I’m thinking about books. I mean, yeah. I’m often thinking about books.
Today, it’s voice.
There’s no simple definition for Voice in a book, but I’m considering three specific voices as I’m in a bit of a daze from listening to a delightful audiobook this afternoon.
Authorial voice – the word choice, cadence, pacing, rythm, vibe, general aura of the book. All books have one (sometimes it’s dry as unsalted crackers), and when you’re in it, you know it. Some author voices are so distinct you can tell who wrote a paragraph. The AI models that stripped the books those authors wrote allow a computer to (almost, but not quite) mimic it. It’s not quite style. It’s not anything else. But I’m not great at defining it. I can’t describe the feeling of standing in the ocean either, but I know when I’m there.
Character voice – this is how you know one person is talking instead of another. In their heads or out of their mouths. Human or non. A character voice lets us know what the character wants, needs, loves, fears… even when they don’t tell us any of those things. Subtext carries a lot of this weight. Sarcasm and irony do a ton of lifting in character voice. Again pacing. Again rythm. Again word choice. And some of us are guilty of all our characters speaking like they came fully formed from our brains. Yeah. We work on that in editing.
Narrator voice – the secret sauce of audiobook magic. The literal, auditory sound of the narrator. Inflection and tone and speed and accent and pauses and breathing and character. Reading aloud is something I love to do, and it’s one of my three talents. But man, audiobook narration is HARD. And not everyone who gets paid to do it does it well. I have stopped listening to a book I liked because I didn’t enjoy the reader’s voice. And then there’s the other experience: the magic of a beautifully performed narration. YUM.
India Holton writes the most delicious Victorian magic romcom delights, and Elizabeth Knowelden narrates them. Together, they are the most voice-y perfection. Playful and charming. Funny and active. Fanciful and somehow real, when it comes right down to it, because maybe there aren’t really parlors full of elderly pirate ladies flying their houses across the English countryside and attempting to murder Queen Victoria . . . but I definitely want to join them. I coudl pour tea and hide daggers beneath my voluminous layers of gowns. Laughing all the way.
This is the magic of well-crafted voice, and I’m absolutely here for it.