Novellas & New Roast: Tips from an ONC Winner

How to use narrative voice (and win!)

Just like the chapter on prompts, this chapter discusses one of the most important aspects of your novella that is key to helping you win the ONC: narrative voice.

In the "Rules" Section, the ONC book describes how winners will judged based upon "spelling/grammar, narrative voice, relation to theme/prompt, and creative execution."

I've discussed spelling and grammar in my video resources for prose and error-free work sections, and prompts/themes/execution in the chapter "How to use your prompt (and win!)." Now it's time to talk about narrative voice because it's second key to helping you win the ONC!

So, what is narrative voice? Simply put, voice refers to the unique quality of a writer's work that comes from their personality, experience, being, and style. No two stories can be told in the same words because no two writers have lived the same life. This also means no two writers have the same voice!

From a more technical standpoint, capitalizing on or enhancing your voice requires combining a number of different writing skills such as point of view, word choice, and narration vs. description vs. dialogue ratios.

Let's start by breaking down the most straight forward skill involved in voice: point of view. Many writers choose to harness the power of one POV and stick with it so their readers become familiar with the view in which their stories are told. Whether this be first person, third person limited, or even second person referral, keeping your POV consistent helps your readers know what to expect.

However, there's always the caveat that not every story can (or should!) be told with the same POV. In fact, experimenting in different POVs can help expand your skills as a writer. A happy medium between these two schools of thought might be posting only your third person POV stories on Wattpad while saving your first/second person POV stories for yourself.

The second element of voice is diction, and it's the most visible factor that contributes to a voice. Diction encompasses many prose elements like word choice, sentence length, and use of figurative language. To see these elements in action take a look at the two short passages below.

"Woodsmoke hung heavy and golden on the shorn wheat, the earth bristling like an old, bald woman. The apple trees had long ago been tripped for kindling; the cherry roots long since dug up and boiled into meal. The sky sagged, cold and wan, coughing spatters of phlegmatic sunlight onto the gray and empty farms. The birds had gone, arrows flung forth in invisible skirmishes, always south, always away." —Deathless by Catherynne Valente

"The canary chirped and the feathers on his throats stood out, then he dropped his bill and pecked into his feathers again. The train crossed a river and passed through a very carefully tended forest. The train passed through many outside of Paris towns. There were tram-cars in the towns and big advertisements for the Belle Jardinière and Dubonnet and Pernod on the walls toward the train." —A Canary for One by Ernest Hemmingway.

Both of these passages are describing landscapes and birds, but they use different words, sentence lengths, and little or no figurative language to do so. They sound unique and different because of this, and could not be attributed to the same author.

The final aspect of voice is narration vs. dialogue ratios. This is a huge factor in voice. Some authors write very little summary narration and their books are mostly full of dialogue scenes (like Leigh Bardugo or David Benioff). Other authors write at a slower, more lyrical pace that is mostly if not all description or narration with sparse dialogue and long paragraphs (such as Yann Martel).

Finding a balance or ratio of all these elements that is right for you and your work can be tricky. Remember, developing your voice takes years and years of practice. Just because your writing voice isn't fully developed right now, doesn't mean it won't be in a couple of months or years. The best way to develop your voice is just to write! You can't force it, so just write all the time and write what you love.

Finally, if you're still struggling, here is a general list of questions you can ask yourself as you try to develop or harness your writing voice.

- What are my favorite words and or literary techniques?
- What am I passionate about? What do I like to read and write about? (Passion is a great revealer of voice!)
- What do people say they like about how I write? How can I feature this aspect of my style more prominently?
- If I described a house/ocean/crowd of people, which details would I include that another writer wouldn't?
- Which author has my favorite writing style? What techniques do they frequently use? How can I model my work after theirs or evoke (not copy!) them?
- What POV do I like or tend to write in? Why?
- Who do I sound like when I talk or write? (Could be family, friends, famous people, etc.) What makes how they talk special?