Mar 21

What is Voice?

Read the following examples of writers and their work which display distinct voices. Find two that you like. Make a list of each voice's characteristics. Focus less on what is being said and more on how it is being said. How are the two different? What would you expect from the story, given the author's voice in these excerpts? Think about what genre it would be in, but also think about what sort of story within that genre. For instance, a story might be in the sci-fi genre, but is it an exciting sci-fi adventure, or a scary sci-fi tale?
  • When you're finished, return to the workshop CREATING VOICE to respond to the challenge to explore your own voice.

― Toni Morrison, Beloved

― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart

"What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight tell: it grovelled, seemingly on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face."
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

"The soldier in white was encased from head to toe in plaster and gauze. He had two useless legs and two useless arms. He had been smuggled into the ward during the night, and the men had no idea he was among them until they woke in the morning and saw the two strange legs hoisted from the hips, the two strange arms anchored up perpendicularly, all four limbs pinioned strangely in the air by lead weights suspeneded darkly above him that never moved... All they ever really saw of the stranger in white was a frayed black hole over his mouth.
The soldier in white had been filed next to the Texan, and the Texan sat sideways on his own bed, and talked to him throughout the morning, afternoon, and evening in a pleasant, sympathetic drawl. The Texan never minded that he got no reply."
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

"Zaphod Beeblebrox has two heads--there's no clearer way to say it. If you know that going in, then the whole Galactic-president-on-the-run thing will only be a single whammy. Reading about Zaphod is the literary equivalent of strapping oneself to the roof of a nuclear train that has jumped the rails and is running down a plasma tunnel with only a wedge of lemon to use as a brake. Obviously, one would be naked with a tiny demon jabbing a trident into one's rear end while this is going on."
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

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