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Query update: Done! After about 20+ versions of my story pitch, I have one I’m happy with. I’ll start submitting tomorrow. And, then I’m going to start my next book. I know which idea I’m going to move on with, and at the same time, I’m going to start researching one of my other ideas. Fun!

Voice always seems like one of those things that’s so necessary for a writer to have but so elusive for a writer to attain. We always read that agents and editors want a “fresh voice.” But what is that?

After much reading and writing, the best description of voice that I’ve come across is this: The same story can be written a million ways, and your voice is the way YOU tell the story.

Writers get their voice by reading and writing. The more we read, the more what we read is reflected in our writing, and the more write, the more our writing is independent of what we read.

Does that make sense? Early on, we are influenced by the books we read, but the more we write, the more we find our own style.

It’s like painters; they try on the styles of the greats that came before them, and as they learn and grow, they develop their own style of painting. That’s their voice, and it’s the same with writers.

On her Kidlit.com blog, Andrea Brown agent Mary Kole has what I think is a great lesson on developing voice. In her latest Workshop Submission, Mary analyses the opening of a book and says:

The number one reason some writers make it and others don’t is voice.

To help this writer with voice, Mary says:

Voice. Here, we get a lot of dry language. It doesn’t have style to it, or attitude. It doesn’t have emotion running like a current through it. Lots of these words lack energy. They seem like they’d belong in a periodical or in a business memo. How can this story be told with more style and careful word choice?

Mary says a lot more, so click over and check it out.

And when you’re reading through your manuscript, look for your own style, your attitude, the emotion in the story and the words you have chosen to convey that emotion. That will be your voice.

What do you do to develop the voice in your work?

Write On!

Please excuse this long post – I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.

Thanks to Mark Twain for that. Is there a better example of a winning opening remark? Engaging and intriguing, this is “voice”, that elusive quality that turns pages. With a stack of novels on a shady table under a squanderable Mexican sun, I give myself an hour to see if I can determine what makes a compelling narrator’s voice.

This isn’t passive voice or active voice I’m talking about, nor point of view. Not present tense or past tense, but tension, yes.  Above all, voice bewitches the mind.

Here’s Virginia Woolf beginning Orlando. She piles on the provocative words: “sex, slicing, disguise, barbarian fields, Africa, slain, skull, strange rivers, lunge and plunge and slice…” The sheer momentum of these words and the undulating sentences she makes of them sweep the reader along for pages and pages.

I remember reading the opening of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, and knowing immediately with what spirit I would rewrite my novel, Roxy. Woolf’s first person p.o.v is so immediate, tactile, and judgmental. Outrageous! Exclamation marks all over the place! Though the plot is claustrophobic, the voice is exciting, deadly.

Here’s another Wolfe, Thomas, and his Look Homeward, Angel! His first paragraph includes this line: ‘Each of us is all the sums he has not counted…” He would appear to be opening philosophically; maybe we’ll learn something in this book. The line might contain the book’s theme, so we read the paragraph again. If so, he’s hooked us. Voice is authority.

Another Wolfe novel begins with an onslaught of visceral words: pissing, urinal, virgin, vomiting. In Harold and Maude, a mock suicide scene unfolds on page 1. Death is a poplular opener. Likewise sex. This is powerful energy. Voice is energy. Our novels could devote that energy to making and keeping a promise. From death to rebirth. From sex to super-consciousness. Something like that.

Here’s another novel whose more mellow opening paragraph contains this single metaphor: “chips of cloudy sky”. Chips is unusual, chips might fall, creating tension.  One original turn of phrase might be enough to endear the author to the reader. Voice is confidence.

“Once upon a time there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.” Here’s an absurd voice that in one sentence perfectly establishes not only the tone but the protagonist’s struggle.

“We had gone 84 days now without taking a fish.” Right out of the gate, this famous narrator doesn’t just announce the plot, he comes across as straightforward and honest. Voice is character.

“I want to write about faith, about the way the moon rises over cold snow night after night…” With this beginning, poet David White presents a vulnerable narrator confessing a desire to accomplish something about which he feels incapable. We immediately connect with the glorious humanity of it.

