes along with it. You must find your historical voice, and you must know your readers’ expectations for what a historical voice sounds like.

            The following are recommendations for several historical romance authors with very strong voices. You’re not supposed to try to model your voice after theirs, but you should read them. Analyze what is different about their voices and what is the same. Reading in your genre/sub-genre is always important to know your market, but with the historical romance sub-genre in particular, part of the escape into the historical world is having a historical voice. If you want to write historical romance, I would say that developing a historical voice is equally as important as doing research in terms of bringing a feeling of authenticity to your writing. Don’t be fooled into thinking you don’t need one.

Recommendations for historical authors with strong voices:

Sherry Thomas (tryPrivate Arrangements or Not Quite a Husband)

Julie Anne Long (try What I Did for a Duke or The Perils of Pleasure)

Anne Mallory (try Three Nights of Sin or Seven Secrets of Seduction)

Lisa Kleypas (try Dreaming of You or Devil in Winter)

Meredith Duran (try Wicked Becomes You or A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal)

Julia Quinn (try The Duke and I or Romancing Mr. Bridgerton)

This month’s must-read recommendation for both strong voice and for being a nearly perfect historical romance is Joanna Bourne’s

THE FORBIDDEN ROSE

A glittering French aristocrat is on the run, disguised as a British governess. England's top spy has a score to settle with her family. But as they're drawn inexorably into the intrigue and madness of Revolutionary Paris, they gamble on a love to which neither of them will admit.

How important is voice to you as a reader and as a writer? If you’ve written in different genres/sub-genres, what tips and tricks do you use for changing your voice appropriately?

Ashley March is a baby-induced sleep-deprived romance author who lives in Colorado with her husband and two young daughters. Her newest Victorian historical romance, ROMANCING THE COUNTESS, is a love story about an earl and his best friend’s wife who are drawn together after their spouses—who were having an affair—die in a carriage accident. Her approach to the romance genre and the books she writes can be seen in the tagline on her website:

Choose love. Hope in love. Believe in love

www.ashleymarch.com

And Ashley has a new book out this month--

Romancing the Countess (Signet Eclipse)

! Go let her know how thankful we are for her sharing her insight with us by buying her super fabulous books!

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“...a sexy, sizzling tale that is sure to have readers begging for more!"

–Jo Davis, author of I SPY A DARK OBSESSION

Author Voice vs. Character Voice - Finding Both

Photo by Stefan Powell

Voice is one of the most sited components of writing a great story. Publishers/agents are looking for a strong voice, a fresh voice, a clear voice, etc. Unfortunately, it's also one of the things that we as writers struggle with and stress about the most.

I think the first thing that confused me early on was the difference between author voice and character voice. At first, I thought they were the same thing. They're not.

Author voice "encompasses word choice, rhythm, pacing, style, tone and structure." (source)

Character voice also affects word choice, rhythm, and pacing. But in character voice those things are influenced by the character's background, gender, history, age, education, regional location, time period, etc.

Crystal clear, right? *snort*

Finding Author Voice

Okay, maybe this will help, because it definitely helped me. I attended a workshop once where the author explained author voice by saying that you could pick up any one of her books no matter what the subject/character/plot and know that she wrote it.  

For instance, I've read Richelle Mead's Succubus Blues. I'm a huge fan of her YA Vampire Academy books, but this was the first time I read any of her adult books.  The story and characters are completely different, but the quirky sense of humor and style are still there.  I could tell they were both written by the same author, so I'm "hearing" her author voice.

Think of an Aerosmith song or a U2 or a Nirvana. Even without the lead singer's voice to give it away, the songs all have a certain style, a particular way the instruments are played. Do all the songs sound the same? No. But they all have that band's "voice".

And you have one, too!  We all do.  Your voice is who you are. You just have to make sure it gets onto the page.

