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By:
Darcy Pattison,
on 4/5/2013
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Darcy Pattison's Revision Notes
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A cat says ________.
A dog says________.
A skunk says______. (We don't know!)
Watch this video to hear a skunk, a ground hog, a bison and more.
Withholding information
When a reader first opens your novel or story and reads the first line, the first paragraph, have you welcomed the reader and tried to put them at ease? It is imperative to invite the reader into a story in a way that puts them at ease. This means clarity must rule. The reader must never question where the story is taking place, or what—exactly—is happening in this scene. You do not have to spill all the backstory at this point—that doesn’t work. But the reader should know when, where and who and a hint of why.
Setting. The setting should be clear and specific, with sensory details appropriately sprinkled throughout the opening scene. This includes information on the geographic location, time frame (e.g. 6th century BC or 2017A.D), and something about the emotional territory.
Character. In the opening pages, the reader should meet a character that intrigues. Please, don’t name five characters on page one and expect the reader to stay oriented. Instead, give each important character a grand entrance. The inner life of the main character should start to come alive, as well. What does s/he fear, love, long for?
Cautions: The worse drafts hide information, wrongly believing that just giving a hint here or there is the best strategy. Instead, the reader becomes confused and closes the book, never to open it again. The great sff writer Orson Scott Card wisely said, “The only thing to withhold is what happens next.” Within the context of a scene, this is exactly right. The reader should understand exactly what is going on—and be so enthralled that s/he turns the page to find out “what happens next.”
Don’t use this as an excuse to include backstory, though! Backstory comes ONLY at the point at which it will create an emotional crisis in a reader. Instead, when the reader is deep within a scene, they should only care about what happens next.
Voice is too formal
In the search for a great voice, some writers fall back on their English class and write too formally. Great fiction is informal writing. This means you can use slang, jargon, curse words (when appropriate), incomplete sentences, sentence fragments. You can, and should, interrupt someone when they are speaking. Characters can be rude. A great novel is not a tea party! Stop being so polite, so formal.
Try making up rules for yourself–play with the formality of your novel; keep what works and discard the rest. Don’t like my rules? Make up your own. But play!
- For every ten sentences, you must use a sentence fragment.
- You must use one slang/jargon word per page.
- You will write one section of dialogue (about 10 exchanges) and every bit of dialogue is incomplete sentences.
- In every chapter, someone must be rude.
Boring
Yawn. What happened in this chapter?
Nothing.
Then, why is the reader turning pages?
They aren’t!
A good exercise is to go through each chapter and write one sentence that summarizes what happens. Something important must develop or change in some way in every single chapter. Novelists do not have the luxury to stop and give us back story or tell every single detail of the setting. You must pick and choose from among the myriad of details, bits of dialogue, actions, thoughts and arrange them in an exciting, fascinating, intriguing order.
Stoic Character
For every action, your main character should have an emotional reaction. Why else is the reader following this character around? OK. Not every single action. But it’s a good exercise to try: underline the actions, and circle the main character’s emotional reaction to what just happened. How do they correlate? Do we have 100 actions and only one emotional reaction? Where ever you are on the continuum from no emotional reaction to 100% emotional reactions, evaluate it in terms of your character, your novel. Is the reader getting enough of your MC’s inner life to keep turning the pages? From my experience as a first reader, most novelists err on the side of not enough emotion. If this is hard for you, push yourself toward too much emotion and you may wind up about right.
Balance
Writing a novel is a continual decision-making process. For each detail you might include, there are dozens of great ways to put that into words. We go from words to sentences to paragraphs—and each word selection carries connotations and denotations. It’s complex! The variety of ways to tell a story are amazing. What scenes do you include/exclude, and why? What character is the main character? The point of view character?
Throughout the process of writing a novel, it’s a balancing act all the way. We walk a tightrope upon which we build a story. One misstep and the reader falls off.
This is one of the main reasons why first pages go wrong. 90% of a story may be working, until a sentence here, a word there, a questionable emotion in the midst of the scene—and the reader puts the book down. Fine tuning the novel is crucial. Here is where first readers can really help, by marking the places that are “off.” Even if they can’t articulate WHY this section is OFF, they know it when they read it. You don’t want an English teacher marking up the story with red marks. You want a sensitive reader saying, nope, this doesn’t fit. Don’t know why, just know it doesn’t fit.
