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I am an author of fiction (I’m also an academic writer, but let’s leave that aside for now). I have been writing fiction for decades, and examining my own evolution as a writer is a very educational process. If I had to pick the single most important improvement in my writing, that would be the emergence of my authorial voice.

Trust me when I say this: No other element in your writing is as crucial as to develop your own authorial style. The reason is, naturally, that having your own narrative voice allows you to stand out from the crowd. Selling books might not interest you (yay!) but if you’re an artist, rising above mediocrity is likely something that does interest you.

But what is authorial voice (or authorial style) and how does one develop it?

What Is Authorial Voice and why It Matters

The term might mean different things to different people, but one definition of authorial voice is this:

Authorial voice (or authorial style) is the unique collection of word-, structure-, and narrative strategies an author deploys in order to convey meaning. The strategies are present in most of the author’s novels, provided these belong to the same genre.

In the following sections I will expand on this definition, explaining what each element refers to. Then I will offer some concrete examples, to better demonstrate what an author’s voice really is, and how one can develop it.

Expanding on the Definition of Authorial Voice

Taking the definition above as a starting point, it is imperative to elaborate on a few things. Careful readers (and a good author should be an avid reader!) have probably already noticed certain key aspects. I will list them below before continuing.

• uniqueness
• multi-level deployment
• scope
• authorial intertextuality

If you feel taken aback by some of these fancy terms, don’t be scared. To some extent you probably understand them already, even if you don’t know them by name. Let’s see them one by one.

Authorial Voice Aspects

The uniqueness of one’s authorial voice is precisely what makes it such. You can’t have your own style if it’s something that many others use as well. Of course, we all begin by imitating someone we like; there’s nothing wrong with that. However, the ultimate goal is to find strategies that others haven’t discovered yet. To some extent this might be impossible, but at least aim for strategies that are sparsely used.

The term multi-level deployment refers to strategies that happen at the word level, the structure level, and the narrative level. It will become clearer further below, when I use specific examples, but briefly: Your authorial voice should be visible on i) the language you use (e.g. word choice/usage); ii) the structure of your book (e.g. the way you combine sentences, paragraphs, and chapters); iii) the narrative choices you make in your manuscript (e.g. signaling flashbacks or marking affect).

By scope, I refer to the fact that these strategies need to have a purpose (in the definition further above I mentioned “to convey meaning”). There must be a rationale behind the choice of every single word of your novel – an ideal, unrealistic aim, I know.

Authorial intertextuality refers to the fact that these strategies, although uniquely deployed by one author, should be detectable in most of her/his books, if they belong to the same genre.

Concrete Examples of Authorial Voice

I will now use some examples to give you a better idea of what having your own authorial voice means (and why it’s worth developing). And to do that, I will use some excerpts from my own novels. This is not motivated by vanity, but simply because it is much easier to talk about authorial intention if I… happen to be the author.

Most of my novels are available as an immediate free download – simply visit the Fiction page on the main site. And remember, you can also just email me and ask for a free, no-strings-attached (e.g. review etc.) digital copy of any of my books.

Case 1

The first excerpt is from To Cross an Ocean: Apognosis, the title of which is indeed an example in itself! The word “apognosis” is not really found in English, and its usage creates an immediate hook that I exploit through the narrative (read more on apognosis). This would be an instance of authorial voice based on a word-level strategy. But let’s dive into the text for more. The novel begins this way:

0

People know me by many names, a bit like a god or a demon. But unlike them, I am not imaginary. I am real – I can be touched, seen, heard, smelled, and even tasted. I was born and, inevitably, one day I will die. Most of my names are cute and charming. But I have also been called a whore, I have been spat on, and worse.

Now, to begin a novel with a zero chapter is unusual in itself. But what the excerpt doesn’t reveal is the fact that there are three zero chapters in the book: one at the beginning, one that appears after chapter 12, and one following chapter 25. These “zeros” are also the only chapters using a first-person point of view. This renders it a narrative-level strategy, one that I deployed to challenge the reader to precisely ponder on its usage. If these are the only first-person chapters in the book, who’s talking? And what does the number zero indicate, in terms of time?

Case 2

Let’s now take a look at an excerpt showing the presence of authorial voice on the structure level. The excerpt is again from To Cross an Ocean: Apognosis.

Could he just live that present, experience its orgasmic rush, isolate it from past and future alike?

Could he protect her from who he was?

What if the past didn’t exist?

What if the future didn’t?

She imperceptibly moved a bit closer, then a bit closer, and stopped. Her caramel eyes were shimmering, burning with sweet desire. He felt her hand touching his thigh, then flowing over his hand, clasping it. He placed his wine glass onto the table. It’s gonna happen, he thought, as they were looking at each other, smiling at each other, lost into the new world; farther and farther.

The structure-level strategy here is the presence of single-line paragraphs, which create a staccato effect, matching the general mood of the scene as well as its thematic element of isolated present.

Case 3

Now, let’s take a look at aspects of authorial intertextuality. In other words, you will be able to notice the same expression of authorial style in different novels. We’ll use the excerpt from Case 2, plus two more excerpts. The second excerpt is from my novel Musings After a Suicide.

His palms covered her tiny neck and then disappeared behind her hair, the way an illusionist vanishes behind the stage curtain. And then suddenly they came back and began pushing again, while his forefingers drew patterns on her skin.

Close the door, don’t let the Devil in.

The final excerpt is from an upcoming novel of mine (update: read about this novel, The Other Side of Dreams)

Anna, in a meaningless exercise in futility, placed her finger against the window as if she was trying to hold onto the drops, keep them from flowing. Her mauve fingernail appeared oddly out of place against the vast grayness, and soon she lowered it – an abject pilgrim that wandered for too long; the messiah was already dead.

What if, she’d chosen something else instead?

Did you see it? Three different novels, three different cases of rhyming in the prose. This is something I have begun experimenting with for a while. I’m using it – scope – to draw the reader’s attention to a particular situation. Oh, and did you notice the presence of single-sentence paragraphs creating a staccato effect?

Developing Your Own Authorial Style: Breaking the Rules

As the example cases above reveal, developing your own authorial voice is often a matter of breaking the rules. Some of the rules that I broke in the examples include: “use words found in an English dictionary”; “use consecutive chapter numbers”; “each paragraph should consist of several interconnected sentences”.

However, the thing about breaking the rules is that you must be aware of them first. As Tzvetan Todorov has said, in order to perform a sacrifice, we must know what to sacrifice. This requires knowledge and experience, and both come from more writing and more reading. The more you read, the better you write; and the more you write, the easier it gets to figure out how to write.

An additional requirement for developing your own authorial voice is confidence. You must believe in yourself and in what you have to say. Knowledge and experience help with this, too, but there is also another aspect – perhaps the most critical of them all.

You should write for nobody but yourself.

Write without thinking what audiences, publishers, “the market”, literary agents, or anyone might want. Write literature rather than litterature. Write only what you want need. This is the only way to develop your own style.