"Voice"

People can get preoccupied by such stylistic matters as “voice”: having a consistent “voice,” a true “voice,” a “voice” of one’s own. This conception of voice can have something to do with a writer’s purported signature. But to me this isn’t very important. To me “voice” is probably just the music of the story’s intelligence, how it sounds when it’s being smart, or when it’s working on the reader.

RICHARD FORD