It’s a matter of balance: every word must belong. Nothing must be out of place. The reader must keep turning pages with no interruptions in the flow.
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Guest Post by Melissa Donovan
When I first learned about alliteration in a writing class, I couldn’t believe there was a word for it. I used it in my poetry all the time! Then I learned about anastrophe and deus ex machina and I began to discover a whole world of literary devices and techniques.
Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds of accented syllables in a phrase: dancing dragons.
I discovered literary techniques that I’d seen in storytelling but hadn’t used in my own work. For example, anastrophe is when the usual word order of a sentence or phrase is reversed. One of the most famous characters in the movies speaks almost exclusively in anastrophe: Yoda doesn’t ask “Are you ready?” He says, “Ready are you?”
There were also literary devices that I’d neither noticed nor used. Deus ex machina is when a character or event is suddenly introduced in a narrative for convenience. For example, when all the main characters are trapped and some long-lost cousin who has never been mentioned suddenly appears and rescues them, this is deus ex machina, and it’s usually seen as a cheap way to resolve a sticky situation.
What Are Literary Devices and Techniques?
So what are literary devices and what applications do they have for writers?
Wikipedia defines a literary device as follows: “A literary technique (also known as literary device) is any standardized method an author uses to convey his or her message.” According to Wikipedia, this can include foreshadowing, flashbacks, and plot twists, things we all recognize as elements of storytelling.
I’ve found some resources that make a distinction between storytelling techniques, which deal with the structure of a story, and language techniques, which deal with how we choose and use words.
Understanding and Identifying Literary Devices and Technique
Have you ever come across a word, phrase, or sentence that mesmerized you, but you couldn’t figure out why? It might have been a line of dialogue that stuck with you or a compelling scene in a story. You know there’s a reason it was so effective but you can’t put your finger on it.
In these cases, there’s a good chance a literary device or technique is at play. And if you can identify these devices and techniques, you’ll gain a better understanding of how to make the best possible decisions in your own writing.
For example, we all know there are a dozen ways to write a sentence. If we’re trying to choose the right word for a sentence and there are several to choose from, we might make our decision based on a literary device.
Let’s look at an example. In the sentences below, would you choose the word store or market?
I have to stop by the store.
I have to stop by the market.
I would probably choose store because of the alliteration that occurs with the words stop and store.
While this is something a lot of writers do naturally—choose a word because it’s the one that sounds the best—it’s immensely helpful to have a more concrete reason, to know that you’re choosing a phrase because it applies alliteration rather than “just because it sounds good.”
When we adopt literary devices and techniques into our vocabularies, we can talk about writing, language, and story more efficiently and intelligently.
Using Literary Devices in Your Work
Let’s say you’re working on a novel and trying to polish a sentence that’s giving you trouble. You’re looking for the right word—the perfect word. If you have studied literary devices, then they are at your disposal and can help you make smarter choices about which words and phrases to use.
Literary techniques can also be immensely helpful in storytelling. When I’m working on a story and get stuck, I often turn to a list of storytelling techniques to see if any of those techniques could help me get unstuck. I almost always find a solution, something that propels me past whatever obstacle I’m facing.
Literary devices and techniques are valuable tools that we can use to better understand literature. By applying these concepts to our own writing projects, we can strengthen our work and make it more compelling.
READ MORE
Fiction Notes has posted before on How to Use Words: 8 Literary Devices, How to Arrange Words: 20 Literary Devices and How Winston Churchill Used Literary Devices. (That’s 28 literary devices to study and use in your next piece of writing!)
About the Author: Melissa Donovan is the founder and editor of Writing Forward, a blog packed with creative writing tips and ideas. She has also authored a book of creative writing exercises and works as a web designer and copywriter.
Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors? The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell is an expertly crafted biography that can be used to teach students a variety of craft moves during a biography writing unit of study.
What do editors mean when they say they are looking for a strong, unique voice?
http://www.bobbimillerbooks.com/on_voice.html
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By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 12/17/2012
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Caroline by line
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One of the things I think has made Gillian Flynn's GONE GIRL so successful is voice.
