Today, I'm going to talk about the voice of a novel, which is the literary term used to describe the individual writing style of an author. Voice was generally considered to be a combination of a writer's use of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text (or across several works)... One author may have a voice that is light and fast paced while another may have a dark voice. (Source: Wikipedia: Writer's Voice)

So, how do you establish the voice of your novel? I've read it around a lot of publishing blogs. The voice of your novel is a deal breaker. Meaning, you need to have one. A strong one.

Most of us have a natural writing voice. It comes through in our blog posts, our informal emails, even out loud when we speak. You can write a novel in "your" voice. But what happens if you've A) already done that? or B) your voice doesn't match your character's story?

Let's explore.

Picture this: You sit down to write. You proceed to stare. Because you can't find your character's voice. Or your voice. Or any voice. This happened to me. I had a main character. He was in my head, talking away. He had a story. But he was vanilla. And while I like vanilla, I like it better with caramel and pecans and some of those peanut-butter-filled footballs. A lot better.

So how do you capture a new voice, one that isn't as familiar to you? Here are a few tips and tricks I learned as I went through this exact same problem.

If you're having trouble finding your characters voice, sit down to free-write from the point of view of that character. But don't write your novel. 

What I Did: I imagined my MC in a high-stress situation, like he's been dating his best friend's sister, and his buddy just found out. I didn't worry about backstory, because I can imagine a situation like that. I simply wrote DIALOGUE my character would have with his bff. (Or do girls only have bff's?) The scene was mostly dialogue with some physical clues thrown in for emotional impact.

This showed me A) how my MC reacts in a tense scene and B) how he talks.

Then I imagined a completely different scenario. One where my character would have to convey information to the reader. Since I had just learned how he talked, I transferred that to narration. This second piece contained no dialogue whatsoever. Only narration. Establishing setting with sight, smell, taste, etc.

This showed me A) what details he might notice and B) how to move the unique voice most of us can establish in DIALOGUE into NARRATION. 

This is done to develop character, which is one of the parts of voice in a piece of writing. In Scott Westerfeld's PEEPS, one of the characters calls everyone "Dude." In Stephanie Meyer's TWILIGHT saga, Jacob always says, "Sure, sure." In Kristin Cashore's GRACELING, her narrating character begins a lot of sentences -- both in narration and in dialogue -- with "Well".

What I Did: In my first novel, my character starts a lot of her sentences with "Yeah". (ex: Yeah, that doesn't work for me. If you read my personal blog at all, you'll notice that I do the same thing.) So I certainly couldn't do that again. As I was free-writing, I seized on a word that my MC said, and now it's his "thing." He uses it in dialogue and in narration. It's not something I would've chosen on my own, but something I was looking for during the free-write session.

Don't get me wrong. Voice is essential in a piece of writing. But it's essential the same way baking soda is in cookies. No baking soda = flat cookies. No voice = flat writing.

But how much baking soda do you put in? Not as much as the flour. Think about it.

So watch yourself. Sprinkle it in consistently, but don't take off the lid and dump it on us.

I might be back with another post on voice. How do you find the voice you write with?

Some of you may remember the series of agent-judged contests we hosted on the QTblog earlier this year. Great news - one of our contest winners went on to sign with the agent who judged the contest, and his book is now on submission. Contests are a great way to get your work noticed!


We are pleased to announce yet another contest. Literary agent Anna Webman of Curtis Brown Ltd. wants to see your stuff! She has generously agreed to peruse the first five pages plus a synopsis of your YA novel. What a great opportunity! Here are all the details:

• This contest is for completed Young Adult novels only. (All the genres that fall under the YA umbrella.)


• The contest will open this Tuesday, November 10th, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. (That's 6:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.)


• You will need to submit the following: Your first five pages AND a single-spaced one-page synopsis.


• A free membership on the QueryTracker main site is required.


• Submissions will be accepted through the official form on the QT main site ONLY.


• Only one entry per person will be accepted.


• Due to the high word count of the materials being submitted, we will be capping the number of entries at 70.
  

So now you're probably thinking (gasp!) not the dreaded synopsis! Never fear, Heather has two fantastic posts that will help you make yours shine:

• Quantum of Synopses: Novel Synopsis Basics


• In Short: Writing a Novel Synopsis That Rocks

Watch for a special post Tuesday morning with a link to the submission page, and then a post Tuesday evening announcing the contest's opening.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments of this post. Good luck!

Suzy

So yesterday marked the beginning of this year's NaNoWriMo event. Which brings the point of the mega-wordcount exercise up for discussion.

