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@wordsmith No worries regarding the ellipses =P It kind of plays into the topic. It’s something that works for you, and maybe works for your general audience, but is different enough to orthodox punctuation that someone like me has trouble interpreting it.

“we still need to talk about why the language makes voice itself.”

Well, yeah, but that’s the easy part. Maybe. I’m pretty sure. That’s where the orthodox part of the training comes in, since we can draw from decades and centuries of people who’ve made careers out of figuring out how language works.

“we can explain voice by way of the tools of language while still taking into account that it’s going to be applied by another individual with their own mind.”

I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean by “tools of language?” You mentioned things like rhythm and syntax earlier. I assume you generally mean “literary devices.” Beyond that, I don’t know what the “while still taking into account…” part onward means.

This is where the more orthodox training bit comes in. A person may have internalized every facet of language which could ever exist, but if they lack the vocabulary to talk about it, it’s difficult for them to interact with others in the field.

Oh, I was going to throw the entire bulk of literarydevices.net at you for you to peruse, but I remembered they actually have an entry for voice. It’s really just some faceless organization’s definition, but the site in general is pretty neat.

” I don’t think this deals with how we might answer the question of whether or not a voice might fit with a genre,”

That is at the very least a question it can answer. If we look at our intended audience and figure out what we cannot deviate from to serve them, then we know what freedom we have to differ in every other regard. If I’m writing grim reaper academy books and all other books in the genre are written at a 5th-grade reading level, then I would be well-served to stay at that level, but I might be free to use whatever paragraphing style I might choose if various authors in the genre use completely different paragraphing styles themselves.

Everyone’s idea of a strong voice is different. I was part of a diverse writing group in which I was the only one who didn’t hate Ursula K. Le Guin’s voice in The Dispossessed. Everyone else thought it was plodding and boring, while I found it methodical. For them, her voice is weak, but I think for you and me it is strong indeed.