Here’s another narrator making a confession in the first few words: “I didn’t know what the hell we were doing here.” The reader is immediately engaged by the question it poses. By establishing a narrator who ‘doesn’t know’, the voice is imbued with the poignancy of human failure. Who doesn’t immediately connect with such voice?

So, what is this mysterious thing called voice? It doesn’t appear to be writerliness; more like the absence of it. Maybe it’s who we are. And if you’re not sure, and haven’t added yourself up lately, maybe that’s okay too, because, as Thomas Wolfe’s narrator said:

“Each of us is all the sums he has not counted…”

“The writing’s not compelling enough,” said the agent’s email. “Sorry, I’ll have to pass.”

Mike was justifiably dejected as he told us the news. Our writing group takes this kind of thing personally. We’ve been following Mike’s journey toward publication for some time. We love his characters, right down to the protagonist’s shipboard cat. The agent must have loved something about Mike’s query letter because he invited him to submit the manuscript. The agent actually read it. Fantastic.

“Not compelling enough. Sorry. Piss off.”

‘Compelling’ is such a depressing word, an infuriating word, but a good word. It’s not just Mike who has to understand this, it’s each of us in the group. Rick, Sue, Spencer, Sarah, Angela, Joanne, Mae, Myrna, Marie – most of us are in rewrite hell, and if we have a common problem it’s a serious lack of ‘compelling’.

So, what is compelling? Any agent, publisher, producer, or any of their poorly paid readers knows instinctively what’s compelling. And if they don’t see it on the first page, they don’t expect to see it on the second. And if it shows up on page 5, it’s too late. The good news is – we can recognize it on page 5 and transpose the magic to page 1. And every page thereafter. It’s called a rewrite.

It is magic, too, by the way. That’s the bad news. It’s called ‘voice’. I once read an entire book about voice and didn’t learn a thing. That would be worse news if I didn’t think that the writer of that text had simply failed. I’m going to give it a try, myself.

‘Voice’ is tension in any of its guises. Tension is compelling. Compelling turns pages. The agent wasn’t curious enough to turn the damn page. It’s as simple as that. (Maybe she was hungover, Mike. And then again, maybe not.)

 Compelling is a promise made in the opening paragraph. It’s a reason to stick around – if not for 300 pages, then at least until the next page. It might be a foreboding, or a poke at one of our wonderful human weaknesses. An escape from a world, or a coming to terms with a world.  Contradiction in a character, ambiguity in a metaphor, an adjective all ass-backwards. Almost any kind of tension will do.

James Joyce launched his Ulysses upon a ‘scrotum-tightening sea’. We are thrust immediately into our oh-so-vulnerable bodies. What, after all, is the body all about? Ultimately, pain and suffering. And then death.

Of course.

All stories are journeys toward some manner of coming undone. Otherwise, there’s no dramatic tension and no resolution.  We need to determine the nature of that undoing and plant its promise in the opening paragraph. Point the way, establish tension, and then…

 Query another agent, Mike.

I’ve seen Josh Berk around on Live Journal, and he seemed like a nice guy. In his user pic, he’s standing in a field, so I figure he is down to earth and maybe chews on a piece of wheat and says “Aw, shucks!” a lot.

And then I heard that The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin got a starred review from Kirkus. Kirkus, who is famously crankypants, so if they like something, that’s something. And School LIbrary Journal also gave it a starred review!

Will is a deaf kid who has decided to mainstream himself, transferring from a deaf high school to a hearing high school, where he plans to ditch his hearing aids and rely on reading lips. He ends ups solving a murder - and of course that ability to lip read comes in handy.

The cover makes the book look like it would skew young, but it’s actually a solid YA. And it’s funny.

======
Here’s a bit from when Will skips school:

“Lots of uneasy thoughts flutter inside my head as bird and fat, lazy bees flutter above me. Will Mr. Yankowski notice I am gone? Will Travis seek some sort of revenge? Will I get detention? Electroshock therapy? Tasered?

“Who am I kidding Only Devon Smiley will even register my absence, and he is probably too busy getting his nipples twisted in the locker room by D. Jonker. Jonker has really stepped up his harassment of Devon lately for some reason.

