Writing The Middle Grade Voice by Aida Salazar
When writing my most recent dual POV verse novel, Stream , I spent a lot of time thinking about and working on voice. The general definition for voice is somewhat elusive and the answer given really depends on who is asked. Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Lux ( Poet’s Companion ) say “voice is as individual as a fingerprint,” where Mildred P. Taylor ( Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry ) says “voice is the way a character talks, how they express themselves.” About nine years ago, at the beginning of my publishing career, I was fortunate to attend a workshop on voice led by the great Linda Sue Park, who defined it in the clearest and most useful way for me. She said voice is made up of three things – word choice, rhythm, and punctuation. Linda said her ideas came about because of her study of poetry. This definition was illuminating to me and has served me as a verse novelist in much of my work ever since. Let me expand . . . With word choice or diction, each character uses words based on a nu...
