Cheryl Klein is the editorial director at Algonquin Young Readers, an imprint of Workman Publishing / Hachette. Prior to her time at AYR, she served as the editorial director at Lee & Low Books for five years and spent sixteen years in editorial positions at Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic. She has edited more than 150 titles across all age categories with an emphasis on literary quality and diversity. Cheryl is also well known as a writing teacher and an author herself. Her adult nonfi book THE MAGIC WORDS: WRITING GREAT BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS was published in 2016, and she has written five picture books, including HAMSTERS MAKE TERRIBLE ROOMMATES and the forthcoming IT'S HARD TO BE A BABY. Visit her website at cherylklein.com and find her at cherylklein.bsky.social.
Cheryl had us answer the following "starter questions" as an exercise:
1. As a work of literary art, what do you want this book to do?2. How do you want readers to feel generally while they're reading the book?3. What should be the relationship between you readers and the narrator?
Match your style of writing to the feeling you wish the reader to feel.
Narrative voice is a persona that can be developed like any character, says Cheryl.
You can change how you describe a scene, depending on where you put the camera, and how you move it.
First person: immediate, intense.
If the reader doesn't like the main character, however, they may not want to keep reading. If using first person, you need clarity, credibility, and personality. To what degree is this character able or willing to tell the literal (objective) truth? To what degree is this character unable or unwilling to tell an emotional truth?
Have a purpose to using first person voice with this story. What does this story you want to tell gain from telling the story this way?
Cheryl gave us tips on how to fix an unbelievable first-person narrator.
Second person: The camera is the reader.
We see everything through the eyes of one character.
Can be claustrophobic, can seem like a gimmick.
Third person: some space between camera and the characters. That space is where the magic happens.
With third person, you have more flexibility in moving the camera around.
Third person close narration cannot lie, but third-person objective characters can.
There are different types of third person: personal / limited / close vs objective, how many POVs can the narrator access, tone (it's ok to give your third-person narrator personality).
Questions to ask when deciding what voice to use:
- Can you do first person well?- How close do we need to be to the action to feel the emotional impact what you want to achieve?- How comfortable do you want the reader to be?- Whose story is this?- What do you want the reader to see or find out in the course of the book?- What member of your cast has the most intriguing or entertaining voice?- What person do you want to write in and feel the most comfortable writing in?
There are no rules, except: DO WHAT YOUR STORY NEEDS.