My author voice is wry and casual. My style matches that--I use deep POV, like using some incomplete sentences for impact, and have a lot of dialogue.  And though I tackle very heavy and dark topics at times in my stories, humor will always be present.   

Why? Because that's who I am. Humor is my go-to defense mechanism even when things aren't going so well. Sarcasm is my favorite pastime and self-depracation is a way of life for me. I can't escape my voice.

So there's good news in that! Voice just is. (Read your own blog, you'll probably see your voice shining through. Or if you want a great example of a unique blogging voice, go visit Chuck Wendig's blog.) We can hone it and analyze it and strengthen it but our author voice is already there. It's who we are. 

The only thing that gets in the way is when we try to imitate some other author's voice. "I want to write books just like..." It's good to study other people's writings and pick out what you enjoy about it, but be careful not to let what you "think" your voice should be overtake what it actually is.  You can never be such and such author, you can only be you.

Finding Character Voice

So, if author voice is just waiting there to be discovered, what we probably need to worry about more is making sure we have an accurate character voice for each of our players. 

To do this, we need to analyze our characters, get into their head, know their history. As one of my handy dandy critiquers pointed out a while back about one of my characters: she's from the south, she wouldn't say "you guys", she would say "y'all". Of course, I know this (being southern and a over-user of y'all) but I lost her voice for a minute trying to sound more proper. These are the small nuances we have to watch out for. If our characters don't sound believable, we'll lose the reader. The character's education, gender, situation all play a factor. 

Well, that's my take on the whole thing, but I'd like to hear your opinions.

How would your describe your author voice?  Do you struggle to nail it down or is it one of those things that comes naturally?  Which authors voices do you totally envy?

*This is a revamped version of a post from Sept. 2009.  Thanks to Sierra Godfrey's post today for sparking the idea to pull this one out of the vault.*

Voice, Voice, Voice

Voice.  Yes, I know it's a popular topic and I've talked about it before, but it also seems like one of the hardest things to get our minds around.

Wanting to find a strong/fresh/interesting voice seems to be the A-number-one commonality among agents and editors. It was mentioned at every agent/editor panel I attended at RWA.  However, it also seems to be one of the most elusive things to define.  Even the pros seem to struggle with pinning down a definition when asked--it's one of those things they just know when they read it.

Which, of course, makes us panic because we want everything in our manuscript to be perfect--and dammit, we want to make sure we've nailed voice, too.  But, I'm here to tell you--you already know what a good voice is. Think of any of your favorite authors.  If that author were to write a new book and someone were to give it to you without the author's name on it--would you be able to recognize who had written it?

Yes?  That's voice.  It's how the author tells the story, the word choices, turns of phrase, the humor, the writing style.  It's the personality of the writing.  So, look and see, does your story show that personality?  And is it a personality that will appeal to people?

Voice is the difference between saying:

I can't answer the phone right now, please leave a message.  

and

"I know how devastated you are to miss me, but leave a message, and I'll try to ease your agony." --Adrian from Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series. 

Yes, some of that is character voice (I talked about the difference here), but it's also Richelle Mead's snarky, fun style.

So the key is figuring out what your voice is and making sure it makes it onto the page.  And don't force a voice that isn't yours.  Brenda Chin, the senior editor at Harlequin Blaze, said on a panel that voice can't really be changed--it's too tied to who the author is--but that it can be honed.  And as with most things with writing, the only way to hone it, is to continue to write, write, write.  Your voice will show itself in time.

So do you struggle to find your voice?  How would you define your own voice?  Which author's voice do you admire?

Can You Learn To Be Funny?

A while back Plamena (if you have a link to your page let me know, your profile isn't coming up when I click your name) asked me in a blog comment if I thought you could learn to be funny in your writing.  The question stumped me a bit.

I use a lot of humor in my writing.  And based on the feedback I've received from crit partners and contests, I'd venture to say it's the bread and butter of my voice.  I tend to stick to the sarcastic, ironic, and self-deprecating variety as opposed to slapstick, but it's always there.  So did I learn to do that or is it just who I am?