Voice is always one of those tricky things. Scholastic editor
Cheryl Klein defines it "by using the formula VOICE = PERSON + TENSE + PROSODY + (Diction + Syntax + Tone + Imagination + Details). Defining the imagination of Voice, Cheryl says, '[t]he imagination of a voice sets the range of subjects, images, diction, kinds of and examples of figurative language, and references that the voice can include.'”
Agent and author
Donald Maass says voice is "the thing...every novelist already has... . It may be comic, deadpan, dry, pulpy, shrill, objective, distant, intimate, arty or a thousand other things. It comes through in the story that an author chooses to tell and the way in which they choose to tell it."
Here are some quotes I highlighted while reading GONE GIRL. You'll notice they're not big statements on the plot (except for the last one, which sums up the entire story in all its twisted wonder), but tiny observations -- metaphors used to paint a picture of characters, of setting, small things that were fresh and interesting and right. In other words, great examples of voice.
characterization and metaphor:
"They have no hard edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish -- expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other's spaces liquidly. Making it look easy, the soul-mate thing." (p 27)
setting and metaphor:
"It was the best time of day, the July sky cloudless, the slowly setting sun a spotlight on the east, turning everything golden and lush, a Flemish painting." (p 31)
characterization:
"His shirt wasn't wrinkled, but he wore it like it was; he looked like he should stink of cigarettes and sour coffee, even though he didn't. He smelled like Dial soap." (p 33)
characterization and metaphor:
"He spoke in a soft, soothing voice, a voice wearing a cardigan." (p 199)
and the quote that sums up the entire crazy ride:
"Our kind of love can go into remission, but it's always waiting to return. Like the world's sweetest cancer." (p 392)
Have you read GONE GIRL? What were your impressions? Any other authors or books that get voice just right?
Reading would be boring, except for the person behind the writing. YOU make it interesting. Your voice.
Even the federal government recognizes the importance of YOU: ideas can’t be copyrighted, rather, the particular expression of an idea. What you copyright is your voice. You.
This means several things:
Voice. As you write, be aware of your particular ways of thinking, of what you notice, of how you express what you notice. Try to foster those interests and expressions. Of course, this isn’t a call to be sloppy in grammar or word usage or sentence structure. Just as a jazz player plays a riff on a song, so you must experiment in your writing, while still making sure the song is recognizable.
Match voice to genre. Your voice–who you are–will also determine the types of writing at which you can excel. Nonfiction or fiction, horror or romance–you need to find a place where your voice fits naturally and allows you to exploit your voice. Experiment with genre, style, length, and venue (online v. print, for example), to find the “highest and best use” of your strengths.
Editors. We all need feedback and early editors. Be careful, though, of line editors, those people who think something must be said their way. Unless they are extremely skilled, line editors mess with voice. And you must not allow that.
Stick with a genre, character, series. If and when you find that sweet spot, stick with it. Careers are built on returning readers, who become fans, who faithfully buy everything you write and furthermore, they tell friends to buy them and they give your books as gifts. Early in your career, don’t worry about bouncing around and writing everything you might want to write. If you are lucky enough to find success in one area, stay there long enough to build a readership that you will take with you to the next step.
You. Your lens, the way you see the world, the way you express what you see–that is what keeps reading from being boring. Let me see the world the way YOU see it. And I’ll keep reading you.
Click on the image to read the photographer's description of the difference in lenses used.
I am so pleased to welcome
Shannon Messenger to the blog today! Shannon is a wonderfully supportive writer who is doing big things in the kid lit world.
Not only is book 1 of her MG series,
Keeper of the Lost Cities
(Simon & Schuster)
releasing Oct 2nd, but she also has a YA coming out in the Spring of 2013,
Let The Sky Fall. AHHH! I am so thrilled to see her reach her dreams!
Shannon's got some great advice here about
Voice in Kidlit, so please read on.
~ ~ * ~ ~
Yay--I'm so excited to be here! I've been a huge fan of this blog for years, so it's such an honor to contribute. Here's hoping I can live up to the amazingness of the other posts you guys are used to reading.
I thought I'd talk today about
writing kid voice, since that seems to be the subject that comes up most often when people find out I write middle grade. In fact, usually the first question people ask is something along the lines of:
do you have to simplify things when you write middle grade?And my answer is always an emphatic: NO!
Kids deserve way more credit than some people give them. They are very smart and pick up on much more than we may think they do. So I have never once had to change a word because it was "too advanced" or dumb something down so a kid reader would understand it.
