Where Ladybugs Roar

Confessions and Passions of a Compulsive Writer

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Those Voices in my head

Danielle at Upstart Crow Literary brought up this topic and it's had me thinking all week. When you write or read a book (to yourself,) whose voice do you hear narrating the book? Is it your own... a relative's... or someone else entirely.

I realized that I had different voices for nearly every story I write, and sometimes, for each character. I thought everyone did. Even my third person books are like that... the narrators are definitely not me in most cases. When I read books, it's the same way... lots of different voices.

For example, Charlie from the first Sarah book is totally Dermot Mulroney. I don't know why or how, but he is. Each of the Sarahs has a different voice and, despite what my family might think, Seattle Sarah, who has OCD, sounds nothing like me in my head. Meg's voice is definitely, 100 percent, Catherine Zeta Jones. May's voice, in one of the books I'm currently writing, is Kate Reinder's (an audiobook reader.) The Master's voice in the Honor books is James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) Many of my books, the third person narrator is Johanna Parker who narrated the Mediator series of audiobooks. I can't pin down most of the other characters as easily, though. I suspect many of them are narrators of audiobooks that I've listened to, but I could be wrong.

So, only one character in all the books I've written has my voice... and it's strange to me that she does. Honor. Honor is the only character that has my voice. I think that's why that series of books I've chosen to write more than just one book using the exact same main character. (For those unfamiliar with the Sarah books... it's different main characters in each one... though they're linked and several have the name Sarah.)

Anyway, it got me thinking this week about the voices in my head... and not just in a worried way.

4 comments:

  1. Oh the many voices in my head. I cant even begin to count. lol.
    Thank you for your sweet comment. Guilt is a hard thing to live with. Remember that EVERYTHING (even the supposedly bad stuff) is for a good reason.

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  2. Everyone gets their own voice for me too. How could I choose just one? The very idea seems strange. They usually aren't famous actors though. They are just random voices. They have distinct looks too. Sometimes I just throw the authors discription out the window. I remember one of the books the hero was black. A very sexy Denzel Washington/Will Smith look. Turns out he was supposed to be a blonde with blue eyes.
    I don't think I do that with your books though. I mean Honor is like 6' 2" right?...;)

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  3. I've never even thought about it. I wonder if I'm listening hard enough now.

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  4. Oh, I definitely have an entire chorus of voices in my head when I write. One of my main characters sounds like Gerard Butler (yum).

    And you should hear me when I read books out load to my son. Ah, the many voices...

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