4 Comments on Flicks of Sky, last added: 4/11/2011
I've started a blog series over on the MiG Writers blog about writers and voice, for those interested. Today's post:
Stephen Pressfield & the Fabrication of Voice
Natalie Fischer has recently moved from the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency to the Bradford Agency. While she isn't accepting submissions yet, she expects to get rolling soon. In the meantime, we've been lucky to have her answer a few questions on the topic of voice, one of the hardest things for most writers to nail down. She also has a great blog with more information, and she tweets at @Natalie_Fischer.
First Chapter Critique Giveaway Want to know if your voice is right for your manuscript? For the market? Comment and fill out the form below! To help us celebrate the one year anniversary of this blog, Natalie has generously donated a 1st chapter critique for a random winner. We'll draw the name and post it Saturday.
Interview Question: How would you describe the difference between voice, style, and language in a manuscript? Natalie: Language is diction: the word choices, the literal language of nationality. Style is the form: short, choppy, flowing, poetic, lyrical. Voice is the personality, the person behind the words that makes the reader forget about the author, and dive into a life. It’s what you remember about the characters long after you’ve forgotten their names. Question: What mistakes do you see writers make when trying to develop or show a “voice”? Natalie: I think the biggest mistake is to try and show voice through style or language. Using heavy slang or methods like “Southern dialogue” are annoying, not effective. Voice is a point of view, a perspective that is unique to only one person. It has emotion, history, a sense of place, and senses. These things are shown in unison with style and language, but not reliant on them to be clear. Question: What is it about a voice that makes you sit up and take notice, and what makes you stop reading? Natalie: I think what makes me fall in love with a voice is one that I can relate to. What makes me stop reading is one I can’t. Very simple, really, and oh so subjective! Question: What kind of voices are being done too often or not well enough? Natalie: I think the most common voice is snarky in tone (and my personal favorite), and the hardest voice to do well is middle grade. Question: As an agent, what is more important to you: concept, character, action/plot, or voice--and why? Natalie: Voice, voice, voice! It’s the hardest to fix. If you have voice down, the rest can be thought up. Question: Name three books that you love for their plot. Natalie: Am I allowed to use the Harry Potter books – all of them? Is that a cop-out? Question: Name three books you love for the memorable characters. Natalie: Jane Austen and Charles Dickens were masters of memorable characters. I’d also have to say Ella from ELLA ENCHATED is one of my favorite characters of all time. Question: Name three books where the voice blew you away. Natalie: I’d rather pick a genre: Romance. Romance novels are ALL about voice; from the first page, first sentence, it hits you with a “bam!” To combine these all up, I think Time Traveler’s wife was the ideal blend of plot, character development, and voice; that
I’ve been working my way through an inspirational YA manuscript for, well, YEARS. I lovingly call it my “learning novel.” Recently I realized that it probably isn't’t a viable YA at all. Not one that today’s sophisticated young adults might be interested in anyway. The protagonist is sixteen years old, but she lives in an era totally foreign to most 21st Century American young adults. Also, her
The sound of Tom Waits's voice generally makes me cringe and cover my ears, but I still managed to enjoy his interview on NPR this week. I particularly related to this bit:
"I think most singers, when they start out, are doing really bad impersonations of other singers that they admire. You kind of evolve into your voice. Or maybe your voice is out there, waiting for you to grow up."
The same goes for writing.
I think anyone who reads attentively and critically unconsciously soaks up the style of those books, just as we pick up the speech patterns of people we converse with. And I think those of us who write end up unconsciously incorporating that style into our own work. (And sometimes more than just the style.) It's only temporary, but it takes a little bit to shake off that other voice and get back our own.
And Tom Waits is right: It takes years of work and growth to find that personal voice. One of my biggest breakthroughs in writing was the realization that I was never going to be the style of writer who published short stories in literary journals. Once I stopped trying, it no longer felt like I was trying to channel some other author. I felt like myself.
I've been thinking a lot about voice lately because in my current writing project I've felt unsure of the narrative voice. Is it effectively communicating the character's personality? Is it consistent throughout the book? Does this character sound too much like the narrator of Starting From Here?
That last question is my biggest concern. These two characters' personalities are distinct in my mind, but they're both introverted teen girls growing up in the early 21st century. That's a pretty big unifying factor. Add the fact that it hasn't been that long since I was an introverted teen girl growing up in the late 20th century. Where does my authorial voice end and my character's voice begin? Is it any wonder I have trouble drawing distinctions?
