Voice Lessons
Middle grade author Sherri Winston shares her tips and tricks for creating a character with a voice that is both believable and relatable.
Years ago, I was doing a school visit in Kissimmee, Fla. It was a grade school, and I was there because a book I’d written was on the Sunshine State Young Readers Award list, a recommended reading list for Florida students grades 3–8. For us middle-grade authors, school visits are a unique opportunity to connect with our little peeps. We want to know how they feel and what they think.
The media specialist gave me this big introduction and build-up, so I was standing there feeling as puffed up as Foghorn Leghorn. As kids are wont to do, one child gave me a quick chest deflation when she said:
“Miss Lady, is your book burring?” She pronounced boring like “burring.” Little mama talked like she was 10 years of I’m-not-having-it going on 35, giving me a look that said she was not in the mood.
She was also letting me know that what she needed to stay with a book was to feel engaged.
“You know, how some of them books start out just talking and talking and explaining? It’s just burring. I want something to happen …!” she went on, hand still on her hip, expression wary that I might open my mouth and bore her, again.
Well, I couldn’t speak for her experiences with other books. Instead, I read a little bit from my own. I won’t lie. I felt my heart rate tick upward and a thin sheen of perspiration dot my collar. I was braced for her to tell me how she really felt, and I was prepared to listen because I truly wanted to know.
So, with only six weeks until the election a new girl just appears in fifth grade. … When she heard about the elections for president, she nominated herself. … F-O-O-L-I-S-H-N-E-S-S! Later that same afternoon, on the playground, it went down just like this …
President of the Whole Fifth Grade (Little, Brown)
When I finished my chosen passage, the young lady who’d challenged me not to bore her didn’t exactly smile. Instead, she gave me a funny look. Twirling the ends of her braids, she said, “See! That sounds like something we would say. How’d you do that?”
I took that to mean that “sounding like” her made it familiar and elevated my prose from boring to interesting. She didn’t do cartwheels or even grin, but I could tell she approved. At least, I think so.
Over the years, I’ve logged a lot of school visit hours. One thing I’ve learned above all is that just like game recognizes game, kids recognize themselves and their peers in stories. They want to feel represented, respected. Children of color want even more—they want their unique experiences, speech patterns, manner of communicating, reflected in the books they read and media they consume.
How can you achieve that in your middle-grade fiction? I have some tips to help ensure your young audience will be drawn to and engaged by the characters you create and stories you share. Roll up your sleeves and don’t give me no attitude. I get enough of that from the kids!
Tip 1: The voice of a story does not mean dialogue. Sure, dialogue is an important part. However, voice goes deeper. In my book Lotus Bloom and the Afro Revolution (Bloomsbury), I created a seventh-grade girl who was a mercurial, modern-day hippie. Lotus demonstrates character through the things she does, how she expresses her feelings, what she says as well as the internal monologue she refuses to say out loud.
Voice is about character. Embody the essence of your young hero or secondary character by including mannerisms, emotions, frustrations, fears. Is your character one who deflects their feelings with humor? Or does he eat his words and swallow them with extra slices of pizza at lunch, hating himself even more and becoming more reclusive? Knowing your character and how you want the reader to feel about them will go a long way toward helping you find the voice of your story.
Tip 2: Speaking of knowing character—honey, to know your character is to save thyself. I think that’s Bible. Look it up.
It is impossible to nail the voice or tenor of your story if you haven’t nailed down the character. We’ve all filled out those generic personality forms for our characters to help us determine personal traits and attributes. Trust me, it takes a whole lot more than favorite color and foods they hate to round out a realistic voice that is relatable to young readers.
Hard as I try, I can’t nail voice in the outlining phase. And I’ll be honest, I’m a half-and-half-er—half outliner, half pantser (fly by the seat of your pants). Usually, I like to give myself a very loose, quick outline to start, then write a few chapters to see my characters at work before they really start to talk to me.
It might sound a little mystical, but that works for me. By putting characters together, I see how they respond to each other. If I can’t get them to believably think or talk or sound like I’d envisioned, I realize I don’t know them well enough. Sometimes it means what I’d envisioned isn’t possible. That’s when I go back to the only outline that matters to me, which is a character outline.
While I’m a pantser when it comes to outlining plot, I spend a lot of time laying out my characters and how I want them to relate to one another. Through crafting personalities and peccadillos, the voice of what I’m writing comes alive.
Tip 3: Once you’re comfortable with how your leading lady or main guy feels, dialogue—internal and external—are excellent ways to further drive home the voice and tone of your work.
When writing middle-grade fiction, you are writing for children. It sounds like a big “no duh,” but as authors who want to look and sound professional, we can get so caught up in what is the proper way to say something we lose sight of how wrong perfect grammar may be in the context of your novel’s scene.
I’m not talking about dialect or unusual vocabulary. What I am talking about is working hard to ensure that if a character is 9 years old and super shy, make sure he doesn’t sound like the most erudite chatterbox out there, perfect diction and all.
Back when I was eight, a soda company truck ran a red light and slammed into us. It took forever, but we finally got a settlement. A pretty large one, too. Mama bought the townhouse with that money. No more of the projects. No more rent.
Two years ago, I thought that settlement was going to save our lives. But all it did was give Mama more drinking money.
Shark Teeth (Bloomsbury)
If you want young readers to believe in your characters, make that character sound like someone the reader knows. Writing for young people is as much about proving them right as anything else. Help them see themselves and know they aren’t invisible. In my book Shark Teeth, main character Sharkita is filled with self-doubt and hope in equal measures at times. When I wrote it, I wanted to make sure readers could truly feel the tug of war going on inside this poor girl. Achieving that feat is the essence of writing voice.
Tip 4: Don’t shy away from the high notes. While it is important to show kids that we see them, we can also introduce them to someone new, someone they don’t know. Don’t be afraid to put a totally contrary character in the mix and see how your girl responds. There’s magic in conflict. How your character responds can totally change or affirm the voice of the piece.
Tip 5: Learn from your characters. For example, if you push two characters together who are very different, don’t be afraid to let them surprise you. If you’re surprised, your readers will be, too.
