The Voice of a Novel – What it is and Why it is so Important Emma Darwin QUOTES FOR WRITERS

….there’s the definition of Voice as the thing that editors and agents are looking for above all else. That’s partly because it’s far harder to edit a compelling voice into a book which doesn’t have one already than it is to make the plot, characters or prose work better. But it’s chiefly because it’s the voice to which readers respond on the first page, long before they’ve had a chance to find out what the plot is, or care about the characters experiencing it, or know anything about their world.

The voice of a novel, if you like, is the product of the writer’s How and their What. As such it’s the closest a reader gets to the storyteller who has created it, and it’s that human presence (however implicit) that the human reader connects with. Style is a one way thing: we admire the Ascot hat on the stranger’s head. Voice is about discovering the person who’s wearing it.

Emma Darwin from her blog The Itch of Writing

Picture credit: Jason Rosewell on Unsplash