That being said, there is still a definite "kid voice" that needs to be used when writing middle grade. But it's not about simplification. It's about making your writing appealing and relatable to kids. A big part of that will come from the voices of the kid characters themselves. But still, it does trickle into the prose in ways you might not always think of.
For example, look at the following sentences: Mr. Lipkin always wore the same coffee colored business suit to class, whether it was warm and sunny or pouring down rain.
Mr. Lipkin always wore a chocolate brown suit to class, whether it was warm and sunny or pouring down rain.
Which feels more authentically "kid" to you--comparing something to the color of coffee or the color of chocolate? That's not to say that kids don't understand what color coffee is. Shoot, these days lots of kids even drink it. HOWEVER, I still think it's much more believable that a kid would compare the color brown to chocolate long before their mind would come up with coffee. Coffee feels like a more adult comparison. Which is the same reason I removed "business" from the second sentence. Adults think of "business suits." To kids it's just a suit.
They're very subtle differences. But throughout a draft they can really add up and give the story a more authentically kid voice. And obviously the voice of the character also needs to be considered. If your main character is a big coffee drinker, the coffee comparison would probably be the more appropriate. For things like that you will need to use your own judgement. But as a general rule it's best to try and weed out anything that reads more "adult-centered" from your middle grade manuscripts, because they will make the story feel less relatable to your readers. Not that they won't
understand it. It just won't feel like it's speaking to
them.And it's important to keep in mind that this kind of thing can rarely be perfected in the drafting stage. Of course the more you write for kids the more you will start to internalize that voice. But as an adult your brain is going to naturally gravitate toward these kinds of phrasings and comparisons. So it's something you'll really want to train yourself to watch for as you revise.
I'm a big believer in questioning every word. It's tedious and obnoxious and kind of makes you want to fling your laptop off a bridge. But it's also the only way to really watch for tiny voice issues like this, so it's really worth the extra effort. And just when you think you've found them all, your editor will flag a few more and you'll feel like, ARGH HOW DID I MISS THAT????
Oh the joys of being a writer. :) All right, I think I have rambled on long enough. Hope you guys found that helpful. I now happily turn this blog back to it's rightful owners. Huge thanks to everyone who stopped by to hang out. *curtsies* *flees*
SHANNON MESSENGER graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts where she learned that she liked watching movies much better than making them. She also regularly eats cupcakes for breakfast, sleeps with a bright blue stuffed elephant named Ella, and occasionally gets caught talking to imaginary people. So it was only natural for her to write stories for children. Keeper of the Lost Cities is her first middle grade novel. Let the Sky Fall, a young adult novel, will follow in Spring 2013. She lives in Southern California with her husband and an embarrassing number of cats. Follow Shannon: Blog |
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Pinterest Wow! I was nodding all the way through--as kidlit writers, it is so important to know our audience and write authentically so it feels like they've stepped right into the mind of the child protagonist. Thank you so much Shannon for hanging out here and giving such food for thought on Voice
as this is one of the biggest struggles we face writing for this age group!
S
hannon is taking over the internet as she introduces her fabulous books to the world, so check in at
Mundie Moms for the complete tour schedule, which is
packed with giveaways. Oh, did I say giveaways? Yes I did! Fill out the below for a chance to win your very own copy of Keeper!
Twelve-year-old Sophie has never quite fit in. She's not comfortable with her family and keeping a secret—she's a telepath. But then she meets Fitz, who tells her the reason she has never felt at home is that, well, she isn't. But Sophie still has secrets, and they're buried deep in her memory for good reason: the answers are in high-demand. The truth could mean life or death, and time is running out. a Rafflecopter giveaway
By Julie Daines
The Ten Commandments of Writing and When to Break Them
Writing Conferences. We go. We listen. We obey. Maybe sometimes we obey too much.
My next few posts will be about when to break the writing commandments.
Comandment #5
Thou Shalt Not Use the Word Was
As with all of the posts in this series, I agree with this commandment on most levels. However, as with other commandments, the problem comes when writers take this rule too far.
Usually, the best way to say something is the simplest and most direct. Writers who beat around the bush with fancy words are guilty of what is known as purple prose, which I define as trying too hard to make each sentence a work of art unto itself. Each sentence's purpose should be in contributing to the beauty of the whole.
