Writing Authentic Character Voice
It Goes Much Deeper Than Dialogue
I lurk in a lot of writing groups, and I often see people posting, say, a picture of a fancy dress and asking how we would describe it accurately.
They’re asking the wrong question.
And it’s wrong for two different reasons.
For one, they will never be able to create the exact same image in their readers’ minds. Every reader will envision the dress differently. There’s no point trying to control this.
For another, the exact look of the dress simply doesn’t matter. What matters is how your POV (Point of View) character perceives the dress.
Why? Because whether you're writing in first-person or limited third-person, there’s one skill that will hook your readers and immerse them in your writing:
Your narrative voice should sound like your character—not like you.
What Does “Character Voice” Really Mean?
Or rather, when do we hear it? Is it in dialogue, when the character speaks?
Not really. It goes much deeper than that.
When you’re writing in the first-person (“I”) or the limited third-person (“she/he/they”), every word you put on the paper should be character voice.
It’s not just about how your character would describe a fancy dress. Would they even think it’s fancy? Would they even notice it? What would it make them feel, think, interpret, judge, misjudge? How would they phrase their impressions?
Every word you choose represents how your character notices something and what your character perceives about it.
How This Looks in Practice
Let’s say your POV character walks into a fancy ballroom.
A snarky teen might notice the “rich people showing off their shiny chandeliers and shiny teeth.”
A nervous guest might focus on the exits, the crowd, the heat, the overpowering music and chatter.
A jaded CEO might look for any gorgeous potential conquests for the night.
A romantic poet might see “a thousand stars caught in crystal light.”
Same room. Different lenses to look through.
The lens you look through is precisely the character’s voice.
Quick Test: The Filter Swap
Try this:
Take one of your scenes and ask:
Could this narration belong to anyone? Or is it unmistakably a specific character’s?
If you swapped the POV to a different character, would you have to change the narrative?
If not… you might still be writing in your own voice. (Which is totally normal, but also a great opportunity to change and shine.)
Where Voice Lives
Voice shows up in:
Word choice (Are they casual? Precise? Blunt? Poetic?)
Sentence rhythm (Do they ramble? Pause? Clip their thoughts?)
Focus (What details jump out to them? What do they ignore? What do they perceive or misperceive?)
Tone (Are they cynical? Hopeful? Sarcastic? Anxious?)
Emotion (Do they name it? Avoid it? Mask it with humor?)
You don’t need to overdo it. But even a light filter makes the difference between a story being told and a story being felt.
A Prompt to Try
Pick a simple moment in your story, when your character notices something, or enters a space, or meets someone new.
Now write three versions of that moment:
In your default narrative voice
In your character’s voice
In a completely different character’s voice
What shifts? What surprises you?
That’s where the gold is, and that’s how you get a good feel for a character’s voice.
If this post sparked something for your prose, hit the ❤️ and share it with a writer friend.
Because the best narrators don’t just tell us what’s happening. They show us who the character is in every word they choose.
Inspiration for this post goes to
, who asked about authentic narrator voice (among other things) in the HelloFiction chat.If you have any questions about the craft of writing fiction, stop by the chat and ask! I just might write a post to answer them.
See you next week,
Tal Valante Kilim