“Right now it all seems so far away: gym class, Devon’s nipples, Pat, Liegha, Principal Kroener, Fatzy McFatpants.”
==========
And here’s another section about his crush:

“For the whole rest of the day, I cannot stop imagining Leigha’s response to my note. I play out a thousand possible scenarios. I work hard to try to convince myself that the good ones (me and Leigha making out in a shed) are likely, or at least no less likely that the really bad ones (me getting murdered in a shed). Why do all these scenarios involve a shed?"
=========
What makes this book so good is Will’s voice. Agents and editors often say they are looking for an author with a unique, strong voice. If you want to see what they mean, read The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin.

Voice

by Jodie Gonzalez

I have always been a writer. Letters, diaries, speeches, To Do lists. I love words. And the feel of ink on a clean sheet of paper. But recently, I have become a different kind of writer. A conscious writer. I have begun to study craft, read mountains of books on the subject of writing, taken a class, started a blog.

Through these experiences I have become aware of voice. As a speaker, this was obvious. Years of communication courses, business presentations, teaching public speaking to teens, I was always conscious of my voice. But in my writing…I didn't seem to make the connection. It has only been through my study that I've come to appreciate the value of an authentic voice. And though not as strong as the sound from my lips, I am beginning to stand shakily on writer's legs.

Through our writing, we are invited to explore our true selves, and from that journey emerges a new voice. One wise with tales from the road, a bit ragged from unexpected bumps along the way. And it propels us forward, further on our quest for authenticity. Through my writing I offer myself, my individual perspective—as a woman, a social worker, sister, wife, a resilient soul in search of connection. To do this, I must be vulnerable, honest, open to possibility in my writing.

Each of us writes for a different reason, from a myriad of perspectives, with a symphony of voices. It is this unique piece of ourselves which we offer to the world, it is this that gives our words power.

* * *
Jodie is a medical social worker and newbie blogger. Check out her adventures in art/writing at http://jodiekim.blogspot.com.

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What to Write Next?

I’ve just wrapped up a few novel project, or else they are cooling down. It’s time to swim around and hope that I find some interesting bait and get hooked on the next novel. In fact, I’m eyeing two bits of bait right now and trying to decide if either will do. The problem is that ideas for novels need to be developed and filled out. I’m wondering if I can cut down the development time by combining two ideas?

Idea #1. One is an idea for a short chapter book (about 12,000 words), in which there’s a MC, her best friend, and her grandmother. The conflicts will be small, mostly school oriented events which are appropriate for 2-4 graders.

Idea #2. The second idea has a central event around which everything happens; the stakes are much higher and the character emotions will be deeper. And the audience could go much higher, even up to high school or adult audiences, depending on how old I make the characters.

Both ideas have the potential to keep me interested for the long-period of time it would take to write, revise, edit (REPEAT until satisfied). I may eventually write both. But which project should I try next?

Combine Story Ideas?

So, I’m wondering if the two can be combined in ways that will enrich each other. The big stakes event would take on smaller, family conflicts and feel cosier. The short chapter idea would be enlarged and feel more universal and affect a reader in deeper ways.

But you see the difficulties. For one, I would have to give up the idea of a short chapter book. Someday, I want to write for that audience!

The Big Event story has possibilities for some deeper emotions, but only if it’s for a teen audience or upper middle grade. So, if I tried to move the story to, say fourth or fifth grade, it might work as a happy medium, but would I be happy with it? Would it be the worst of both stories or the best of both?

On the other hand, both stories need enrichment and I do see how this meshing of plots could make for a stronger story.

It Comes Down to Voice

In the end, I may have to write some samples and see where it goes. Can I create a believable and interesting voice for the combined story, or does each story demand a different voice? Exploring options like this takes time, but I think it will be time well spent.

How to Write a Picture Book. Ebook, immediate download. $10.

Angela Ackerman (a.k.a. The Bookshelf Muse) has finished her collection of posts about her seven deadly sins of novel writing, and they’re good to read for writers at all stages of a manuscript. On Monday, I’ll be beginning what I think — hope — will be my last revision of my current novel, and as I go through the chapters, I’m going to make sure I haven’t made any of these sins.

