Narrative voice is what keeps readers turning pages even at a slow start or when a chapter is dragging. Here's how to find yours and keep it consistent.
I had a short story recently that I started at least five or six times, and I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs. I knew the voice was a big part of my problem, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Finally, just before the story was due, I sat down to give it one last try, and the first words out of my narrator's mouth were:
*Who on earth had decided I needed an aunt in the first place?*
Wouldn't you know, I got that version finished and tied for first place in the contest. 😆
Very true, she thought; and laughed with the facial expression of an author who had seen far too many narrative voices not to have started feeling like a villain every time she invented a new one.
Then she turned back to her manuscript and continued writing.
~~~
“But you can’t offer a priest resignation,” Father said stupidly, “because you didn’t ordain him.”
I love this post. It illustrates why first person POV is so persuasive in storytelling, and why a string voice can overcome grammar that may not be correct. Because the voice feels so true we ignore the grammatical shortcomings and want to know more.
And yes, I’ve come t learn that readers can be very forgiving as long as they’re entertained. I’ve read stories in which there are grammatical errors but the voice was so confident that I either didn’t notice it just thought “eh, maybe they just meant to leave it like that”
For Jim Thompson I strongly recommend Pop 1280 and for Charles Willeford I recommend either The Difference or The Woman. It's life changing to experience these books!
You mean the gray shading? It's the "callout block" in the editor of your post (I still can't figure out a way to share images in the comments, lol). The emoji, I got it from this emoji site (https://emojidb.org/)
Agree. I often refer to it as spice things up. Find the angle to spice things up. A small problem I encounter is when everything is spiced up, they start competing with each other for attention.
Jesse, what if narrative voice matters just as much in leadership as it does in writing? The strongest organizations develop a recognizable "voice" that goes far beyond messaging. It's reflected in decisions, priorities, and the way leaders respond when things get difficult. Just as readers return to authors because they trust the voice behind the words, people continue following leaders because they trust the consistency behind their actions. In both cases, voice isn't simply a style, it's the sustained expression of identity over time.
It was cool to see how much the feeling of the scene changed after you made just a few small tweaks to the voice in the examples.
This made me think more about what voice I use in my writing. I usually go for a comedic voice (most of my characters are like that), but I think I need to work more on actually sitting down and getting inside their heads and thinking about their thoughts. So thank you for the reminder!
Hmm, I honestly haven't thought about it 🤔 I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to post here. I'm not sure how to share writing tips and creative writing without confusing people.
Have you thought about sharing your own creative writing here?
For some time I was thinking, "yes, definitely" to share my main book I'm working on. Now, I'm just thinking maybe just short stories. But I may change my mind again. I feel like if you decide to share it though, you'll be on brand by applying everything that you're writing about (or well... not everything everything, that can be difficult). But hey, it's still creative writing. In general, I think you're already doing a great job posting tips around not only writing but enhancing your story.
POV changing with characters and the narrative voice shifting alongside the POV changing is something I am noticing as I go through my editing. It'll be an interesting one to unpack.
Thank you for the in-depth article with the information and advice and examples of applying them. It was great seeing how different narrative voices affected the story about the necromancer and the apprentice, especially in the two examples where the apprentice is scared and resigned. The one where the apprentice is bitter made me laugh.
Also, I wanted to add that the examples' dialogue tended to include a dialogue tag ("said" and "asked") and an action tag ("peeled" and "taking"). Sometimes, you can create a more cinematic effect by dropping the dialogue tag and using only an action tag. For example, "'Stew, with some apple pie.' I took the gloves."
(Which is not to say that writers can't use both tags. I originally learned the action tag thing from a class that had me reading a book that took action tags to an extreme where every character was constantly moving. I've also heard this advice from authors who pull off very immersive stories with mostly action tags though, so that's why I like to try to use more action tags in my writing.)
I’m really glad you liked the examples. I was second guessing myself about including them or not because I thought they would be too much if I included many. But I needed to get this point across.
And thank you for pointing that out! See? That’s my issue, I use the dialogue tag “said” a lot, you’re right it would be more economical to just use the action. (I’ll edit that later)
Thank you for going ahead and including them! They got me thinking about how emotion and tone affect narrative voice, which I think will improve my first-person POV stories.
I had a short story recently that I started at least five or six times, and I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs. I knew the voice was a big part of my problem, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Finally, just before the story was due, I sat down to give it one last try, and the first words out of my narrator's mouth were:
*Who on earth had decided I needed an aunt in the first place?*
Wouldn't you know, I got that version finished and tied for first place in the contest. 😆
Woohoo 🙌
Congrats on making it to first place. Love that the voice just came out full of frustration too 😂
An utterly frustrated voice ended up being exactly what I was missing. 😆
Brilliant opening! 😆
Everything just fell into place after that. 😂
That’s great!
Very true, she thought; and laughed with the facial expression of an author who had seen far too many narrative voices not to have started feeling like a villain every time she invented a new one.
Then she turned back to her manuscript and continued writing.
