5 Ways to Develop Character Voices

By Janice Hardy

If you want memorable characters, don't forget to give them unique voices. 

One of my earliest experiences with how voice affected fiction was in seventh grade, when my English teacher played us a record (yes, record, I'm dating myself here) of Harlan Ellison reading his short story, "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktock Man. Not only was I blown away by the story, but the way Ellison crafted the narrative was mind-blowing. The voice was unique.

It wasn't until years later that I learned there was a difference between author voice and character voice, but the lesson on "strong voice = strong story" had been stamped into my brain. 

A well-crafted character steps off the page and into readers' hearts, and a big part of that is their voice. 

Readers can hear personality in the words a character uses, from the thoughts they think to the things they choose to say—or not say. How they sound reflects who they are.

The Overwritten Novel: How to Identify & Fix Purple Prose in Your Novel

By Janice Hardy

Be wary of going too far and turning a good sentence (or scene) into an overwritten mess. 

The term "purple prose" has been around as long as I've been writing, and chances are you've heard it too. 

If you're unfamiliar with the term, purple or flowery prose is so filled with adjectives and adverbs, similes and metaphors, that it screams "Hey look! I'm fancy writing" and distracts readers from the actual story. You often need a thesaurus just to read it.

Overwritten text is trying too hard to sound "written" or trying to explain too much. For example, a sentence that uses fifteen words when three is enough, and half of them are adjectives. Or a sentence that explains every single step in a task that doesn't need it. 

If you ever thought to yourself, "Yeah, I get it, he was angry, move on" then you probably read an overwritten passage.

Overwriting bloats a novel and usually kills the pacing and narrative drive, because the focus is on the description, not the action. Even when what you're describing is action.

Is That You? Developing Voices for Different Point of View Characters

By Janice Hardy

Unique, stand-out characters have unique, stand-out voices, so it's important to consider how every character in your book sounds. 

I'm the kind of writer who doesn't do a lot of character work before I start a novel, but one of the first things I figure out is voice. For me, what a character sounds like is how I learn who they are and what their backstory is. I usually know a few details going in, but the bulk of my characters get revealed as I write them.

The more distinct your character voices are, the easier it is for readers (and you, honestly) to keep track of who’s who. If your witty rogue, your brooding warrior, and your quiet scholar all speak and think in identical ways, readers won’t just get confused—they’ll stop believing in the characters as people. 

Can You Hear Me Now? Developing Your Narrative Voice

By Janice Hardy 

Your narrative voice sets you apart from other writers.

Voice is one of those things that's easy to spot, but hard to define. There is no formula for it, no set of rules. Without a strong narrative voice, stories fall flat and you wind up with a lot of "Close, but it just didn't grab me as much as I'd hoped" type rejections. With a strong voice, your prose sings.

Voice is the feeling that there's a person behind the words. It's the judgment of the world around the characters and how they convey their opinions about that world to the reader. It's also the rhythm of the words they say, and the words you as the author choose. Is your writing casual or formal? Simple or complex? Flowery or basic? 

It's the little decisions you instinctively make while you write that make your writing sound like you.

So how do you do that?

How Point of View Can Solve Your Writing Troubles

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Point of view is one of the strongest tools writers have for crafting stories readers just can’t put down.

Whenever I’m asked to give “one tip that will help writers succeed,” I say, “Master point of view.” I’m a firm believer that understanding point of view (POV) can help you avoid most common writing problems—especially the newbie mistakes we all stumble over at the start.

Point of view a versatile tool that does more than just help you pick which pronoun to use, or if you should write in first person or third. It allows you to put yourself in someone else’s head, empathize with them, and see the world through their eyes, even if that world is different from your own. It’s what lets you be a storyteller and not just someone who plops details on a page in a logical order.

Here are five common problems point of view can help you solve.

The Real Problem With Passive Voice in Fiction

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Passive voice in a novel can put your readers right to sleep.

Before we dive in, a little heads up that I'm over at Writers in the Storm today, chatting about how to use clichés, metaphors, and similes to bring your story world to life.  Come on over and say hello.

And now on to our regularly scheduled article...

“Avoid the passive voice” is one of those pieces of advice most writers have heard and likely struggled with at some point. It’s good advice, since revising passive into active typically makes the sentence stronger, but like all things writing, simply doing it because people say so isn’t always the best idea.

Without understanding why a passive voice causes trouble, you might rewrite it when its actually the best thing for your story at that moment. It does have it’s uses after all.

So first, let's look at what passive voice means.

I used to be one of those folks who wrongly equated passive voice with all forms of the "to be" verb, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. Because quite often, a “to be” verb is at the heart of a troublesome sentence, but a “to be” verb doesn't always signal passive writing. 