Here are her sins:

1. Keeping the stakes too low for the characters. Conflict keeps our worlds going round.

2. Characters that don’t measure up. Characters should be unique, yet natural; likeable, yet flawed; active, yet true to character.

3. A weak voice. To quote Angela, “Voice is the song of the story, the heartbeat of the main character. It is nothing short of magic.”

4. Plot holes. Including, illogical steps, saggy middles and coincidences.

5. Bland writing. Use all five senses and choose words wisely.

6. Drowning the dialog. Too much, too little and “said” vs. anything else.

7. Giving away too much. Showing vs. telling and how much to reveal.

Thanks for these, Angela. A great guide.

Can you think of any more deadly sins of novel writing? What sins have you committed lately?

One of the most common things I hear from writers lately is, "You've told us a lot about what makes you say no to a book. Now tell us what makes you say yes." So yesterday I wrote that I love when I can sense the writing is authentic and true.

Today I want to take it further and identify three basic things that are immediately apparent to agents and editors when we read and evaluate your work, and they make the difference between yes and no.

Craft.
. . . . .Story.
. . . . . . . . . . Voice.

Of course, the elements are intertwined, but it's helpful to artificially separate them in order to understand why a book is either working—or not.

Craft refers to the mechanics of fiction: plot, characterization, dialogue, pacing, flow, scene-crafting, dramatic structure, point-of-view, etc. I think craft is pretty easy to teach and it's easy to learn. It's technique, the foundation upon which writers use their artistic skill to build their story. Knowing the mechanics of craft enables you to use it to create the effect you want.

Story refers to the page-turning factor: how compelling is your story, how unique or original, does it connect with the reader, is there that certain spark that makes it jump off the page? Is it sufficiently suspenseful or romantic (as appropriate)? Does it open with a scene that intrigues and makes the reader want to know more? Story comes from the imagination of the writer and is much more difficult to teach than craft (if it can be taught at all).

Voice is the expression of you on the page—your originality and the courage to express it. Voice is what you develop when you practice what we talked about yesterday—writing what you know. It's the unfettered, non-derivative, unique conglomeration of your thoughts, feelings, passions, dreams, beliefs, fears and attitudes, coming through in every word you write.

Without a doubt, whenever I read a new manuscript and fall in love with it, the deciding factor most of the time is the voice.

So how do you find your voice? You can't learn it. You can't copy it. Voice isn't a matter of studying. You have to find it. And the way to do that is by writing, and experimenting, and seeing what kind of response you get from others, and writing some more. And some more.

Putting it All Together

I receive numerous projects that show strong technique, but no originality or heart. In a way, this is good because it shows that writers are paying attention to their craft. They're taking the time and making the effort to learn to write, which is fantastic. But some of them lack a strong story, and others don’t have a compelling or unique voice. These writers just need to keep working on it.

I think some writers find craft easier, and others find story comes more naturally. A few writers have a strong voice right out of the box; most writers have to work for years to develop one.

When you read published books that don't seem to "follow the rules" of craft that you've worked so hard to learn, instead of getting mad and throwing the book across the ro

Does your Scene Pass this Checklist?

1. Where/When. (Setting) Did you orient the reader at the beginning of the scene? Does the reader know where this takes place: room in house, city, state, country, etc? Does the reader know when this takes place: time of day, season of year, place within chronology of story? If the answer to where or when is no, do you have a firm reason for leaving the reader disoriented?


Do NOT Pass Go Until You've Passed this Check List

2. Stakes. Are the stakes of the scene goal clear? If the protagonist fails, do we understand the consequences? Are the consequences substantial? Can you put more at stake, or make it matter in some way?
3. Structure. Is the structure clear, with a beginning, middle, pivot point and ending? Is the chronology of the scene clear (did you use transitions such as then, later, before, after, etc.)?
4. Actions. Are the actions of the scene interesting, and told with active verbs and great clarity?
5. Emotions. Are the emotions clearly stated or implied? Can the reader empathize with the characters? Does the reader weep or laugh, even when the character can’t or won’t?
6. Dialogue. Does the dialogue move the scene forward or is it empty chit-chat? Are there minor conflicts embedded in the conversations?
7. Language. Are you telling or showing? Does your storytelling have clarity and coherence?
8. Voice. Does the language create the proper mood, tone, voice?
9. Transition. Does the scene make a smooth transition to the next scene? If you use a scene cut, does the reader have enough information to follow the cut without getting confused?
10. Cohesive. Do all the elements work together to create a gestalt, a scene that is better than the sum of its parts?

