{"id":1171,"date":"2011-08-04T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=1171"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:34:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:34:23","slug":"adventures-in-writing-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=1171","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in Writing Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Thursday, guys! This week is mostly work, work, work, but in the process of doing some of that work, I came across some great tips on characterization and voice on Cockeyed Caravan<\/a>, the blog of Matt Bird (husband to fab blog friend Betsy Bird of Fuse #8<\/a> and recent father of the Baby Bird). Matt is a screenwriter, but his blog posts about various aspects of storytelling and writing pertain just as well to the fiction writer.<\/p>\n

I ran across a few choice posts from Matt’s blog as I was putting together a handout on voice for an upcoming teen writing workshop I’m doing (if you’re in the Seattle area, it’s on Aug. 9, 4:00 pm, Lynnwood library). He’s got an entire series of posts on putting together a compelling character<\/a>. In particular, Part 3 (Choose a Metaphor Family<\/a>) and Part 4 (Determine Their Verbal DNA<\/a>) have some great tips for finding a character’s speaking voice. As Matt put it: “So far I\u2019ve focused on how to make characters compelling through behavior, but, alas, eventually they have to open their mouths, too.” <\/p>\n

Seriously, though, there’s some great practical advice for making your characters’ voices distinctive and making your writing sing. Like this: “You need a way to find hard-and-fast rules that always govern how a character talks, even as their emotional state varies and their general attitude shifts. This is their verbal DNA.” He’s even got a chart<\/a>. We love charts. <\/p>\n

If you’re looking for more voice advice, check out this Suite101 article on Finding an Authentic Voice in Writing for Young Adults<\/a> and another one with Character Voice Writing Exercises<\/a>, and It’s Not What They Say<\/a> on Writing-World for hints on making your characters’ speech come to life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy Thursday, guys! This week is mostly work, work, work, but in the process of doing some of that work, I came across some…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,10,52],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-af","tag-views","tag-writing-daze"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6624,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/6624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}