28 July 2026·3 min read
What voice actually means
“Voice” is easier to work on when you look at the choices behind it.
Voice comes through in small choices: what a narrator notices, how they phrase it and where they linger. Vocabulary is part of it, but ordinary words can sound distinctive too.
Two narrators walk into the same kitchen. One notices the smell. The other counts the exits. We’ve already begun to sense different people.
Listen for passages that feel borrowed
Sometimes a polished passage no longer sounds like the narrator around it. It may use a rhythm or vocabulary borrowed from a writer you admire.
Read it beside a passage that feels more like your own work. What changes? You may want to keep some of the influence, or bring the passage closer to the rest of the draft.
How to find your own
Read your pages aloud and mark lines that feel unlike the narrator you have in mind.
Consider what sounds off: the rhythm, the word choice or what the narrator notices. Try adjusting one of those things and read it again.
Read more
These books explore the ideas in more detail, with examples you can try in your own work.
Consider This · Chuck Palahniuk
Advice and exercises on voice, detail and the way prose affects a reader.
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers · Renni Browne & Dave King
Practical advice from two editors, with examples of how a passage can change in revision.
Steering the Craft · Ursula K. Le Guin
Exercises in sound, rhythm, point of view and other choices in prose.
For feedback on your own draft, Karlove offers a letter with examples from your pages, reviewed by Aksel before it's sent.
Stuck on your own draft?
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