Understanding Voice in Creative Writing

Writing doesn’t have vocal chords or speakers. It doesn’t create any sound you can hear with your ears. And yet, writing speaks to us, resonating as deeply as if it were physically vibrating. 

How does writing create this mental and emotional auditory experience? Through voice. 

Voice comes through your writing in several ways. Each character has their own voice, expressed through dialogue, thoughts, and even body language. The narrator has a distinct voice that influences the reader’s perception of the story, no matter the perspective. And you the writer have a voice—that signature sonic mark that immediately identifies a work as yours. 

This month we’re exploring how each voice presents itself in your writing and how to master them to create that perfect sound—whether your writing’s voices are singing or screaming. 

The Characters’ Voices

Perhaps the most obvious voices in writing are the voices of your characters. A character’s voice reveals a distinct personality, often hinting at important factors such as age, social class, beliefs, and more. Here’s how it comes through:

• Dialogue – This one’s a no-brainer. The way your character speaks says a lot about them. Do they have a Southern twang or an Irish lilt? A verbose vocabulary or a few key phrases? Experiment with things like dialect and grammar to find a dialogue style that best represents your character’s voice. 

• Thoughts – This “internal dialogue,” if you will, can show another side of your character. Often, thoughts reveal a character’s true beliefs—the ones they’d never voice aloud. On the opposite spectrum, thoughts could be another way for an unreliable character to twist the narrative. 

• Actions – To truly showcase a character’s voice, you must consider not only what a character says, but how they speak. Are they certified yappers or single-syllable savants? Do they tend to shout, whisper, or giggle? What body language accompanies their dialogue? Endless fidgeting or an immovable power stance? All these actions enhance a character’s voice, even when they aren’t physically talking. 

While dialogue alone might seem like pure “telling,” a character’s voice can reveal plot, show characterization, and highlight key themes in your story. 

The Narrator’s Voice

If you’re writing in first person, your protagonist’s voice is the narrator’s voice. But if you choose third person (or even second person) the narrator becomes a distinct voice within the story—even seemingly omniscient ones. 

I only fully understood this concept after my freshman year English course on American Gothic literature. We were reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and my professor made some joke about the narrator seemingly having fun playing the moral judge in the story.

For a book I had already read in high school and found rather dull, I was stunned. There was an entire character present that I had completely missed. Yet once I noticed it, it was impossible to ignore. Permeating every setting description, conversation, and plot summary was a persona with their own thoughts and biases regarding the story. They influenced the narrative as much as Hester or Dimmesdale did. 

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Your narrator’s voice is perhaps the most important one in your story, because not only do they tell the reader what’s happening, they also tell the reader how to feel about it. Here are two ways the narrator’s voice rings clear:

1. Free indirect discourse – Also known as indirect speech, this writing convention is used to summarize and offer additional insight into characters’ conversations and thoughts. Rather than simply restating what a character said or thought, successful free indirect discourse imbues these summaries with the narrator’s opinions, therefore guiding the reader’s thoughts and feelings regarding the narrative.  

Jane Austen novels provide the best examples of free indirect discourse. Here’s how the narrator in Emma describes Emma’s first impression of Harriet: 

“She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s

conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging – not

inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk – and yet so far from pushing,

shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had been used to, that she must have good sense and deserve encouragement.”

We learn Emma’s internal thoughts, but we read them through a filter created by the narrator. We can’t quite extricate Emma’s opinions from the narrator’s. There’s a lot more I could say; honestly, free indirect discourse deserves its own blog post. You might just get one at some point!

2. Descriptions – Much like dialogue, word choices, grammar, and ideas all inform the narrator’s voice. Do they use flowery language or cut-and-dry prose? What do they pay attention to? What do they glance over?

While they may overlap, the narrator’s voice is distinct from the final form of voice: your voice as an author.

The Author’s Voice

The concept of the author’s voice is a little more difficult to grasp. Isn’t every part of your writing speaking through your voice? Aren't they your thoughts and ideas? But as you’ve seen, your characters and narrator channel their own voices, even if you’re the one creating them. 

Your true authorial voice is more ephemeral and undefinable. You may write in wildly different genres, explore polar opposite character types, and experiment with distinct narration styles—and yet, with intention, your own voice will bleed through, like the ink from your signature into the page beneath it. 

Those pen strokes show up most clearly in your:

• Diction – The adjectives, verbs, and phrases you gravitate toward.

• Grammar/syntax – The sentence structures and punctuation you use most. 

• Themes – The questions, ideas, and symbols you continue to explore. 

It takes time to develop your voice. When you first begin writing, you might adopt someone else’s, like those of your favorite authors. This is a necessary part of the learning process, known as pastiche. 

That same English professor told us about a project he used to assign: Rewrite a passage from one book in another author's writing style. While it may seem like copying in a way, it’s a valuable exercise for understanding how an author speaks and how it changes the narrative. 

You may not hear your own voice in your work now, but as you continue to write, it’ll speak how only you can. It may even sing.

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About the author:

Lindsey is almost always writing, whether it’s a short story, copywriting project, Writer’s Workout blog post, or carefully crafted Instagram comment. With the spare time she digs out of the couch cushions, she’s usually crocheting, adventuring with her friends, or thinking about how she should be reading more. She splits her time between Upstate New York, where she grew up, and Boston, where she'll continue to grow.