Where does your scene fall down? Revise. You know the drill.

Picking up the threads of a story is difficult after a holiday. Here’s four suggestions for making it easier:

Read. Read through a couple of chapters just before where you’ll start. Read slowly, letting the characters, the voice, the tone overtake you again. Remember what you were thinking or doing when you wrote the chapters.

Mark up. While you’re reading mark up the chapters for line editing. For me, line editing is a way to make myself pay even closer attention to the writing, which helps me get back into it.

Free write. Another method I’ve used is to free write something from the point of view of the narrator. Write about a memory of a holiday, or of a sports game or of a song once heard that lingers on. Be specific, grounding the scene in specific sensory details. It doesn’t matter if you eventually use this scene, the point is to get back into the story’s voice with something that may or may not get used.

Type. Retype a chapter. Again, this is a simple technique to force you to read every word in the story, and not skim. You need this kind of in-depth re-immersion into the story in order to pick up the same voice.

How do you get back into a story after a break?

Related posts:

1. Line Editing
2. Opening Chapters
3. 4 Ways Weather Affects Your Story

More Than One POV? Split to Revise

My current draft of my WIP novel has two point of view characters. I’ve just copied each POV into its own separate file to revise and edit.

• Voice. The main reason for this is to work on getting a consistent voice for each point of view. When they are intertwined, I’m afraid I’m getting them confused, it’s hard to hear each one. In the past, I’ve also done separate files for the dialogue or speech of different novel characters to make sure each sounds unique, yet consistent.



• Chronology. A second reason for new files is to keep the time line straight for each of the novel’s characters. The POV alternates throughout and while I’m reasonable sure that the time line works, this separation will allow me to make sure each character has a significant part in each section of story time.
• Contrast. Finally, I want to make sure there’s a good reason for this alternate POV in this novel. I’m looking for a contrast, or at least something going oblique to the first story line. When the characters throw each other into profile by their contrast, it will be even better.

Related posts:

1. Opening Chapters
2. 4 Files to Prevent Mistakes
3. Test Submissions

In my agent travels, I find that most of the questions I get from aspiring authors are about queries. And that makes sense: everyone (including myself) will tell you that your query is an important weapon in your agent-getting arsenal. So, having been told that the difference between publishing superstardom and form-rejection comes down to one page, authors obsessively work on their queries. But that’s not quite right: what they do is obsess. And I think a lot of times they can’t see the forest for the trees. They ask agents what font or paper stock they should use, whether HTML email or plain text is better, or if their bio should be longer or shorter or more personal or more formal. They receive conflicting advice from different websites, agents, editors, author friends, and spouses. And then they have a nervous breakdown.

Ok, that last part may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but I don’t think it’s that far off. Writers, who tend to be obsessive anyway, get downright crazy about query details, and I really don’t blame them. We publishing professionals haven’t helped the situation, what with all of our dire warnings about doing it perfectly or else. So I want all of the writers out there to pay attention: if you’re reading this blog, if you’re paying attention when publishing pros give you advice, if you’re going to good, appropriate conferences, you don’t need to panic. This is the catch-22 of it all: when agents go on and on about bad queries and what-not-to-do, they’re preaching to the choir! Anyone savvy enough to be paying attention is probably doing it right in the first place. I don’t mean that all of you have winning queries that will score them an agent and publication, but I doubt any of your are going to wind up the cautionary query tale that you hear at conferences.