When I think of masters of narrative voice, the first name that jumps to my mind is M. T. Anderson. From the florid, antiquated language of Colonial America in The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing to the slangy teen-speak of futuristic Feed, Anderson channels his characters and settings so seamlessly and convincingly that... well, let's just say I aspire to emulate that.
Anyway, when it comes to this particular writing project, I'm hoping the break I take when I (finally, knock on wood) finish this draft will give me the distance to answer the questions I have.
Don't forget your chance to win HAUNTED by Joy Preble! Time is running out...
Now:
Look it up online and you will find a million different definitions, explanations, and how to's. We may not know how to define "voice", but we do know how important it is. It's about as difficult to catch hold of as Bigfoot. So how DO we find it and trap it?
Be your character. If you aren't truly in your character's head you will never understand her voice. Many say there are two voices - the author's voice (which I equate to the tone of the manuscript) and the MC's. I believe the two are not mutually exclusive. Your character's voice is altered by the tone, just as you react differently depending on the situation you are in. So I am focusing on Character Voice here. - Attitude - You can't just throw a bunch of snark out there and call it attitude. That's not character, sorry. You'll only end up putting your own Big Foot in your mouth. What you need to know is how your MC views the world and how she reacts accordingly. Now if she does that through sarcasm, great! Use it. But only in the WAY she would at the TIME she would. Capiche?
- Mannerisms - We all have them, though we don't always know about it. What your character DOES speaks volumes. Habits, knee-jerk reactions, etc.
- Thought processes - Otherwise known as INTERNAL DIALOGUE. What is the character thinking? How does she think? Need an example? Let's take one of my own favorite characters. His head is all over the place. Think "squirrel!" from the movie UP and you pretty much have a handle on him. I love that about him. He's easily distracted. And at the right moments that provides some excellent comic relief. It also makes him vulnerable.
- Speech - Ahh, dialogue. I love writing dialogue. Some people don't, but I think it really goes hand in hand with character and voice. The way your MC says something is as important as what she says. Who she's speaking to will also alter the dialogue. Do you speak the same to everyone? About everyone? Maybe your character is lacking an internal filter and spews whatever pops into her head. Maybe we see what she's thinking and it's the opposite of what she says. So much can be reveale
I've posted the first in my series about "Writers and Voice" over in the MiG Writers blog, for those interested.
Posted a new comic on Writer Unboxed today, inspired by my recent investigation into voice. I'll be starting a series of post on voice on the MiG Writers blog soon, every Thursday, so stay tuned!
When reading requested material, one thing I like to do is simply go through my email and randomly open the attachments. Without knowing whether the book is romance, fantasy, mystery, YA, or nonfiction, I start reading. A good book with a good voice will tell me what genre the book is without me ever asking. In other words, I shouldn’t have to know ahead of time because the author’s voice will tell me where in bookstores the book belongs.
Jessica
"A writer's voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more. A writer's voice line the stroke of an artist's brush- is the thumbprint of her whole person- her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms." Patricia Lee Gauch There are a gazillion and one posts out there about Voice and how important it is in order to make your book UNIQUE. And pretty much every one of those articles mentions how ‘you know good voice when you see it.’ And yet, no one can really define what makes a Voice good because, like pretty much everything else in the publishing world, it’s subjective. But all good depictions of Voice have two things in common – it’s seamless and addictive. It’s packed within the pages of every book you’ve stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading because you Couldn’t. Put. It. Down.
So…why is that? What’s in Voice that makes a book unputdownable?
Let’s break out the two reasons I just listed:
Seamless (adj) (of a fabric or surface) smooth and without seams or obvious joins : seamless stockings | figurative seamless dialogue between the two pianos.
I’m going to shine a spotlight on the one word in the above definition that I think says it all. Smooth. What do you think when you see that word? I think of melted chocolate. Bailey’s Irish Cream. Expensive perfume. Velvet and silk and glass. I think of things I can touch and taste and smell. Good voice is rich. It’s full of senses that immediately draw you in and make you feel like you’re the one experiencing what’s in the book. Good voice is like putting on 3D glasses—like living in a virtual world…but through WORDS. That’s pretty darn powerful stuff.
