Humpty Dumpty, or Lessons in Voice

When writers say someone has “voice,” what does that mean? As a concept, voice can be hard to describe, but we know when we read it. Voice is that thing that sets you apart, that makes your writing identifiably yours. More than a tone or an approach that permeates the story, voice can sometimes be the story, determining what a writer leaves in and what she takes out. It’s the mystical thing in any piece that makes it exclusively…