The Writer"s Voice

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Definition:

In rhetoric and literary studies, the distinctive style or manner of expression of an author or narrator.

See also:

Etymology:
From the Latin, "call"

Observations:

  • "Voice is the sum of all strategies used by the author to create the illusion that the writer is speaking directly to the reader from the page."
    (Don Fry, quoted by Roy P. Clark, Writing Tools. Little, Brown, 2006)


  • Voice is the most popular metaphor for writing style, but an equally suggestive one may be delivery or presentation, as it includes body language, facial expression, stance, and other qualities that set speakers apart from one another."
    (Ben Yagoda, The Sound on the Page. HarperCollins, 2004)
  • "If one means by style the voice, the irreducible and always recognizable and alive thing, then of course style is really everything."
    (Mary McCarthy, Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Second Series. 1977)
  • Voice and Speech
    "I think voice is one of the main forces that draws us into texts. We often give other explanations for what we like ('clarity,' 'style,' 'energy,' 'sublimity,' 'reach,' even 'truth'), but I think it's often one sort of voice or another. One way of saying this is that voice seems to overcome 'writing' or textuality.

    "That is, speech seems to come to us as listener; the speaker seems to do the work of getting the meaning into our heads. In the case of writing, on the other hand, it's as though we as reader have [to] go to the text and do the work of extracting the meaning. And speech seems to give us more sense of contact with the author."
    (Peter Elbow, Everyone Can Write: Essays Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching. Oxford Univ. Press, 2000)


  • Multiple Voices
    "The personality I am expressing in this written sentence is not the same as the one I orally express to my three-year-old who at this moment is bent on climbing onto my typewriter. For each of these two situations, I choose a different 'voice,' a different mask, in order to accomplish what I want accomplished."
    (Walker Gibson, The Limits of Language. Hill and Wang, 1966)
  • "Just as you dress differently on different occasions, as a writer you assume different voices in different situations. If you're writing an essay about a personal experience, you may work hard to create a strong personal voice in your essay. . . . If you're writing a report or essay exam, you will adopt a more formal, public tone. Whatever the situation, the choice you make as you write and revise . . . will determine how readers interpret and respond to your presence."
    (Lisa Ede, Work in Progress: A Guide to Writing and Revising. St. Martin's Press, 1989)
  • Voice and Grammar
    "If, as we believe, grammar is linked to voice, students need to be thinking about grammar far earlier in the writing process. We cannot teach grammar in lasting ways if we teach it as a way to fix students' writing, especially writing they view as already complete. Students need to construct knowledge of grammar by practicing it as part of what it means to write, particularly in how it helps create a voice that engages the reader on the page."
    (Mary Ehrenworth and Vicki Vinton, The Power of Grammar: Unconventional Approaches to the Conventions of Language. Heinemann, 2005)
  • The Elusive Entity of Voice
    "One of the most mysterious of writing’s immaterial properties is what people call 'voice.' . . . Prose can show many virtues, including originality, without having a voice. It may avoid cliché, radiate conviction, be grammatically so clean that your grandmother could eat off it. But none of this has anything to do with this elusive entity the 'voice.' There are probably all kinds of literary sins that prevent a piece of writing from having a voice, but there seems to be no guaranteed technique for creating one. Grammatical correctness doesn’t insure it. Calculated incorrectness doesn’t, either. Ingenuity, wit, sarcasm, euphony, frequent outbreaks of the first-person singular—any of these can enliven prose without giving it a voice."
    (Louis Menand, "Bad Comma." The New Yorker, June 28, 2004)
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