My guess is that I just picked it up from being around funny people.  My parents have a very sarcastic style of humor and my husband is hilarious.  No one close to me really takes themselves too seriously.  Plus, it's just how my mind works.

Anyone remember the Friends episode with Chandler and Jill Goodacre stuck in the ATM booth?  I'm including it below if you want a laugh.  That is how my internal dialogue sounds much of the time.  So it's not a wonder that many of my characters end up with a tendency to self-deprecate.  Or maybe I just have a major self-esteem deficiency, which is also entirely possible.  :)

But I do believe that some people are just naturally funny.  You can tell by reading blogs.  Tina Lynn, Amber Murphy, and Frankie Diane never fail to make me laugh, and you know they aren't forcing it, they're just funny chicks.  (By the way, if you haven't checked out Frankie's Vampire Diaries recaps/parodies, you're missing out on some seriously funny stuff.  That girl can make me snort iced tea through my nose.)   Then, Jm Diaz and Sierra Godfrey both have the gift of sarcasm.  My guess is that all of this shows up in their writing.

But what if writing humor is a challenge for you?  There is nothing worse than someone trying to be funny and  falling flat.  So can you change it?  Could serious Jack on Lost ever become sarcastic Sawyer?  I don't know the answer.  My guess is that it would be tough, but if they hung around each other long enough, they could pick up each other's style.  So my best advice would be to surround yourself with humor--read author's who have a humorous voice, watch comedic movies and tv shows, get a feel for what works and try some of it out.

But also make sure that this is what you really want.  There is nothing wrong with not having humor as part of your voice.  I could never write heart-wrenching literary fiction with beautiful, evocative prose.  It just doesn't come naturally to me.  I'd end up inserting dark humor and romance at inappropriate places.  So I try to play to my strengths.  Evaluate what yours are and embrace those.  There is room in the world for all variants of voice.

So what's your opinion?  Can humor be learned?  If so, how?  What are some of your favorite funny authors?  How would you describe your own voice?

**Today's Theme Song**

"London Bridge" - Interpreted by the always funny Bowling For Soup  

(player in sidebar--go ahead, take a listen)

You Look Familiar: Putting Yourself in Your Characters

So everyone's heard the often repeated adage "write what you know."  Most of the time this is referring to writing about topics and settings you're familiar with.  You're a lawyer, so you write a story about a lawyer.  Or, you grew up in the Florida Keys so you write a story that takes place there.  But also, this can mean your characters.

I know I use inspiration from family, friends, and random people I've met in my life to create characters.  I'm sure most of our relatives quake in fear that they are going to pop up in one of our books.  But what about that main character?  My guess is that more often than not, that character has a lot of similarities to YOU, the author. Whether it's done on purpose or just naturally, that MC tends to take on a lot of the author's characteristics.

Don't believe me?  Go make the rounds (if you didn't yesterday) and read some of the excerpts from the Love at First Sight blogfest.  Here's my excerpt if you're interested.

If you've been blogging a while and "know" those particular bloggers personalities, many times you can see those things pop up in their excerpts.  Part of it is author voice.  But the other is that we're writing what we know best--ourselves.

There's many a time I read a book and think to myself--me and this author would get along.  Because I get a feel for the person writing the book through their characters and their writing voice.

But you have to be careful with this.  If your MC in each book is too much like you, then you're left with multiple books that have essentially the same character in them.  Which is okay if you're writing a series, but not so much otherwise.

So think through your MCs and try to keep an eye out for things that keep popping up.  Are all your MCs blonde?  Geeks?  Artistic?  Writers?  Have absent fathers?  Turn to chocolate when stressed?  Whatever.

For instance, I have trouble writing short heroines.  I'm tall (5'9") and have a hard time imagining what it must be like to be "cute and petite."  It's a foreign concept to me.  But I can't make all my MCs tall, it's not realistic.  So that's something I have to work on.

