Finding Your Voice: The Sound of Story
Workshop Foundations
This month at The Writer’s Nest, I’m doing something a little different. Instead of diving straight into writing exercises, I’m laying the groundwork first, exploring the theory behind Voice and Point of View so that when we meet, we can spend our time where it matters most: in feedback, exploration, and practice.
What THEY Mean by “Voice”
Voice is the story’s sound, its rhythm, diction, and worldview. It’s what makes a sentence feel alive, what tells the reader not only what happens, but how it feels to witness it.
In literature, we can think of voice on two layers:
1. Authorial Voice: The writer’s unique sensibility, their pattern of syntax, tone, and moral outlook. Austen’s wit, Morrison’s lyric gravity, Winton’s oceanic stillness, all are instantly recognisable.
2. Narrative Voice: The filter through which the story world is seen and felt. It might be first-person (“I remember…”), close third (“She wondered if he’d come back”), or omniscient, moving freely through consciousness.
When voice works, it’s invisible, not ornamental, but essential. It’s the rhythm of thought turned into language.
“Style is not neutral; it is the author’s stance toward the world.” — John Gardner
Understanding Voice: Three Ways of Hearing It
Voice is one of those slippery words in writing, we all know it when we feel it, but explaining it is harder. It’s not just style or tone or dialogue; it’s the fusion of all three. It’s how a story sounds when it breathes.
To really understand voice, it helps to listen from three directions:
1. From the Reader’s Point of View: The Emotional Contract
For the reader, voice is trust. It’s the invisible handshake at the start of a story, the moment we decide whether to keep reading. We might not consciously notice syntax or rhythm, but our bodies register them.
A strong voice gives us confidence that we’re in capable hands, that the story knows what it’s doing. It’s like stepping onto a well-built bridge; we don’t inspect the rivets, we just trust the crossing.
Readers experience voice emotionally. They feel its tone before they process its meaning:
A clipped, declarative voice signals authority or danger.
A lyrical, wandering voice invites reflection or tenderness.
An ironic, detached voice makes us question what’s being said and why.
From this perspective, voice is a relationship, not a tool. It shapes intimacy, distance, humour, and credibility.
2. From the Writer’s Point of View: The Self That Speaks
Voice is the part of you that seeps onto the page no matter what you’re writing. It’s the rhythm of how you think. The way you notice one small thing and skip over another. Your moral compass showing up, uninvited, between the lines. You don’t create a voice; you live and breathe it. You write and rewrite until the noise quiets down and you start hearing your own patterns: the turns of phrase, the pauses, the things you never say out loud but always imply. That’s your fingerprint.
But here’s the trick: voice moves. It bends with the story. Every piece you write calls for its own tone, its own way of being. Like an actor adjusting the pitch to fit the scene, the writer has to find the register that rings true.
Ask yourself: what’s the attitude behind this line: warmth, rage, wonder? What stance am I taking toward these people, these events? Where does me leak through?
Voice is the translator between who you are and what the story asks of you. It’s not about sounding like someone else. It’s about finding the frequency where your truth hums.
3. From the Craft Point of View: The Mechanics of Sound and Sense
Technically speaking, voice is a product of style, syntax, diction, and rhythm. It’s not mystical; it’s engineered.
Style is your habitual pattern of choices.
Syntax is how you arrange ideas: short and tense, or long and spiralling.
Diction is your word choice: plainspoken or ornate, concrete or abstract.
Rhythm is how those choices move together: the pace and music of your prose.
These mechanical elements combine to create tone, and tone, sustained over time, becomes voice.
A few craft truths:
Adjectives create colour, but verbs create energy.
Sentence length controls emotion: short for tension, long for reflection.
Repetition builds rhythm and identity, think of Hemingway’s blunt repetitions versus Morrison’s lyrical incantations.
Consistency in rhythm builds familiarity; variation creates surprise.
Voice, from a craft perspective, is the pattern that emerges when your language becomes recognisably yours, not because it’s loud, but because it’s true to its own internal rhythm.
In Essence
To the reader, voice is trust.
To the writer, voice is identity and stance.
To the craftsperson, voice is technique harnessed to tone.
When those three align, when the technical supports the emotional and the personal, the story stops sounding written and starts sounding alive.
Exercise: Three Ways to Tell the Same Thing
Step 1: Write a single, simple event. Something like:
“A girl walks home in the rain.”
Step 2: Now, write it three different ways:
Like you’re really there. What do you notice, what do you feel?
Like a news reporter. Clear, factual, no emotion.
Like a poet or a dreamer. Let the language do the feeling.
Step 3: Read them out loud.
Listen to how your words sound. Which one feels the most “you”?
That’s your voice beginning to show.
