All posts by Leif Erickson

Giving a group of characters their own unique voice that isn’t just a slight variation on your voice is difficult to do. We speak, think and write in our own voice so trying to write in a different voice is like an actor assuming the identity of the character he’s playing. The tricky thing in writing is that we need to do this with an entire cast of characters, not just one role. As a writer, how do you separate out all the different voices in a novel when there are going to be anywhere from a few people to larger groups?

There’s no one way that’s right or wrong for writing a book. Everyone’s style is going to be different and as you progress in your writing career your style will most likely change. You’ll learn things along the way, develop new habits, and change your process to keep things moving. A fast paced action novel is written very differently than a romance novel, which is also very different than an economic book. No one style will work for all genera’s of literature. What I’m going to discuss here is general guidelines that can help you get started. You need to discover the style that works for you.