Voice Issues - You know, I should've just listened to Damian.

“Why the fuck do I have to do all the body-dragging?”
“Because,” Raeyn said, “to put it into your words, we’ve fucked up. No, let me rephrase, you fucked up. And now man up and do your job.”
“Seriously surprises me that you haven’t stuck a Dumb Muscle label to my forehead yet.”
“You want one? Why didn’t you tell me so before?”

What is the first thing that usually pops into your mind when creating a scene or even a whole chapter? In the paast, the answer for me has usually been an image of a scene, a piece of very vivid description, or a character in general (my novel ideas definitely start out with the character first). But in the microcosm of writing, lately I tend more and more to think of voice as being the incident that really triggers a scene. I suppose a lot of this has to do with the fact that I have a pretty boring over night work routine that gives me tons and tons of time to mull over my writing (that and BS and trash-talk with my supervisors, love you guys!).

Consequently, I often start a chapter not so much based on my outline, but on a specific key line that pops into my head. A lot of this has to do with the character dynamics in this scene, but overall the advantage of starting things out with a popping key line is that you really get into the swing of things. Those lines aren't just random pieces of witty dialogue, they set the mood and stage for your scene and in the end they're what keep me going.

Not sure about you, but I totally lose my grip on a scene, if I lose grip on my character's voice. Or maybe that's just my ultimate quick-fix for everything. Not sure. All I know is that Damian's PoV is full of win and that I love how things keep flowing once I hit the voice just right. What about you? How do you deal with voice/flow issues?