What’s a Character Voice?

I spent years not knowing what a character voice was. Let alone how to write a good one. After all, I was writing a character, wasn’t I writing their voice? Not necessarily. Character voice is an extension of a well developed character, but you could have a character with a horrible character voice. 

So, what exactly is character voice? 

Character voice is basically the distinct way your character talks to your reader. It’s their personality coming out in their internal thoughts. It’s basically what makes their point of view unique. Without a different character voice, it would be the same if any of your characters were to tell the story. The same observations and thoughts. 

Now usually, you always have a character voice to some degree. Some different thoughts between one character and the next, but imagine if your characters sounded completely different from each other. 

I absolutely love when there is a dual point of view in a story and both characters are so unique and it really is so different between the two of them. Dust and Shadow by Kara Swanson are really good examples of this. Claire and Peter have two jurrasically different character voices. You could open the book up to the middle of a chapter and tell who was speaking/thinking without being told. The whole Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan is of the best main character voices I have ever read. 

And character voice doesn’t just appear in first person point of view writing style either. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Myer and The Extension Squad by R.M. Scheller both have really good third person character voice. Every character is so different and their point of views are done so well. 

Is character voice important? 

YES! Character voice is one of the most important things in a story. It is what often makes one book stand out from the rest. It makes your characters relatable and realistic and loveable. Character voice should be one of the main focuses when honing your craft. It is a very valuable skill to learn. 

How can character voice be better?

Well, one way to get your character voice to be better is to get to know your character. Just like real people, if you spend time with your character, you will get to know them better. So write practice short stories or do some fun development questions or an interview with them. Once you start to understand who your character is, you will be able to write them better. You will know their thoughts and personality more and be able to write it! This can be so fun to do. 

You can also write out the differences between your characters. What kinds of things they pay attention to or what they think of certain things. 

For me, my two characters who have point of views in my book are very different. One is rebellious, restless, live-in-the-moment, and more of an extrovert. The other is introverted, careful, protective, pays attention to detail, and would rather live in peace than have adventure. This means I have to have completely different character voices for both of them. 

So just figure out what their unique voices are. 

Another thing to help your character voice become better is reading. Take up some of those book suggestions above ^^ and just read. Learn what makes a character voice good or bad. Pay attention to the small thoughts that just make the character seem real and different. 

One more thing is to make your characters relatable to you. If you relate to your MC personally, you will understand a little bit of how they think and what they pay attention to. 

Also make sure to put yourself in their shoes; think like they would. Put your imagination to the test! 😂

Practice 

Really, there is no shortcut to getting a good character voice. You just have to keep practicing no matter how long that takes. It took me years to even figure out what made a good character voice 😂. So just like anything in writing, keep practicing! You will get better as time goes on as long as you make sure to work on your character voice. Keep practicing, working, and playing around with your characters! 

Until next time, 

A.J. Syngraféas