But, the question the remains: what am I looking for, if it’s not all of those little details? What I’m looking for is a unique idea and good writing. I’m looking for an authentic, interesting voice--yes, voice in your query. I’m looking to get a feel for your style in just a couple of paragraphs. I’m looking for you to describe your book, whether it’s commercial or literary or in between, in a way that makes me want to keep reading. In October, I linked to a great query example, the one that Lisa McMann had written for Wake that was recently in Writer’s Digest. It was exactly I’m looking for: it was unlike any query I’d received before (or since). How so, you ask? It was entirely unique to Lisa and her book. It didn’t follow any formula or template. It gave me the information I ask for, but it did so in a way that was different. And I can promise you, all of the successful queries I’ve read have done the same thing.

I’m sure this will spur many questions, but I’d like to have a saner, more humane query discussion with aspiring authors, one that focuses on ideas, narrative, and writing instead of on boring details like font and word count. A little common sense in putting together a presentable query, plus a killer idea and great writing, and you’re all set!


- Michael

Hello, hello. As promised last week, I come bearing art. Its been getting busy around here since the last post, and it has made me almost forget about Halloween! I have to start my costume, and that means brevity in this month's post. Sorry!

Earlier this month, I was very lucky to be contacted by Tom at Riverfront Times. Not only was I glad to receive a job after a break, but it was a cover! Nice! Then Tom dropped the bomb that the article would be national among Village Voice Media publications, and that was awesome!

Tom had an idea of what he wanted so I sent him two quick layouts to choose from (I used a frame from another assignment's sketches as an indicator):

After layout approval, I worked up a tight sketch. While doing so, Tom ran the layout by the other art directors and wrote me with the feedback that it seemed very "farmer" with the pitchforks and such. I made it more urban by replacing them with pikes wrapped in barb wire. I thought it might be too much, but I guess not:

And I submitted two versions of final art. Initially, I was working the piece to emulate images on my website that Tom had mentioned. However, I really wanted to explore this as a two-color image, and Tom responded to that as the direction to move in:

After some discussion, we settled on this final version:
The difficult part of this assignment was creating a suitable composition that would work with all of the papers' mastheads. Tom allowed me some leeway and said that overlapping the logos is fine and actually encouraged in some cases. Good news for me!

The artwork is being featured as an interior image in Minneapolis City Pages as well as the cover of Riverfront Times, Village Voice, Houston Press, SF Weekly, Miami New Times, New Times Broward Palm Beach, and Dallas Observer. Needless to say, I am SUPER-PSYCHED to have this artwork coming out this week! It's one of those days where you can't stop smiling and whistling, and people look at your weird.

Many thanks to Tom, Ivylise, Miche, Alex and Alex, Monica, Justin, and Nick for such a great opportunity as well as the great exposure. I hope to work with each of them again in the future!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

While we were traveling last week, I didn’t get any new scenes revised, but I did do some line editing.

3 Line Editing Strategies

When I line edit, I’m trying to balance three things:

1. Smooth, easy to read. First, I want the text to be smooth and easy to read. I try to read aloud or at least move my lips, so I can see/hear places where sounds collide, words are difficult to get out, or where I stumble for any reason whatsoever. Then, I either rewrite, or at least flag it for attention later.
   
   Often, these are places where my fingers were typing so fast that I left out a word that’s needs to smooth it out. Or places where I did some major editing and it just hasn’t had enough passes through it to be smooth yet.
2. Cut unnecessary words. I’m also watching for awkward repetitions, unnecessary prepositional phrases, unnecessary adjectives or adverbs, “nothing” words – those words which add no new information, such as good, happy, wonderful, etc., and places where I can leave out speech tags and the reader won’t wonder who is speaking. Sometimes, I realize a whole paragraph could be left out because I said the same thing in the last chapter. For repetitions like that, it’s essential to get the long view to do this editing, to read large chunks at a time.
3. Fine-tune the voice. Finally, I’m fine-tuning the voice, and really, this can override the other two concerns. Would this character really say THIS? And say it in THIS WAY? I’m writing in first person, so it’s particularly hard. I know that I would say something a certain way, but would this character say that? It’s hard because I think I have a tin ear, not good at catching these slip-ups. I have to focus hard and when my attention wanders, I have to go back and repeat it for that section.

   Overall, I’m liking the voice of this story and I think it’s working well. It’s just the small things, the word choices that matter here.

