Writers' Lodge 20: Voice and Point of View

What's the difference? How to develop your unique voice, and how to choose the right point of view in your work

In this Issue:

• What is Voice?

• How to Find Your Own Unique Voice

• What is Point of View?

• Choosing the Right Point of View

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I thought it might be helpful to take a look at voice and point of view (POV) today, two things that are undeniably closely interlinked, but also different and often confused. Plus, further down, I’m going to give you some tips to help you choose the correct POV for your writing, and also develop your own unique voice!

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Introduction

Hi everyone!

How is everyone getting on? Are we all sticking to the plans we made at the beginning of the year, when everything felt fresh and new? It’s all too easy to overestimate what’s possible, to get caught up in the whole New-Year-New-Me thing and make bold decisions (‘I’m going to go to the gym 8 times a week and cut out ALL sugar!’) that all too soon prove to be unmanageable. I know I can struggle with that, which is one of the reasons I no longer make resolutions. I do, however, use January 1st as an opportunity to check in with where I am and where I’d like to be in twelve months, and to think about any (relatively minor) adjustments I might need to make. But I also take the opportunity to remind myself not to bite off more than I can chew, and to cut myself a bit of slack if things don’t quite go to plan.

So, if you are sticking with your resolutions (writing or otherwise), well done! And if not, well done too! As they say, it’s a marathon not a sprint, and even a baby step is better than nothing at all, as long as you’re going in the right direction.

So, before we get into the nitty gritty of voice and point of view, tell us. How are you getting on?

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Voice

This can be thought of as your personality on the page (it can get a little confusing here when we think of first person POV writing or even tight third, as here the voice is arguably the voice of the narrator, rather than the author, but the principle is the same and more of that later). It really comes down to the decisions you’re making regarding word choice, sentence length, tone, punctuation and syntax; the rhythm of your work, if you like.

As an example, compare someone like Chuck Palahniuk with Daphne du Maurier.

Here’re a few paragraphs from the opening of Palahniuk’s ‘Fight Club.’

The building we're standing on won't be here in ten minutes. You take a 98% concentration of fuming nitric acid and add the acid to three times that amount of sulfuric acid. Do this in an ice bath. Then add glycerin drop-by-drop with an eye dropper. You have nitroglycerin.
I know this because Tyler knows this.

Mix the nitro with sawdust, and you have a nice plastic explosive. A lot of folks mix their nitro with cotton and add Epsom salts as a sulfate. This works too. Some folks, they use paraffin mixed with nitro. Paraffin has never, ever worked for me.

So Tyler and I are on top of the Parker-Morris Building with the gun stuck in my mouth, and we hear glass breaking. Look over the edge. It's a cloudy day, even this high up. This is the world's tallest building, and this high up the wind is always cold. It's so quiet this high up, the feeling you get is that you're one of those space monkeys. You do the little job you're trained to do.
Pull a lever.
Push a button.
You don't understand any of it, and then you just die.

Now, by way of contrast, take a look at the opening of du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’.