Here are some examples of how Voice can suck you into a landscape—even with no context of the story—just by using seamless language to engage your senses.
I knew it was coming, but it’s still hard to understand that after I read this, there will be nothing left of her for me to discover. I turn my flashlight off and all the light that’s left comes from the moon and the living room of my house. A gust of wind comes. All the leaves above and below and around me rustle. It’s the sound of losing, or of starting over. I can’t decide which. I turn my flashlight on. I read. (Hold Still, Nina LaCour)
The last mourner was always a boy, whatever boy I had a crush on at the time. He’d be a wreck, totally destroyed by my death. When he saw me in my coffin, he’d suddenly realize that he’d loved me all along. The other kids in school, the fools who had ignored me all year, were wrong, so very wrong. The injustice of it would overwhelm Crush Boy, who’d run into the street and throw himself in front o
Jacques Steinberg, an education correspondent for The New York Times, appeared on “The Today Show” yesterday morning. He talked with Natalie Morales about college essays that worked and didn’t work at some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges. There were three commonalities I immediately recognized in the essays that worked. First, the well-written essays had [...]
We know we're supposed to show and not tell. As beginning writers, we hurl this advice at each other in critique groups and workshops with self-satisfied little smirks, happy to have learned something, anything, to help us improve our manuscripts. Rules are good, right? They give us structure in this magical world of fiction that inherently stretches the boundaries of our imagination. But sometimes we use these rules as crutches, and rely on them until we forget the joy of walking on our own two feet. Sometimes, we forget that writing is about expressing ourselves in ways that only we can speak. Sometimes, we edit the joy and individuality and voice out of our manuscripts. We play it safe. What is voice? Like pornography, we know it when we see it, but it's hard to define. And it's different for every writer and every book. Often it's easier to recognize when voice is missing than to identify what makes it unique when it is there. No matter how great the plot, how skillfully the writer shows us the action unfolding and the emotion being experienced, if a novel could have been written by anyone, do we love it as much as those books in which the voice speaks clearly enough to be heard? Look at the following examples: When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news. (Anthony Horowitz, Stormbreaker)
Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a smallish Viking with a longish name stood up to his ankles in snow. (Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon)
One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school, he was surprised to find Maria, the family’s maid — who always kept her head bowed and never looked up from the carpet — standing in his bedroom, pulling all his belongings out of the wardrobe and packing them in four large wooden crates, even the things he’d hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else’s business. (John Boyne, The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas)
The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. (Libba Bray, Going Bovine)
I'm dreaming of the boy in the tree and at the exact moment I'm about to hear the answer I've been waiting for, the flashlights yank me out of what could have been one of those moments of perfect clarity people talk about for the rest of their lives. (Melina Marchetta, Jellicoe Road)
You can hear the voice in every one of those opening sentences. The author isn't showing us action, they are telling us something only they or the characters could know.
For me, voice is telling. It's that indefinable quality of rhythm and sentence structure and elegance of expression that elevates writing above the ordinary. But to be true and genuine, voice also has to take us by the hand and lead us into the magical world of the character, or the narrator.
Not every book has voice. The great ones do. As Truman Capote put it, "the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make." Michener, on the other hand, defined voice more broadly as "the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."
What are your favorite defnitions or examples of voice? According to Patricia Lee Gauch, voice comes from within the writer. "A writer's voice like the stroke of an artists brush-is the thumbprint of her whole person-her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms." Do you have an example of voice from your own work? How do you define the indefinable?
 I’m thinking about voice this week, and I’m enjoying (again) Les Edgerton’s excellent book Finding Your Voice: how to put personality in your writing.
He gives an idea (see below) about finding your true writer’s voice that intrigues me–and I’d like your reaction to it.
Your True Readers
He says that most of our daily contacts with people (spouse, people at your day job, small kids, people at the coffee shop) aren’t readers, at least not readers like you are. They may be casual readers, but not readers to the depth you’re a reader. He asks:
“What does this mean to you as a writer? Only this–it’s easy to begin to think of your own potential readership as being comprised of the same kinds of folks you see at work or at play or bearing a strong resemblance to the family next door… After a while, it’s only natural to imagine most people in the country itself are pretty much like the folks you see every day. Well, most folks are…but those aren’t your readers, usually. Your reader is yourself.”