Example:
From the first bite, the rich, chocolate cake saturated his tastebuds with mouth-watering flavor.
First of all, this doesn't sound at all like what a MG or YA character would say. And secondly, it sounds forced. So unless your character is Anne of Green Gables, simple and direct is best.
The chocolate cake was delicious.
Straight and to point. We get it, and now the story can move on.
The object of avoiding the use of the word was is not to write forced prose, it is to use a stronger, better, more descriptive verb. So try to replace was with something better.
The chocolate cake tasted delicious.
Or rewrite the sentence in a way that says the same thing, only better.
Mack loved that chocolate cake from the first bite.
If the tasting of the chocolate cake is the pinnacle plot point to your story, then go ahead and elaborate. If it's a passing part of dinner, keep it short and simple.
Example 2:
The sun beat down on the road. When I opened my car door, the heat assaulted me, wrapping its burning fingers around me and choking me. The hot asphalt attacked my bare feet trying to burn its way through my skin.
At first glance, this may seem ok. But it's a problem I see a lot in descriptions. Whether it's meant like this or not, the entire paragraph is personification--a type of literary device.
As with all literary devices, it should be used judiciously. Save it for the important parts of you story.
If Cami just ran out of gas in the middle of the desert and she faces imminent death by heat stroke, then this example is ok.
If all you want to do is get across how hot it is when Cami pulled up to the swimming pool, then keep it simple and direct--even if it means using was.
By the time Cami pulled up to the swimming pool, it was beyond hot.
Bottom Line:
- Use was, but only when it's the best and simplest way to get your point across. Sometimes, there is no better substitute.
- If you can, use a stronger verb in its place or rewrite the sentence.
- When you need to describe something important, pull out all the stops and elaborate--always keeping in mind the YA or MG voice.
As you're reading, watch for when the author uses was appropriately, and when they should have used it, but instead made one of these mistakes.
What are your thought on using the word was?
Stacy Whitman of Tu Books explains what makes middle grade, middle grade.
http://1stturningpoint.com/?p=6805
In Part 1, Editor Krista Marino explained how YA Voice is related to diction, perspective, dialog, interior monologue, and character. In this second section she explains what makes a young adult voice unique and different from an adult writing voice.
Let’s Talk about the Teen/YA Voice in Particular:
- YA is specific in terms of voice.
- YA is teen experience, outlook, and their limited life experiences.
- YA is about teen beliefs, likes and dislikes, etc.
- Think about how small your life was when you were a teenager. Remember when you believed in Santa? What did you believe when you were in high school? Did you think you were going to marry your high school boyfriend?
- An adult looking back on the teen experience is an adult book.
- “When you’re young everything feels like it’s the end of the world.” – movie quote. Teens have no reference to know that things will get better in their lives, where as adults bring life experiences with them.
- Teens are not making stupid decisions. They are making their decisions because they have only been on the planet for 16 years and don’t have any life experience.
- Teens have nothing else to compare their experiences to.
- When you are writing you need to erase the worldliness you’ve experienced over the years.
- Your protagonist can’t be simple.
- Every teen is questioning how other teens view them.
- Your character must evolve. Voice can change as a character grows and learns over the course of the book. Voice must change with the evolution and movement of the book.
Exercises to Get to Know Your Character:
- Exercise: List three character traits about your protagonist (i.e. sassy, romantic, uptight) then push yourself to go deeper and find out who they really are under those traits.
- Exercise: Write two pages that tell you something new about your character. These pages do not need to go into the manuscript. See what they will tell you.
- Exercise: Go to a public place and eavesdrop on teens. Write down their conversations exactly as you hear them. Now try to use that conversation in a scene you are writing. Watch how your characters interact.
Telling about Character in the Writing:
- Weave info about your character into the story, but make it invisible.
- In the writing insinuate how a character looks without listing everything they are wearing. Pick a particular trait to embody a greater image of the character. Example: A character wearing skull rings.
- You can’t assume the reader knows what is going on inside your character. You need to clue them in. Is the character tired? Excited?
- Layer your characters actions. Stomping could mean a character is angry, but they could also be embarrassed. Sometimes more is more.
- It’s better for someone to tell you to cut than add.
- Beware of too much telling, it will sound like you (the author) are speaking to the reader rather than the character.