How to Find Your Character's Voice

By Janice Hardy

Finding the right voice for a character can be tough, especially if you’re not sure who that character is yet.

Although a lot of people talk about author voice in fiction, character voice is just as important. It’s also harder, because you only one author voice (usually), but you need multiple character voices in every book you write.

That means knowing the personalities, hopes and dreams, fears and worries, of multiple people, as well as knowing what they’d say or think in any given situation. That’s a lot to figure out.

Luckily, the more you know about a character, the easier it will be to write them. And not just them, the entire novel, too.

Voice in Fiction – Vague, but Vital

By Ann Harth, @Annharth 

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Every writer has their own voice--even if they haven't found it just yet. Ann Harth shares tips on how to develop both your author, and your characters' voice.

Ann Harth writes fiction and non-fiction for children and adults. Strong, interesting female characters creep into many of her books, and many arrive with a sense of humor.

She taught writing for the Australian College of Journalism for eight years before taking the leap into freelance writing and structural editing work.

Ann is the Far North Queensland coordinator for The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She’s had a number of fiction and non-fiction children’s books published in Australia and the UK and over 130 short stories sold internationally.

When not tapping the keys, Ann stuffs a notebook into her pack and searches for remote places to camp, hike or explore.

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | 

Take it away Ann...

I Hear You: Creating Character Voices in Non-POV Characters

By Janice Hardy. @Janice_Hardy

Just because a character doesn't have their own point of view, doesn't mean they shouldn't have their own voice.

Years ago, I saw a movie (one of my favorite, super-cheesy disaster ones) where five of the female characters had the exact same appearance. None of them were main characters, and before long it was impossible to remember who was who and what storyline they belonged to. Nothing they said or did stuck with me after that.

It was a perfect example of why not developing your supporting characters enough can mess up a perfectly good story.

Non-point-of-view characters run this same risk if they don’t have their own distinct voices. But without being inside their heads to help create that voice, it can be tough to make them sound different.

Let's look at ways to craft different voices for the characters in your novel.

Choosing the Right Words for the Scene: Subtle Changes Can Make a Difference

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

A single word or phrase can alter how a sentence reads. 

It always tickles me how a single edit can dramatically effect a piece of writing. The power of language and how we choose to wield it is what sets one writer apart from another. It's in our voices, our styles, and how we tell our tales.

Mark Twain famously calls it the difference between lightning and a lightning bug, but it's more than that. The decision to use filter words versus not, to use description versus internalization, to embrace a character's voice or the author's voice--these choices all shape the writing in unique ways. It's also why ten writers can take the same premise and create ten different novels. Just look at how many re-tellings exist, from Romeo & Juliet, to fairy tales, to stories that all draw from the same thematic archetype.

The words we choose matter. It makes a story ours.

5 Tips for Using Voice in Dialogue

By Vincent H. O’Neil

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Voice is a tricky aspect of writing, from finding the author's voice to creating the voices of the characters. Please help me welcome Vincent O'Neil to the lecture hall today, to share his thought and tips on using voice in our dialogue.

Vincent H. O’Neil is the Malice Award-winning author of the Frank Cole mysteries and the theater-themed mystery Death Troupe. HarperCollins recently released the fifth and final novel in his military science fiction Sim War series, written as Henry V. O’Neil.

Website | Goodreads | Facebook |

Take it away Vincent...

How Your Ear Can Make You a Better Writer

By Fred Johnson, @standoutbooks 

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Writing great fiction relies on trusting your ear as much as trusting your gut. Please help me welcome Fred Johnson to the podium today, to share some tips on training your writer's ear.

Fred Johnson is an editor for Standout Books, where he helps authors take their manuscripts from good to perfect. He also writes fiction and poetry. You can follow Standout Books on Twitter @standoutbooks.

Take it away Fred...

How to Write With a Teen Voice

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Part of the Your Writing Questions Answered Series

Q: I’ve been submitting my 12+ novel to agents since the end of 2015. I’ve been rejected each time but have had quite a lot of good, encouraging feedback. One of the comments that keeps cropping up is that I should strengthen my main character’s voice. He’s a 15 year old boy in a difficult position, grumpy but basically a good guy. Any suggestions on how I could approach this?

A: Capturing the teen voice is one of the harder things to do as a writer. It’s also a tough thing to talk about without seeing any of the actual work, but let’s look at what makes a teen voice (if the submitter of this question wants to post a snippet in the comments as an example, please feel free).

Gender Bending: Writing a Different Gender Than Your Own

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy


To write a different gender than your own, think of your character as a person first.

