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When you approach the topic of Voice of a novel and how to produce a pleasing Voice for fiction, especially as you revise, I think a helpful attitude is to think of the approaches as a continuum. The Approach to Voice Continuum The continuum runs from a Craft Approach (very left-brained, structured craft oriented skills [...]
As you Wish Are you a fan of the Princess Bride movie? My daughters can quote that move backwards and forwards. J actually went looking for the screenplay online, downloaded it and studied it. Now, she and her friend use quotes from Princess Bride as a shorthand for things. Well, I love the scene where [...]
Patricia Sargeant on the importance of the writer’s voice. (Scroll down to her advice for other writers.) Author Grace Paley died yesterday at the age of 88. Here’s an excerpt of her comments about the way your cultural roots affect your writing voice. Cynthia Morris offers a checklist for evaluating your writing voice. This RSS [...]
From their fantasy novels–can you name the author of each opening line? Do you recognize their voices? (All published since2003) 1. Getting dressed was always the hardest part of the afternoon. 2. Jack woke before dawn and listened to the cold February wind lash the walls of the house. 3. Rain fell that night, a [...]
Why History Textbooks Put You to Sleep Ever wonder why history textbooks put you to sleep? You might think that formal v. informal text vary based on the level of vocabulary and complexity of sentence structure. Some of that may come into play, but it more than that. Rhythm patterns in formal texts are the [...]
One way that I play with voice is to mimic the style of another writer. For this exercise, I write a section without worrying about voice. Then, I take a couple of books I admire that I think might have a voice that would work for my story. I try to imitate their style. That is, I [...]
L asks: “Do you think an author’s ‘voice’ is easier to establish when a novel is written in 3rd POV omniscient than in 1st POV? Just asking because in the writing of my current WIP novel, I felt that I had to find and stick with the MC’s voice, and now in the polishing – [...]
Voice Friday: Search Your Voice for Words Words Voice Friday: Word Choices Voice Friday: Word Connotations Voice Friday: Word Sounds I’ve talked before about the importance of word choices in establishing voice. So, now, you’re editing your novel and you’ve decided that this word is the right diction, has the right connotations, and sounds right. [...]
by Darcy Pattison How would you start to create a voice for a character? For example, if you had a lawyer, you could list the cliched attributes of a lawyer’s voice: overuse of passive voice legalese jargon overuse of qualifying prepositional phrases long, complex-compound sentences For example, a cliched lawyer might say, “Johnny was desirous [...]
by Darcy Pattison Q: How do you go deeper into a character’s voice? A. I wonder if this question is about the character’s voice or about characterization in general. When a critiquer says you need to go deeper into a character’s voice, it could be either. Characterization If characterization is the problem, there are a [...]
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