A change of voice

Over the Christmas period I've been editing two different novels.  It struck me when reading them how different the two voices were, at opposite ends of the spectrum of storytelling.

My novel Jade is a science-heavy exploration of a planet.  It is told from a single viewpoint, that of Kaath N'kosi, a xenoformer.  Her speciality is in xenoforming ruined worlds, bringing them back to life after humans have explored them and ruined them.  She is out of her comfort zone on Jade, having been pressured into taking the mission by a life-long friend.  The story is about the survey team's gradual unravelling of the planet's sentience.  I have tried to make the explanation work in terms of known hard science.  The chapters are between 1,500 and 2,500 words long, and involve many scientific investigations and discussions between the characters.  It is a gradual reveal of the truth about this sentient planet.

The other story I was editing is Panthera : Death Plain, the third in the Panthera series.  It is a multi-viewpoint book, told from the viewpoints of four characters.  As in the first two books, there is a main narrative thread and two minor ones running alongside it.  The narrative swings frequently between the viewpoints, each character acting like a runner in a relay race, picking up the baton of story for a while, then handing it on to another character in the next chapter.

Because of the frequent viewpoint changes the chapters are much shorter, somewhere between 400  and 2,000 words.  And because I am continually changing viewpoint, I have a lot of opportunities to construct cliffhangers.

The two books have totally different voices. Jade is a serious scientific exploration of a planet, and while there are action scenes and fights in it, the focus of the book is on the gradual reveal of the extent of the planet's sentience.  Death Plain's voice is lighter.  I do discuss wildlife poaching and habitat destruction, and people are shot at and nearly kidnapped, but the voice is less heavyweight, more focused on producing a pacy read.

The voice a novel ends up with is not usually consciously chosen by me.  It's something that arises from the subconscious as I sit down to plan the book.  It's an instinctive choice,  and over the years I've learned to trust my instinct.  My first choice of tense, past, or present viewpoint, is usually the right one.  Finding my voice as a writer has become an unconscious competence, and I've learned to trust its choice.