Krista Marino is a senior editor at Delacort Press where she edits and acquires young adult and middle grade novels. Books she has edited include King Dork, The Necromancer, The Maze Runner, and The Forest of Hands and Teeth.
1 Comments on Perfecting Your YA Voice (Part 2), last added: 10/19/2011
I’m going through a big stack of submissions that have been languishing for a while (and if you submitted a partial before Sept. 1 and don’t get a request for a full manuscript by the end of the week, you’ll know the answer is a no thanks). I’m on the lookout in particular for a book that will appeal to middle-grade girls, and I’m having a bit of a frustrating time of it. Mostly because humorous middle-grade voice seems to be a hard one to nail, and so many of the submissions in my pile seem to be going for a humorous bent.
Voice is the one thing that I don’t feel, as an editor, that I can fix. It’s too intrinsic to the art, too personal, something that has to be worked on before it comes across my desk. And a humorous voice? Even harder to shape as an editor. I completely appreciate how tough humor is just in general. It’s very subjective. So something that makes me giggle madly might not tickle someone else’s funny bone.
However, there is also a certain voice that I can only describe as “trying too hard.” The intended humor is super-goofy, overexplaining the jokes and losing the reader in the process. It feels too self-conscious, like the character is watching herself too closely instead of living her life. Humor should come, in my opinion, as a side effect of situations that happen to be a little goofy, rather than forced out of something the character finds funny, which is harder to translate into reader laughs. Thus, I personally think it’s really hilarious that Tyler Sato gets a killer asteroid named after him because, coincidentally, his cousins happened to name a star after him. But Tyler Sato himself doesn’t find it all that funny.
Part of the problem is that self-consciousness can sometimes work in YA, at least more than middle grade, because teens are more likely to notice things comment on them in a snarky way. Middle graders aren’t expected to be jaded just yet. But it’s not just that. Have you ever noticed that whenever, say, Stephen Colbert loses his deadpan, the joke loses a little something? Part of the hilarity is in the deadpan delivery. And we also have to acknowledge that not everyone is a humor writer—and that’s okay. Sometimes a book can be better when it’s not trying so hard for the laughs.
If you are writing humor, my only suggestion for improving your craft is to read writers who make it work, like Lisa Yee, Michael Buckley, and Tu’s own Greg Fishbone.
What I’d really like to see in my submission pile, though, as far as middle-grade books are concerned, is not necessarily humor—after all, we’ve got the hilarious Galaxy Games coming out this month already; go buy it! or read an excerpt!—but rather straight-on fantasy, science fiction, and mystery for middle-grade readers of both genders, but particularly girls because I don’t have much on my list for middle-grade girls right now. I’d love to see something more along the lines of Shannon Hale’s books for middle grade readers (one of my favorite books of all time is her Book of a Thousand Days, set in a Mongolia-like world): adventure and coming-into-her-own (not necessarily coming-of-age, which is more of a YA thing; would love such YAs, but I’m talking MG here right now). I also wouldn’t mind something along the lines of Michael Buckley’s The Sisters Grimm, while noting that even though the book is
By Julie Daines
"I hate you!"
"This is why I'm moving out when I'm eighteen!"
"I have no control over my life!"
Yes, those are all phrases I have heard from my own teen-age sons. Frequently. I have three.
So, I thought I'd do some posts on capturing that teen voice, starting with vocabulary. Here are a few do's and don'ts.
Be Extremely Careful of Overusing Slang
According to Agent George Nicholson, "Slang dates good fiction more easily than any other single thing."
Slang varies by region, so too much slang makes your book non-universal. If you do use a lot of slang, make sure it reflects something about the character and adds to the depth of the story. Don't just use it to sound teen, teens are expert at picking out phony voice.
The best writing has a richness of language, not just a scramble of slang. Use vocabulary that reflects the time and place you're writing about.
Don't Dumb it Down
But at the same time, it has to sound like something a teen (specifically the one in your book) would actually say. Teens, in some ways, are smarter than we give them credit for. As long as the voice is authentic and rings true, teen readers are open to a wide range of voicing styles.
Mix it Up
Don't give all your characters a similar sounding voice. Vary vocabulary and rhythm to create contrast and interest. Some teens never stop talking, some are only one word anwerers. Some rely on humor, some on emotional extremes. (See examples above.)
