Creating speech patterns and mannerisms can bring your characters to life! This is crucial for young writers to understand when constructing their character’s voice. Character voice is one aspect of story writing that can sometimes be overlooked, but plays an important role in developing your character throughout the story. If your audience can feel like they hear and distinguish the voices of your characters while they’re reading your story, they will feel more connected to them. This will help your readers form connections with the characters in your story, leaving them more inclined to keep reading.
Why does character voice matter?
Character voice plays an important role in the development of your characters in your creative stories. When your characters have unique voices that are specific to them, your readers are able to distinguish your characters. Without a unique sound to their voice, your characters may feel a little bland to your readers. In everyday life, everyone has a unique voice and speech patterns, and being able to mirror that in a story can be an extremely powerful tool. A character’s voice can also tell a reader a lot about a character’s personality.
Examples of character voice from Night Zookeeper stories
- “Seriously, mate. Why couldn’t you just do a normal elephant?” asked Isaac with a sigh.
- “Yeah! She’s got loads. So what?” said Will.
- “You’re gonna be in such trouble for this,” Isaac muttered and sloped off back to his place in the line.
- As he headed off to join his class, he glanced back at his purple painting. Although he was still worried about being in trouble, he really liked it. There was something kind of magical about it and he was proud of himself.
Now that your child knows why character voice matters in story writing, we have two activities for them to try. We hope that these activities will help your child further understand character voice!
