Red Széll

In which case, it doesn't really apply.

I think the main thing here is that for language to be effective, it needs to sound as if it has come out of the mouth of someone, rather than being a caricature of

or something machine-generated.

And we need to be able to connect with the voice of the book, the personality of the book.

Now, we might have a different voice for a thriller, which is probably going to be a little bit more staccato.

It's probably going to have...

fewer lengthy descriptions of the beauty of the night sky, although those two can be put in there for effect to slow the pace before starting it up again.

But you create the voice of the book, and the best prose...

is invisible.

You forget that you're reading prose.

You are so immersed in the story.

And the prose has actually done the job of immersing you.

It has made you believe in the story without necessarily feeling that you're having to do battle with the words.

Exactly.

And I think there really needs to be a consistency of voice to the prose throughout the book.

I've noticed narrators struggle in the past when that consistency isn't there because they've got into their rhythm and then they're wrong footed by something that just actually sounds like it should be from another book.

And I know there was a trope a few years ago where you would have multiple narrators reading books with multiple points of view in them.

I read a book that had 11 different narrators for 11 different chapters because each was giving a different point of view.

Now, that works, but it was clearly taken as a view that it's going to be easier for each narrator just to adopt a voice rather than read the book in a different voice for each narrator.

And my wife, funnily enough, read the same book and I went, how did you find that book?