Keep the Narrative in Voice
Make sure the narrative parts are in the voice of the POV character and not the author's. Maintain continuity.
How to Improve Your Writing Voice and Characters’ Voices
Agent Jill Corcoran at the 2012 FL SCBWI Conference in Miami
Jill Corcoran talked about the difference between the author voice, which is in everything you write, and the manuscript voice, which changes according to things like tone, the target audience, and point of view.
She had us write a short scene with two characters from one point of view, then write it from the other. It’s amazing how you can feel the difference. Even better…this exercise can help with writer’s block!
Character Voice
· Make your characters distinct so you don’t always need to put in tags. There’s a great way to test this—take the tags out of dialogue and see if you (or others) can tell who is talking.
· Give each character something unique. Weaving these little details in helps give dimension.
· Readers fill in the gaps—you need to leave some white space.
Here are some other great suggestions from Jill:
· When you sit down and write, you don’t always have to write your book. Just write anything. It helps you find your voice, gives you space, and stops you from feeling pressured. A bad day can affect your writing. She said to strive for more than BIC…you want Butt In Quality Chair.
· Read outside your genre. This helps you see styles of writing that might be great for you.
· Make dialogue count…especially when it’s up front.
· Try to write three pages every morning before doing anything else.
· Play around to find the right voic
Recently I blogged about Mari McCarthy’s e-book Start Journaling and Change Your Life in 7 Days. Since then, I’ve used my journal to focus on my audience before I write. Who are they? How are they different from me? What are they going to demand from this piece? How might this differ from my expectations?
While that works for shorter nonfiction projects, I’ve been writing a longer piece of teen fiction, sending my editor an outline and then a draft. I’d journaled about audience for the outline. When it came time to write the story, I focused on what the story is all about – my characters.
I needed to do this because, based on my outline, my editor found my protagonist unsympathetic. She gave me tips on how to change this, but I had trouble starting the story. Nothing sounded right. I had to find my character’s voice while writing the story in 3rd person. I turned to my journal.
When I sat down to journal that morning, I asked what my character would have to say about being called unsympathetic. I decided to let him speak for himself and write the journal entry in his first person POV. Let’s just say that this particular teen had plenty to say, starting with the fact the he didn’t ask for anyone’s sympathy. He hadn’t created the story problem, but everyone expected him to fix it. We should shut up and let him do it his way. He was freaked out and scared and we weren’t helping.
As the author, I knew most of this. Laying it down in his own words helped me find his voice and get into the story. Soon I had a rough draft, but his brother, the antagonist, was flat.
His story had to come through as well. Sure, he was messing up his younger brother’s life, but it isn’t something he planned to do. He hates needing help from his baby brother. He hates what has happened to him. He’s angry. Who catches the brunt of this anger? His brother. Deal with it.
Again, these were things I knew, but in journaling for him I found the character’s voice. His dialogue tightened to the point of being tense, terse and rude – nothing that would keep him up at night.
If you’re having problems nailing a piece of fiction, journal.
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0 Comments on Journaling My Way to Voice and Story as of 4/29/2012 10:01:00 AM
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is this:
Yesterday we looked at nine elements to check when doing a critique of your own manuscript or someone elses. Today we are going a step further by reading with Writing Style in mind. I want to thank Anita Nolan for writing these ten writing style elements up, so we can refer to them while critiquing a manuscript.
I haven't read it but I've heard so much about it I downloaded it to my Nook. Hoping to get to it in the next few weeks!
Voice is such a tricky thing. I think it's the hardest thing for a new writer to grasp, but when you get it...it can make the story.
You know what else I loved about this book aside from the incredible voice? Flynn's mastery of plot twists, the way she structured the narrative...wow wow wow. She slapped me across the face a couple times (metaphorically of course). This book is on my read-again-and-study-carefully list.
Yes. Plot twits. And black humor. Wow.
What beautiful writing and imagery. I'll have to read this sometime soon.
I was also blown away by this book. I got so caught up in the story, I forgot to see it from a writing standpoint, but will look forward to reading it again. LOL.
Did you know they're making a movie? Reese Witherspoon is producing and Amy Adams is starring in it. Good choice, I think.
A movie?? Don't know if I could see it. Amy Adams will be Amazing Amy?? She's so sweet...but it could definitely work.