So, if you guys have read any of my reviews, you know I like to talk about the author’s voice and the point-of-view used in the book I’m reading. I do this because I think they’re both pretty important aspects of any book. When I say ‘author’s voice’ I’m pretty much referring to the author’s style of writing. It’s what words they use, how they use them, punctuation, and a whole other heap of concepts that result in a book that literally sounds different from a book in the same genre by a different author.
Take Beth Revis and Meg Cabot. If I were to give you ‘Across The Universe’ by Beth Revis and ‘How To Be Popular’ By Meg Cabot and ordered you to read them, you’d unconciously pick up the differences in voice. Beth Revis’ writing has a flowing beauty to it that I liken to music, which features tons of character development. Meg Cabot’s is good in it’s own way but it’s aimed at effectively conveying the emotions of its teenaged protagonist, a character development exercise on its own but in a less subtle manner. If I were then to hand you ‘A Million Suns’ and ‘Pants on Fire’ with no covers etc, just the stories, you’d be able to figure out they were written by two very different authors and might even be able to figure out who those authors are. This is not to say one author can’t have a different voice for different types of books, author’s voice does help set a ton for the story being told. Rather the point is that each voice is distinctly that author’s and can be distinguished.