   I saw the sun was getting low.
   I realized it was getting late.
   When Sam turned on a lamp, it jerked me away from the game. I glanced at my watch. We were late.

   Any of these would work in my story. It’s not just a matter of Show-Don’t-Tell here, but how would this character, in the first person, perceive and record what is happening. Would he notice the sun out the window? Would he just get a general feeling of being late in the afternoon? Would he be oblivious until someone turned on a light? It’s the voice and character that matter.

Related posts:

1. editing
2. Voice Trumps Everything

Children’s author Nancy I. Sanders has a new book for children’s writers coming out called Yes! You Can Learn How to Write Children’s Books, Get Them Published, and Build a Successful Writing Career!

This week, Nancy will be presenting a new 2 part teleclass for the National Writing for Children Center and the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club called Finding Your Voice in Fiction and Nonfiction. Part 1 of this teleclass will take place LIVE this Thursday, September 24th at noon CDT. To find out more about this fun and informative teleclass and to register for it, click here now!

Listening to Teens

Yesterday, I taught writing to a dozen at-risk teens. We worked on a personal narrative for about 4-5 hours. Now, the kids didn’t want to be there, but had to be. They didn’t want to write, because it’s summer and who wants to do English class in the summer.

For the first fifteen minute writing period, one teen just wrote, “I’m bored, I don’t want to do this,” for the entire time. I gave the teen permission to do this, as long as the pen kept moving over the page. Wrong way to phrase it. Another teen moved his pen, but doodled.

The writing process I did with them was varied, active, loud, unruly, and (at least for me) fun. And the last 20 minute period, when I asked them to take their marked-up, full of revisions drafts and write out a clean copy (except I didn’t care about spelling and punctuation - hey, it wasn’t English class), everyone wrote. Even the doodler and the bored.

After a loud day, I was suddenly quiet and serious as I explained that my passion is to help people write better, but the process wasn’t complete until the circle is closed with a listener. Would anyone want to read aloud? Because I wanted to hear each voice.

I don’t know how many times these teens had been told that someone wanted to listen to their voice. Not many times, I suspect. It was a serious moment, broken quickly by a raucous joke. Yet - maybe it touched them. Only a few were brave enough to read aloud. Later, though, while they were playing cards the last few minutes, I went to each and asked if I could read his/her story. They all said yes.

There were great stories, not-so-great stories, stories which were rendered almost incoherent by so many grammar problems, stories meant to shock, stories meant to reveal, stories meant to hide - but the voices were loud and clear. I am here. I matter. Is anyone listening?

That’s why we write for kids and teens. Because they matter. Because we want to give them voices that can be heard.

Post from: Revision Notes Revise Your Novel! Copyright 2009. Darcy Pattison. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. muttering
2. Twisted voices
3. 5 Writing Tasks for Off Days

I’ve been reading this craft book, Finding Your Writer’s Voice. I first heard about voice in my first fiction writing class at the Callonwolde Arts Center here in Atlanta. It’s still very hard to explain exactly what voice is—other than editors LOVE it.

But what about character voice? Especially 1st person point of view (POV)?

When I first started on this current novel, I started off in 3rd person POV because I wanted to try it. But I was always drawn back to 1st person POV. It has always amazed me how an author like Deb Caletti writes 1st person POV for all of her novels but the character for each novel has her own voice. They all sound different yet you still know it’s a Deb Caletti book.

In her latest release, The Secret Life of Prince Charming, Deb gives  a master class in voice. Not only does she write 1st person POV for Quinn, the main character, she also has several of the supporting characters express themselves in vignettes. It’s a great book to read as a writer for voice.

Last summer, during my “3rd vs. 1st” POV dilemma, I compared character voice with some of my favorite YA novels. It was a great learning exercise. As a reader, I found I could get the feel of the character within the first paragraph. As a writer, I studied the voice in the novel—how did the author do it consistently?

Here are four examples from my research:

Contents Under Pressure by Lara M. Zeises

Friday, 8:33 p.m. My best friend, Allison, and I have set up camp on the industrial-carpeted floor of her mostly refinished basement and, at the moment, are in the process of giving ourselves disco-orange pedicures. We picked orange because Halloween is only a couple of weeks away, and since we both feel that we’ve outgrown the whole trick-or-treating thing, it’s our way of honoring our formerly favorite holiday.

