electric mist

on finding your "voice"

Over on Backspace, a writer's board I sometimes frequent, there was an interesting discussion about how to find one's "voice" in writing. Voice is that elusive thing, part style, part tone, part phrasing that is particular to you, the writer, or particular to your story/setting, and yet, still part mystery alchemy no one quite knows how to qualify. One of the moderators, Karen, quoted David Morrell who emphasized at Bouchercon that authors needed to "keep it real."

Good advice which can be applied to many things. Having not heard Morrell's advice directly, I wanted to elaborate on it a bit in the Backspace discussion, and thought I'd bring over that post here:

I agree, one meaning of "keep it real" is about cutting out the affected writing. It's also about cutting writing the way we think we "should" write because we're aware we're going to eventually be judged when someone reads it. There's a fine line there, which is difficult to perceive when anyone is starting out... the "yikes, I'm a complete newbie and this really sucks" to the "this is breaking the rules, but I know why and it works and I'm doing it anyway." I think the way to know if you've made it to the latter point is through feedback.

But I digress.

I think the thing about making it real as it relates to style is to think about how you would tell this story as an oral story teller, when there wouldn't be a written record to prove later on if you used all the right grammar or syntax or whatever. When you're telling a story, you end up infusing that story with something of yourself, something of your own style of communication, whether it's to know how to scare the bejesus of out everyone or leaving them crying or rolling with laughter. There's something YOU about your delivery. That's style.

Think of some stand up comedianes for example. There's the manic delivery, the dry, slow ironic delivery, the worldy delivery, the baffoon, etc. Each of those people figured out what it was about their delivery in a few jokes that worked, and then organized their material in such a way as to maximize their style.

Take this same notion, then, and think about your story. You have to marry what it is about you and your delivery that works for the story, that gives that extra impact. The same joke told by Rita Rudner is going to be vastly different if told by Dane Cook. (To randomly pick two different deliveries.) If the story would benefit from spare, sparse, staccato delivery, then that's a style. In my particular book, the main character is pretty outrageous, so the whole book has a style that reflects that.

Finally, you can't be embarrassed about your style. You can't beat yourself up and wonder what the critics are going to say, what the literary crowd will say, what the reviewers will say... and I think this fear sits on every writer's shoulders. There will always be people who'll pick anything apart. If you want to succeed, you gotta write like no one's judging and just tell the story. Your voice is already there. You just gotta listen.

I recently e-mailed with Colleen over at her new (very excellent) blog, Chasing Ray that I knew I was risking getting slammed by critics because my style is so very "in your face." Readers, however, seem to love it - it works well with the character. I have no idea what a reviewer will think, and when I was first working on the book, long before anyone read it, I had to come to terms with the idea that one day, I could get crucified for the tone, for the hyperbole, for the unapologetic outrageousness of the main character. She lives out loud. Very. Out. Loud. In the first few (sucky) attempts at finding the voice, I kept reining her in, thinking that no one would ever like her. At some point, I finally just sat down and admitted that this character was who she was. I couldn't judge her. I couldn't keep pulling punches because who she was wouldn't work that way. I had to let go of the fear of rejection for me as a writer. I had to go ahead and risk what people are going to think about me as a person in order to get to the truth of the character. Once I made my peace with that? The story rocked, and then it sold on the proposal... so the gut instinct was right.

That still doesn't mean reviewers will like it. But what the hell. You have to be true to your instincts, or what good are you as a writer? If we all write to be safe, then we're not being unique. And I'd rather be crucified for being legitimately who I am, for writing honestly, than play the safe bets. Safe bets are boring. And the cardinal rule in writing, the only rule we damned well better not break is, don't be boring.

Posted by toni at October 18, 2005 10:27 PM