And that doesn't mean you can't put aspects of yourself in each of your characters, but just make sure they aren't the same aspects all the time.

So how much of yourself do you put into your characters?  Do you see themes repeating from one work to the next--which ones?  Have you ever read a book and thought you'd get along with the author?

**Today's Theme Song**

"All of Me" - Buckcherry

(player in sidebar--go ahead, take a listen)

It's All About Me: Discovering Author Voice

 Over the weekend I read Allison Brennan's speech about finding your author voice. (Thanks Lynnette for the link to this.) I took a few things away from her speech. One, that she wrote five manuscripts before she sold. And the second was that the key to getting published (in her opinion) was discovering her voice.

Now, we've heard about voice, I've talked about it here. But what I liked about her advice was that she believes our author voice is already in us, we just have to recognize it. After trying out a few different things, she realized that her voice was naturally dark and fit well with suspense. She tried to write a chick-litty mystery and discovered she wasn't so funny on paper.

This got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing) about my own voice. My first book attempt was a dark paranormal YA, or at least that's what I set out for it to be. However, as I wrote it, I found myself with a heavy thread of romance that threatened to take over the story. I also kept slipping in humor and snark at every turn. Not exactly what I was going for, but I couldn't help myself. In addition, it was a fight for me to keep things not too sexy, because it was teens and I knew that wasn't appropriate.

So then I started my contemporary romance. All of a sudden, I didn't have to fight all those natural tendencies. I had free reign to focus on the things that I love writing about. And the book was so much more fun to jump into. It was like slipping into a comfy pair of slippers after trying to wedge my feet into stilettos. I found my voice.

Now I'm not saying that with my voice, I can't write YA or something outside of romance, but I need to probably go for a different type of story than I did with the first one. One that lends itself to my strengths. 

So when you start stressing about voice, look in the mirror. Who are you? Do you tend to see the darker side of things or do you find the humor where others don't? Are you a hopeless romantic or a realist? Are you polite or irreverent? Your voice is already in there, you just have to unearth it.

Don't you ever read a book and think, I could hang out with this author? We know based on how they wrote the story and their characters that we'll probably enjoy their personality. We're hearing their author voice bubble underneath all of it.

So how about you? How would you describe your author (not your character) voice? Have you written a story and realized it didn't fit your natural voice and style? Have you ever read a book and thought, me and this author 

*This post has been revamped from the original.

Author Voice vs. Character Voice

Last week Susan over at A Walk in My Shoes did a post on the importance of voice. I enjoyed her post, so I'm stealing her topic and expanding on it. :) Voice is one of the most often sited components of writing a great story/novel. Publishers are looking for a strong voice, a fresh voice, a clear voice, etc. Unfortunately, it's also one of the things that we as writers struggle with and stress about the most.

I think the first thing that confused me early on was the difference between author voice and character voice. At first, I thought they were the same thing. They're not.

 

Author voice "encompasses word choice, rhythm, pacing, style, tone and structure." (source)

Character voice also affects word choice, rhythm, and pacing. But in character voice those things are influenced by the character's background, history, age, education, regional location, time period, etc.

Crystal clear, right? *snort*

Okay, maybe this will help, because it definitely helped me. I attended a workshop at the DFW Writer's Conference given by author Candace Havens. She explained author voice by saying that you could pick up any one of her books no matter what the subject/character/plot and know that she wrote it.

That made sense to me. I've written a first person YA and a third person contemporary romance. Obviously, my character voice needed to be different in both. My teen MC in the YA can't sound like my male protagonist in my romance. (Although, that would be pretty funny.) But, when people look at both manuscripts, they recognize my style in both.

My author voice is snarky, casual, and chatty. My books will never be filled with lyrical prose and elegant descriptions. Even if I'm writing a story with serious elements, humor will always be present. Why? Because that's who I am. I don't take life very seriously. Sarcasm is my favorite pastime. Self-depracation is a way of life for me. I can't escape my voice.