It's not unusual for the gender of the protagonist to be the same as the author, but sometimes a story comes to us that requires us to slip into the head of the opposite sex. Knowing how to sound like "the other side" can be challenging, if not flat out frustrating. But it's all a matter of getting into the head of your character and seeing what makes them tick -- just like always.

Playing for the Other Side

When writing the opposite sex, our first instinct is often the stereotypes we see every day. The man's man, the girly girl, the dumb blond, the rude jock. Since we're not sure how to be a man (or a woman,) we grab hold of the familiar, which often leads to flat, unbelievable characters. But if we approach this character the same way we'd approach one of the same sex, we create a person, not a cardboard cutout. They'd want the things same as any other person, they'd have their own fears, their own hot buttons, their own flaws. A well-rounded character is the same no matter what the sex or even race. Non-human characters feel just as real as human ones in the hands of a skilled writer.

Developing POV to Develop Voice

By Pamela Fagan Hutchins, @PamelotH

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Voice is a critical (and often elusive) aspect of a novel. We all know it when we read it, but what's the best way to find those character voices? Pamela Fagan Hutchins is here today to share some tips on how to do that, using one of my favorite writing tools--point of view.

Pamela writes award-winning and bestselling romantic mysteries and hilarious nonfiction, chairs the board of the Houston Writers Guild, and dabbles in employment law and human resources investigations from time to time. She is passionate about great writing, smart authorpreneurship, and her two household hunks, husband Eric and one-eyed Boston terrier Petey. She blogs on writing, publishing, and promotion at Skip the Jack and on her beleaguered family and much-too-personal life at Road to Joy. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound, if she gets a good running start. Check out her latest mystery, Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1), available online everywhere.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Indie Bound

Take it away Pamela...

How Does Your Character Answer Questions?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

In any story, information is going to be shared between characters, but it doesn't have to all sound the same. How a character responds can show both their voice and personality, as well help writers control how and when information is conveyed to a reader.

Everyone has their own way of answering questions, and that even changes depending on who we're talking to. How we answer someone in authority is typically different from how we answer someone we have authority over, and both of those are different from how we answer a friend or loved one.

Finding Rhythm and Voice for a Beginning that Sings

By Karina Sumner-Smith, @ksumnersmith

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Starting a novel can be a scary time, especially if things aren't going well or you get off to a slow start. There are things you can do to shake up the muse and find the spark to get your opening working again. Karina Sumner-Smith visits the lecture hall today to share a few tips to make your beginning sing.

Karina Sumner-Smith is a fantasy author and freelance writer. Her debut novel, Radiant, was published by Talos/Skyhorse in September 2014, with the second and third books in the trilogy to follow in 2015. Prior to focusing on novel-length work, Karina published a range of fantasy, science fiction and horror short stories, including Nebula Award nominated story “An End to All Things,” and ultra-short story “When the Zombies Win,” which appeared in two Best of the Year anthologies. Visit her online at karinasumnersmith.com.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Pinterest | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indie Bound

Take it away Karina...

Finding Your Voice

By Melissa West, @MB_West

Part of the How They Do It Series   

JH: Join me in welcoming YA author Melissa West to the blog today. If you write, at some point you're probably going to stress about voice--what is it, do you have it, how do you find it, how do you strengthen it. It's one of those writerly rites of passage, I think, and Melissa is here to make finding your voice a little easier.

Melissa lives in a tiny suburb of Atlanta, GA with her husband and daughter. She pretends to like yoga, actually likes shoes, and could not live without coffee. Her writing heroes include greats like Jane Austen and Madeleine L'Engle. She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies and an M.S. in Graphic Communication, both from Clemson University. Yeah, her blood runs orange. GRAVITY is her first novel.

Take it away Melissa...

On the Road and Chatting About Voice

I'm over at Suzanne van Rooyen's blog today, talking about voice, how I found mine, and why it works for YA.

Here's a sneak peek:

Before I started my debut novel, I’d always written third person narrators with multiple POVs. First person was this scary perspective I knew was hard to get right, so I stayed away from it. That is, until I sat down to write THE SHIFTER.

And it came out in first person.

A huge shock, let me tell you. There was no conscious thought to do this; my protagonist, Nya, just spoke to me in that voice. It was her story, and she wanted to tell it in her words, not mine. I was smart enough to let her do it, even though trying first person was a little intimidating.

I’m so glad now that I did.

 Come over over and say hello!

Rhythm of the Words: Voice in Dialogue

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Aaron Sorkin is a god when it comes to dialogue. Seriously.

For those unfamiliar with the name, Sorkin is the writer and creator of such delights as "The West Wing," "Sports Night," "Studio 64," "The American President," and "A Few Good Men." Watch any of these, and you'll hear the style of his writing and how he puts words together so they hit the ear just right.

What does this have to do with writing, you ask? Everything.