Narrator vs Character vs Author Voice?! 3 Writing Voices Every Fiction Writer Needs
This is your no-stress guide to the three different types of voice in novel writing, why you're accidentally leaking into your characters, and my deranged pantser method of using voice to draft my fiction books before I even have a character (or any story structure at all!)
Resources Mentioned
FREE 3 Hollywood Secrets to Author Voice WorkbookRead Full Transcript
Sophia Chang (00:00)
For me, it starts with a voice. Some people are like, wait, what about character? Don't you need a character? And I'm like, you'd be surprised how much I could write without a character.
So I had a great presentation at the Summit, Three Hollywood Secrets for Unforgettable Author Voice, and the chat was very lively and there's a lot of comments and questions that I didn't get a chance to answer completely because we ran out of time. I would have loved to sit there for like an hour answering questions. So I am going to answer them now. Helicopters. This is city living.
Okay. A lot of these questions had to do with confusion about what author voice is versus character voice versus narrator voice. And so I just wanted to clear that up for everybody. Some of these questions may sound similar or samey. They're all kind of in the same genre.
The first question was how do you impart your voice in characters and make them feel like their own? The short answer is you don't. So you want to actually be very careful about imparting your narrator voice or your own voice, your author voice, into your characters because that's how all your characters tend to sound the same.
If people ever say, my characters sound the same, that might be because we're leaking or we're bleeding too much into them and you want to be able to just have your characters be distinct and be themselves.
There are three different levels, but I do also want to say that if you are a beginner writer, then don't worry about that. The awareness of the three levels, it's never something that I have when I'm writing. It'll just be something that happens organically because I've been writing over time and it's something that you will just naturally develop over time with practice, with training, coaching, editing, feedback, all that kind of stuff. All the stuff that we writers go through.
So if you are at a beginning level or if you're still trying to finish your first draft or your first novel, or even your first draft of your fifth novel, don't worry about that so much. You just want to get the story out. So I just want to make that really clear.
The second question is, do you suggest being yourself as the character? The short answer again is no.
I write in first person almost exclusively. I just prefer it. I prefer reading in first person as well as writing in first person. It just feels more immediate for me. And so of course, it just can't be helped. My voice is going to leak into the character when you're writing in first person. I have a very distinct point of view. And so I will choose characters who will have certain demographics that I share, whether that's racially, the same kinds of hurts and wounds and traumas, or the same kind of preferences, even if they live in some place totally different and thousands — okay, maybe not thousands — hundreds of years ago.
Even so, they will speak differently. They will have a different background. And so they're not going to be like me, even if I'm like, I'm going to choose somebody who's around my age and also an Asian female, you know, and all this stuff, and also American. And even if I choose that, it's not going to sound completely like me. So I would say do not confuse yourself with the character, try to just say this is the character, even if you're writing in first person.
Of course, it gets blurred because you know, there are the self inserts. Those of you who come from fan fiction will know that there's a self insert where it's like, it's just me, then I put myself into this world. Like, okay, you know, go you. But even then, try to separate yourself from the character.
Third question is, my writing is always character driven. Do I even have an author voice? Yes, you do. You do. And first of all, it's excellent that your writing is character driven because people love that. You need a character for somebody to relate to and to be able to follow. The writing that I'm currently teaching is Character First writing. And so you want to have that character as the central guide to lead someone through your book. Someone they can relate to, they can view the world through, they can have a lens with which to filter and understand the things that are happening in your book. So that's fantastic.
You will, however, still have an author voice, especially since your character is going to be different. Even if you have one main character, you're going to have these side characters that are completely different, that are not you. So stick with that.
The author voice is basically your unique writing style that can carry through. So the author voice will carry through no matter what book you write. It will carry through into a Substack post, into your notes. Literally anything you write, that is your author voice. So the author voice will carry through no matter what. Don't worry about it. You have it. If you want to develop it, those of you who have picked up my Three Hollywood Secrets workbook — the workbook will walk you through how to develop your author voice.
But it's just you. You have it.
Now, the narrator voice is a little bit different. The narrator voice is book specific or project specific. And so even if you're writing in first person, which I almost exclusively do, your narrator voice is going to be a lot different than your character voice. And you want it to be different because you don't want to have all your characters sound the same.
So the character voice is the one that's almost the easiest to disambiguate from everything else because the character voice is exactly what it is. Your main character, your supporting characters, even your minor characters — the more distinct you can make them, the better. And that will also make them distinct from your narrator voice.
Again, if you are at the beginning entry level, if you're just trying to finish a novel, you're just trying to get your book done, maybe it's even your first book — do not worry about these three voices. Just get the book done. You can go back in revision and worry about everything later. You can clean up your dialogue. You can punch up your character voices. Your characters might even — you might even kill them off. You might even combine characters. So don't worry so much about getting that at this stage. I would first just worry about finishing.
And do whatever you have to do to finish. Then as you're revising, you can deal with that more.
For those of you who maybe have a little bit more experience with writing, sometimes the voice can help you get started. So for me, I cannot write if I don't have the voice in my head. This is going to sound deranged to plotters. Most pantsers sound insane to plotters.
You can give — I could have a great premise. I could have a hook that I'm like, this is gonna sell. You know, I could have the hookiest of hooks. But if I don't have a voice in my head, I can't get started. I don't even know how to get started. I don't know where the story is.
For me, it starts with a voice. Some people are like, wait, what about character? Don't you need a character? And I'm like, you'd be surprised how much I could write without a character.
And so for me, I'm like, once the voice comes, then the story starts to unfold. And the voice comes because the first line. For me, it's literally the first line. I've always been like this. I've been like this for 20 plus years. I will hear a first line in my head. And then that's a voice. And that voice starts talking. And I'm like, okay. And I start writing down what the voice is saying.
And a lot of people really don't like what I'm saying. I've heard people be like, this voice flows through me. That's a mess. I'm like, yeah, well, maybe it comes out a mess. I don't know. But some of us just write like that. And so the pantsers of you guys who write like that, the voice will really help you if you can just click onto a voice. And sometimes the voice develops too as you go.