So there's good news in that! Voice just is. (Read your own blog, you'll see your voice shining through.) We can hone it and analyze it and improve it but our author voice is already there. It's who we are. The only thing that gets in the way of it is when we try to imitate some other author's voice. "I want to write books just like..." It's good to study other people's writings and pick out what you enjoy about it, but be careful not to let what you "think" your voice should be overtake what it actually is.

So, if author voice is just waiting there to be discovered, what we probably need to worry about more is making sure we have an accurate character voice for each of our players. To do this, we need to analyze our characters, get into their head, know their history. As one of my handy dandy critiquers recently pointed out about one of my characters: she's from the south, she wouldn't say "you guys", she would say "y'all". Of course, I know this (being southern and a over-user of y'all) but I lost her voice for a minute trying to sound more proper. These are the small nuances we have to watch out for. If our characters don't sound believable, we'll lose the reader.

Well, that's my take on the whole thing, but I'd like to hear your opinions.

How do you define your author voice? Do you struggle with either type of voice? Have you ever caught your characters saying something they totally wouldn't say if they existed in real life? Which author's voice do you enjoy the most?

**Today's Theme Song**

"Voices Carry" - Til Tuesday

(player in sidebar--go ahead, take a listen)

Channeling Your Inner Teenager

So when writing YA, one of the most important aspects of developing your story is creating an authentic teen voice. Every article you read about writing in this genre puts emphasis on that. If you sound like an adult, the teen readers will cry foul--you poser, you faker, you parent in disguise!

So how does one develop an authentic teen voice? For some of us, that voice comes easy, maybe we aren't that far from those years or we never grew up in the first place. For others, the teen voice is buried deep under the years of experience, grammar lessons, vocabulary expansion, and life lessons. But the truth of the matter is, we all have one under there. I confirmed this for myself last night.

Last night I went to the New Kids on the Block concert. To give you a little background, as a preteen I was totally obsessed (like most others my age) with the band. My room was plastered (walls and ceiling) with their pictures. I had the comforter set, complete with Joe and Jordan pillowcases. I wrote to Oprah begging to meet them. My wardrobe consisted solely of New kids t-shirts, a jean jacket, and oversized buttons with pics of them. My birthday parties were NKOTB themed. You get the picture.

So, last night when I attended the concert, I was excited--in my mature, adult kind of way. :) The concert was going well. I was enjoying myself. Clapping and singing like a normal 29-year-old person. Then suddenly, the venue staff started setting up a little platform in the aisle near my seats. My husband pointed it out to me and pushed me in that direction to get a spot for whatever was going to happen. I did, landing a spot right in front of the security guard. People started piling in. I figured something was going to happen, and I knew I would be cool about it. Then, the lights went out and who stepped on to the platform a mere two feet in front of me? The Jordan Knight. Right there, in the flesh, within touching distance. So much for being cool. I lost my freaking mind.

Gone was the wife, mom, quiet-natured person. I was suddenly possessed by the 12-year-old version of myself. I couldn't stop screaming and jumping. I almost got into my first girl fight when some chick rudely (using her fake boobs as a battering ram) tried to shove her way through those of us who had already established position. (She didn't get past me. I may have cussed her out and pushed back. I'm not sure. ;) ) I felt more frantic then I can ever remember feeling in my life. Pure, unadulterated, childlike joy filled me. I touched Jordan's shoulder, he smiled at me. My preteen dreams come true.

This proved to me that the preteen/teen is still inside me, she just needs to be channeled. And oh how fun it was to be back in her shoes, if even for a few moments. So, when I'm struggling with finding my YA voice, trying to find that right level of emotion or angst or internal drama, I'm going to recall this moment and let "teen me" answer the question.

So, what gets you into the right mindset to write the YA voice? Music? Memories? Observing your own teenage children? Leave a comment and let me know.