human. We kind of think the voice is the narrator. It certainly helps if the stories are riveting, but a great voice renders the dullest event remarkable.
Mary Karr • The Art of Memoir
Saved by Alex Dobrenko
human. We kind of think the voice is the narrator. It certainly helps if the stories are riveting, but a great voice renders the dullest event remarkable.
Think about “voicey” writers like Julia Reed, Anthony Bourdain, or Rick Bragg: all of these people wrote about ordinary things. But the way they talked about them was extraordinary. A good writer can talk about standing in line at the post office, and it will still be good.
Jess Graves • Jess Graves on Substack
But narrative is the oldest and most compelling method of holding someone’s attention; everybody wants to be told a story.
William Zinsser • On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Storytellers have a superpower. They can make people feel good and whole and right. They can inspire and inform. They can make people see the world in a new way. They can make people feel better about themselves.
Dan Kennedy • Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling
The third-person narrator is the voice in which we naturally tell stories about things that happened to people other than ourselves.
Walter Mosley • This Year You Write Your Novel
There are dozens of ways to break up the narrative even in the first person. But everything flows through the consciousness of this narrator, so you must be true to that voice.