Who Are My Readers?
His advice is to remember that your reader is yourself–or someone much like yourself. (Someone who shares your interests, knows just about the same things you do, has a reading background and history similar to what you’ve had.)
Except for your writer’s group or a friend who reads as voraciously as you do, you may not have a lot of contact with this potential reader, but they’re the ones you should be writing to.
Why–and what does that have to do with finding your true voice?
Where’s the Real Me?
“Make yourself your intended reader,” Edgerton says. “By writing to you as your reader, you get closer than at any other time to getting your real voice on the page. You write naturally.”
I don’t know about you, but doesn’t that sound like FUN? It makes me look at the subject of voice in a whole new much-less-stressful and much-less-intimidating way. I think it’s also the way I used to write.
Want to Try It?
For more about this intriguing way to find your true voice, get the book above and read Chapter Five: “Here’s Lookin’ At You, Kid…A New and Different Way of Looking At Your Audience.”
What do you think about this idea? Would it change the way you write? Does it make it easier to find your voice? Give me your thoughts!
For my Wednesday craft post, I was going to write about First Person Voice with some examples but I found this post from my archives when I first started blogging and had only 2 subscribers. So I wanted to share this post again for all my new and current readers. I hope you find it helpful.
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 when it’s in the first 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 novel, 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.
5 Comments on First Person Voice (2), last added: 10/6/2010
 An amazing voice is the number one “must-have” on every agent and editors list. So what is this odd and illusive thing known as voice? How do you find it? What does it sound like? Why is it so gosh darn important? Scholastic editor Jennifer Rees (The Hunger Games, Purge) spoke on this exact subject at the 2010 SCBWI LA Conference. The following is her two cents on why you’ve got to have a knock-out voice and how to develop it.
The Importance of Voice…
- Voice is the most powerful and prized possession in a writer’s tool box.
- Voice is that amazing thing that taps you on the shoulder (the character) and asks you to come with them on a journey.
- Great voice is not reserved for fiction alone. It can also be in non-fiction.
 What is Voice?
- When writing you are concerned about: What is the story? How do you tell it? What are you conveying? How do you maintain audience interest? Voice is what makes all of these things POWERFUL!
- Voice is what the author has in common with all of their books. Rees sees a good voice as a sign that the author will be able to write other great books too.
- Your voice is you. It is a reflection of you. And you must write the story that only you can write.
- You have a unique view of the world. Who is in your world and what do they have to say about it?
- Voice is the writer’s presence on the page. (About writing with voice by Tom Ramano)
- Voice is not concrete or tangible and yet it is the most important part of the book.
- Voice is the hook that gets us interested from page one. It determines the audience and points back to the author.
Voice Example…
- Complete this sentence: When I was young in the…
- The way in which you complete that sentence tells us about your voice. Everyone will complete it differently.
Voice and Character:
- Voice is often talked about in the creation of your character. What is it the character notices? What is it that your character leaves out?
- Characters need flaws. But what is their surprise? What will keep them on their toes?
- In the book Purge it speaks to a specific topic (bulimia), it’s edgy, and the tension is high. There’s a lot going on in the book. But the surprise of the book is the humor. It’s a grim topic with a funny spin.
- A voice will change depending upon the audience for a comment. For example if you quit your job. The way you tell this story will be different if you are talking to your best friend or talking to a future employer.
- Character and voice are so interconnected! If the voice doesn’t work – is it fixable? It can point to a thin character. It might me a character that you (the writer) are not connecting with and thus the reader is not connecting with as well.
- The voice of the narrator is not necessarily the voice of the book. There is more to it.
What I Learned As a Bookseller about Voice…
- Rees spent years watching how customers would buy a book. Everyone will open the first page and decided if they will buy the book or not. That is the big ticket! This is stronger than the photos or back flap. It’s about the voice they see on the first page.
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One of the most helpful things I ever did was work through The Art of Styling Sentences: 20 Patterns for Success. It forces you to look at sentences in all their simplicity, complexity and glory. 
NonFiction BookBlast
Sunday, June 26, 2011. 8-10 am.
ALA Conference in NOLA.
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This is all very helpful information. I read the examples she highlighted. Perhaps her tastes are different than mine, though I liked the Hunger Games first page.
I love this advice: “Your world needs to feel like paradise before you make it feel like a prison.”
Yes!