The point of NaNoWriMo (besides having a whale of time writing with abandon), if your ultimate goal is to publish, is not to write a novel in one month (despite what the website catchphrases would have you believe) but rather to write a draft.

Now, to some of you, that might seem like semantics, but it's an important distinction, I think. For two reasons:

First, to succeed at NaNoWriMo (or similar high-paced writing speed goals), you really need to accept the fact that your WIP is not going to be perfect. In all likelihood, your results will be the sort of prose you'll read later on, after you've edited or rewritten, and feel the urge to delete the original file from your computer completely. Or better yet, remove the contaminated harddrive and smash it to smithereens. And then torch the smithereens. And bury the ashes. At the North Pole.

The point of high-speed wordcount generation is simply to create a starting point. A virtual scaffolding. If you do not give yourself permission to let your writing stink at least a smidge, you will neither succeed nor have fun trying.

Second, when you're riding that high from typing those two heady words, "The End," don't let yourself get swept up in the intoxicating notion that you are done with your novel. That first draft is only the first step. Sure, you've given birth and naturally your book-baby is beautiful, but it's not ready to go out and find a job yet. You're going to want to nurture and shape it first.

I can't say enough about the importance of incubation and taking your time. If there is a single mistake that represents the most common downfall of a given project, it is rushing to the marketplace too soon.

So, NaNo or NaNo-No, get out there and churn out some brand-spanking new words, but recognize them for what they are: great raw material for the fabulous novel you will soon be polishing!

Those of you who have NaNo-ed before... what became of your previous projects? How many times did you edit your manuscript after the fact, and how much did they change along the way? And, those of you who are currently NaNo-ing, how's it going? Off with a bang? Or a whimper?

Myself, I wrote The Edge of Memory during NaNo '07 (well, most of it... I banged out 65K during NaNo and finished the draft in December). I let it sit for a month or so before I started editing and I edited it several times before it became the manuscript I submitted to my agent. I didn't get to play along with NaNo last year, but I'm hoping I'll have the chance this year (once I finish up this stinking 28-hour shift and get home to my beloved laptop. ;) ).

Contests!

We’ll be having another agent-judged contest next week here on the QueryTracker Blog, so stay tuned for details on how to enter early next week!

Win a copy of BOOKLIFE: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer -- visit Colleen Lindsay's blog The Swivet to enter before November 4th.

Agents

New Agent on QT: Marissa Walsh reps Children's, MG, and YA.

New Agent on QT: Jill Marr at Sandra Dijkstra is looking for commercial, historical, multicultural, thrillers/suspense, women's, and YA fiction.

Rachelle Gardner explains how she's changed what she's looking for.

Around The Web

Janet Reid gives you querying tips in a nutshell. And visit The Guide to Literary Agents for the extended version!

Rachelle Gardner teaches us All About Backstory.  She also Gardner explains The Process of Getting An Agent...from the agent's POV!

Market My Words interviews Eric from Pimp My Novel on how sales and marketing works for publishers.  Includes tips on how best to work with the publisher!

And of course, NaNoWriMo begins on Sunday. (That's National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated -- you have to write a novel of 50,000 words or more in one month! Click the link to visit the official site and learn more.)  Who's going to play this year?

Okay, so imagine you've finished the fifth draft of your amazing NYT bestseller. You've let some time go by. And now you're ready to edit the manuscript. Again. (*Note: for the purposes of this post, editing and revising are synonymous.)

You sit down, open the document, and...proceed to stare into the great black abyss like somehow your MS will edit itself. Oh, sure, maybe you're like me and you immediately click on gmail when something earth-shattering doesn't hit you about your novel. Or Farmville. Or Cafe World. Or a writing forum. Heck, maybe you even distract yourself with Hulu and Free Rice. And when you get really desperate, well, let's not go there.

I know (trust me, I KNOW) the thought of editing an entire manuscript is overwhelming. Daunting. Like climbing the mountain--again.

So today, I'm going to give you some pointers that have helped me tackle my 320-page manuscript, edit it, polish it, get it to betas and then out the door in less than 30 days. Strap yourselves in.

1. Set goals. Not only a "finish-by" goal date, but goals for what you want to accomplish in the edit. Does character A need more depth? Do you need to introduce the antag earlier so readers know who/what the MC is up against? Do you need stronger world-building? Faster pacing? A sub-plot that needs fleshing out? What are you trying to accomplish with the edit?

Know what these are. Don't freak out that there's SO MUCH that needs to be done. Just make a list.

2. Chunk your MS. It's much easier to wrap your mind around 100 pages rather than 350. So chunk your MS into manageable sections. I split mine into three distinct pieces and worked on them individually.