~~~
“But you can’t offer a priest resignation,” Father said stupidly, “because you didn’t ordain him.”
I love this post. It illustrates why first person POV is so persuasive in storytelling, and why a string voice can overcome grammar that may not be correct. Because the voice feels so true we ignore the grammatical shortcomings and want to know more.
Thanks for reading :)
And yes, I’ve come t learn that readers can be very forgiving as long as they’re entertained. I’ve read stories in which there are grammatical errors but the voice was so confident that I either didn’t notice it just thought “eh, maybe they just meant to leave it like that”
Yes. Stephen King does this really well, though he indulges himself too much sometimes, in my opinion 😀
But writers like Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford were great at writing with a convincing voice.
I'll have to check them out :)
I like reading authors with a strong voice.
For Jim Thompson I strongly recommend Pop 1280 and for Charles Willeford I recommend either The Difference or The Woman. It's life changing to experience these books!
Adding to TBR now! I just checked and my library has them
So excited for you! I think you're in for an amazing reading experience.
Do share your takeaways here with us.
I think this is what Joe Abercrombie does well in the sense--for me at least--I enjoyed reading his books but didn't care about the plot.
He must have a very strong voice then. How would you describe it?
There's a genuine grittiness to it with enough uniqueness that each character feels distinct.
What I want to know is how you added those author notes? Images?
You mean the gray shading? It's the "callout block" in the editor of your post (I still can't figure out a way to share images in the comments, lol). The emoji, I got it from this emoji site (https://emojidb.org/)
Agree. I often refer to it as spice things up. Find the angle to spice things up. A small problem I encounter is when everything is spiced up, they start competing with each other for attention.
Jesse, what if narrative voice matters just as much in leadership as it does in writing? The strongest organizations develop a recognizable "voice" that goes far beyond messaging. It's reflected in decisions, priorities, and the way leaders respond when things get difficult. Just as readers return to authors because they trust the voice behind the words, people continue following leaders because they trust the consistency behind their actions. In both cases, voice isn't simply a style, it's the sustained expression of identity over time.
I think you may be onto something…
This was such a fun read! Thank you for sharing =)
Hey, thanks for bearing with my voice until the end 🙌
Loved this article!
It was cool to see how much the feeling of the scene changed after you made just a few small tweaks to the voice in the examples.
This made me think more about what voice I use in my writing. I usually go for a comedic voice (most of my characters are like that), but I think I need to work more on actually sitting down and getting inside their heads and thinking about their thoughts. So thank you for the reminder!
Thank you so much! The fact that this article made you think more about voice means a lot.
I love myself a good comedic voice. Are you thinking on serializing your book here on Substack in the future?
Hmm, I honestly haven't thought about it 🤔 I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to post here. I'm not sure how to share writing tips and creative writing without confusing people.
Have you thought about sharing your own creative writing here?
Actually, I had thought about it 😂
For some time I was thinking, "yes, definitely" to share my main book I'm working on. Now, I'm just thinking maybe just short stories. But I may change my mind again. I feel like if you decide to share it though, you'll be on brand by applying everything that you're writing about (or well... not everything everything, that can be difficult). But hey, it's still creative writing. In general, I think you're already doing a great job posting tips around not only writing but enhancing your story.
Thank you! Yeah, that's true, it will still be on brand. Yeah, I have to think about it 😄
I would love to read your writing, whether you share your main book or your short stories!
POV changing with characters and the narrative voice shifting alongside the POV changing is something I am noticing as I go through my editing. It'll be an interesting one to unpack.
Help a writer out and tell us what you unpack when you’re done 🙌
Will do! I'm doing a series on my editing journey on here, so I'll be sharing my insights :)
Thank you for the in-depth article with the information and advice and examples of applying them. It was great seeing how different narrative voices affected the story about the necromancer and the apprentice, especially in the two examples where the apprentice is scared and resigned. The one where the apprentice is bitter made me laugh.
Also, I wanted to add that the examples' dialogue tended to include a dialogue tag ("said" and "asked") and an action tag ("peeled" and "taking"). Sometimes, you can create a more cinematic effect by dropping the dialogue tag and using only an action tag. For example, "'Stew, with some apple pie.' I took the gloves."
(Which is not to say that writers can't use both tags. I originally learned the action tag thing from a class that had me reading a book that took action tags to an extreme where every character was constantly moving. I've also heard this advice from authors who pull off very immersive stories with mostly action tags though, so that's why I like to try to use more action tags in my writing.)
I’m really glad you liked the examples. I was second guessing myself about including them or not because I thought they would be too much if I included many. But I needed to get this point across.
And thank you for pointing that out! See? That’s my issue, I use the dialogue tag “said” a lot, you’re right it would be more economical to just use the action. (I’ll edit that later)
Thank you for going ahead and including them! They got me thinking about how emotion and tone affect narrative voice, which I think will improve my first-person POV stories.
You're welcome! And good luck with your writing!
Thanks! Just edited the examples.
Cool!