Voices in works, whether it be a poem, a short story, a novel, or even an essay, takes form in many different ways. In one sense, every work has a piece of the author’s voice within it, whether it be the argument in an essay reflection the author’s opinion based on research, or the way the author of a short story or novel expresses their ideas and beliefs through creative means. An example of an author creatively using their own voice in this way would be J.K. Rowling’s use of the house elf issue in Harry Potter as a way to show her own opinion on a similar real world issue.

However, an author also creates voices throughout their works, especially those in creative pieces. Each character, although still connected to the author in ways, are all made uniquely and therefore hold their own thoughts and opinions, even if the author does not agree themselves. In this way, an author puts multiple voices with different ideas and thoughts into one work to make it more realistic, and to appeal to everyone reading. However, a non-creative work can also hold several voices, such as when an argumentative research essay uses the words and thoughts of other writers to prove their point, even if they do not agree completely.