Dancing on the Edge by Han Nolan

Gigi said my guardian angel must have been watching over me real good when I was born. Maybe so, but I wish the angel had watched over me less and seen to Mama more. I never liked hearing about how I came into this world anyway. It didn’t seem natural, a live baby coming out of the body of a dead woman. Gigi said it was the greatest miracle ever come down the pike.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

Froggy Welsh the Fourth is trying to get up my shirt. This is the third Monday that he’s come over to my apartment after school. Every week we go a little further, and today, on September twenty-third at 3:17 p.m., he’s begun inching his fingers across my stomach and toward my bra.

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

When summer comes to the North Woods, time slows down. And some days it stops altogether. The sky, gray and lowering for much of the year, becomes an ocean of blue, so vast and brilliant you can’t help but stop what you’re doing–pinning wet sheets to the line maybe, or shucking a bushel of corn on the back steps–to stare up at it. Locusts whir in the birches, coaxing you out of the sun and under the boughs, and the heat stills the air, heavy and sweet with the scent of balsam.

All of these characters have a distinctive voice. Within the first paragraph, you can tell what kind of person the character may be. I find it fascinating. It’s a great way to learn how voice can create a unique character.

Thirteen-year-old Josh Greenwood, the main character in Shelley Pearsall’s new novel, All Shook Up, has a problem.His grandmother is ill, and his mother flies off to Florida to take care of her, shipping Josh from Boston to Chicago, where his father lives and where Josh definitely does not want to be, especially after he discovers his father doing Elvis impersonations in order to make a living

Here’s a link to the final document that focuses on how to lift the level of your students’ conventions by using The Pencil by Allan Ahlberg.  (If you haven’t seen the draft I posted last week, then click here.) Posted in conventions, mentor texts, reading-writing connections, voice   Tagged: Allan Ahlberg   

I had time over the break (break for the teachers, I made enough pizza rolls and bagel bites to feed a sub-Saharan village)to look over some of the manuscripts I tell people I'll never get a chance to read. I explain that I teach writing and don't want to see any additional typed pages in my spare time. But writers are either gamblers or terrible listeners and they send them anyway. Usually, I glance at them and put them on the recycle pile. But with one kid sick the entire break, I got sort of bored and snooped through a few of them.

One of the reasons I dislike looking at manuscripts is because if I were an editor, I would send back acute observations such as: I don't like this and I don't know why. Something's just off...

Mostly, I can't articulate why I don't like someone's work, but I'm pretty good at saying why I do. You can guess which category most of the manuscripts I get fall into. But this time was different: this time I could put my finger on exactly what was "wrong" with the three manuscripts I leafed through. They were all YA, and the voices were, to borrow a highbrow editorial term, daffy.

Somewhere out there this snarky, sarcastic, wise cracking, semi cynical teen voice has emerged, and it's just awful. After a few pages, you recognize the the voice of an adult looking back on his/her teen years. I call it the "reunion" voice, that nostalgic remember-how-we-were-then voice, full of poignant memory and a kind of subtle admiration for your younger self. It's really fine for reunion weekends, but teens would tolerate it for about two pages before moving on.

The part that bugs me about about these stories (and you were thinking you already knew what bugged me) is that so much else about them had potential. The plot was well thought out, the characters were involved in intriguing situations, and there were truly funny scenes. It's just that the voices were not authentic, and that kills a story before it begins.

It's really hard to pin down what makes for good voice in a story. In the movie, Juno, when she says, "Silencio, old man," while buying a pregnancy test, I thought,
"Yik. Wrong." Most teens I know verge on hysterical if their hair straightener shorts out. But in Napoleon Dynamite, when he figures out his salary at the chicken farm and says, "That's like a dollar an hour..." it just sounds right. I can't explain why, but I can say that if the voice is right, probably a whole lot of other things about your manuscript are, too.

And the little girl could here the voices of the snowflakes as they gently fell!

And the little girl could here the voices of the snowflakes as they gently fell!