Okay, so you really haven't opened the document and started yet. This is all the "behind-the-scenes" stuff that you can do in a notebook or in your head. It usually takes me 2-3 days to make my list and chunk my MS. Take some time to do this. It helps things settle in your head before you actually start.

3. Read. That's right. Hopefully, it's been a while since you've read or worked on your MS. You'll be able to see things with fresh eyes this way. I printed the first chunk and sat down to read. Yes, I had a pen (it was black, not red) in my hand. During this reading phase, I was doing three things:

• Line-edits (for awkward phrasing, repeated words, word choice, paragraphing, funky formatting, etc. Everything looks new and different on paper. I strongly encourage printing the chunk and editing on paper.)
• Outlining (I don't outline before I write. So I create my outline as I edit a finished draft. I have a pad of small (2-inch by 2-inch) post-it notes next to me. After I finish reading a chapter, I write the main focus of that chapter on a post-it and place it neatly in my manila folder. Can't sum it up? Maybe you don't need that chapter. Every chapter must advance the plot. Even if you write from an outline, you can do this to see if you've really used every chapter, every scene to advance your plot. And hey, maybe your outline has changed.)
• Making Notes (I know my goals for the edit, so as I'm reading, I draw a star and make myself a note. Like, "Insert a memory about character B here." Or "This would be a great place to reflect on plot point G." Or "Introduce antag here by way of video." Or "More world-building/setting here." I don't actually write the insertions. I simply make notes of places where they could go.)

4. Transfer from paper to computer. Remember, this is only for the first chunk. For me, it was about 115 pages, and it took me about 3 days to read, line edit and make notes for the section. Then I finally opened my Word document and started with page one. I entered the line edits, written changes and deletions. When I got to spots where I had a note for new material, I wrote it. Everything is done with the "Track Changes" feature on, so I can see what I've done. Actually transferring the changes is easy. And since you have something tangible to do, you don't waste any time staring at the screen, wondering what to do and where to do it. Transferring only takes 1 day. Maybe longer if you have large sections to add/rewrite.

5. Rinse and repeat. After section one is transferred into the computer, print section two. Read, pen in hand, post-it's nearby, computer off. Transfer to manuscript. Print section three. Read, transfer. Since I only had three sections, I edited my entire novel in about 12 days. With the goal-making, I finished a round of (major) edits in two weeks.

(*Note #2: Some of you might stop here. If this is say, the second draft, and you're not ready to send to readers yet, you're done! In only 2 weeks. Leave the MS for a while, write something else maybe. Then come back and start with #1 with new goals for another edit.)

6. Send to readers. Now, this could be an entire post by itself. But I don't have time for that, so I'll just say to choose people who you A) trust and B) love and C) will read FAST. I mean, you only have 16 more days. I recommend recruiting a few (meaning: 2 or 3) readers who will critique as you finish chunks. So really, you could have stuff out with Beta readers after you transfer the first chunk. When they finish, send them the second, and so on. This way, you're not stalled at this point in the process, waiting for reads. You've been getting them back on shorter sections. Which is how you want to work anyway.

7. Go over crits, make changes. Add stuff, delete stuff, etc. This is just a polish. You've already done the major reconstruction. Now you're just smoothing over the edges, based on what your readers have said. If you have fast readers, you can probably get this done in a week or so. I think I had my chunks back and crits incorporated in about 8 days.

8. Leave it alone. Which means, leave it alone. Don't open it. Don't read it. You can think about it if you want. I didn't. 2 days. I actually did this immediately following the final transfer (step 5), while waiting for reads to come back on chunks. It doesn't matter when you do it, but it's vital. Seriously, leave it alone.

9. Send entire, repolished MS to trusted readers. These are NOT the same people who read the chunks. Different people. I had 4. I sent them the "final" MS as well as a list of my goals so they knew what I was trying to accomplish with the edit. (*Note, I did this because with one exception, my readers had already read my book, so I wanted them to know specifically what I was trying to do this time around.) Again, they need to be A) trusted B) loved and C) fast.

11. Done!

This system worked for me. I managed to edit my 83,000-word novel, get reads, and polish it up in under 30 days. Hopefully, you've seen something in this list that can help you focus your energy into accomplishing an edit (no matter if it's your third draft or your, um, eighth) of your manuscript without falling into the great black abyss. What do you do that helps you get the editing done?

The five QT blog authors have had a great couple of months. Our subscribership here on the QT Blog continues to grow as does the membership on the new and improved main Querytracker site, which now features book publishers in addition to agents.