http://www.darcypattison.com/retreat/voice-staying-consistent/ Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 http://www.darcypattison.com/retreat/voice-staying-consistent/comment-page-1/#comment-93 Jean Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:38:08 +0000 http://darcypattison.com/retreat/voice-staying-consistent/#comment-93 Hi Darcy, Funny you should mention this. I had written several chapters of my MG novel as part of a workshop several years ago. Then much later, I wrote the rest of the novel surrounding those chapters, start to finish, with just some short breaks in the schedule here and there. I thought everything flowed fairly well in the completed novel, but my critique group picked out the old chapters 100% of the time - because the voice changed. The voice change was so subtle I couldn't detect it in my read-alouds. But the coincidence of the old chapters picked out as the culprits was too strong to ignore. I rewrote most of the chapters salvaging little and the novel is much stronger for it. I think an objective reader may be the only person who can pick out the subtle problems. Jean Hi Darcy,
Funny you should mention this.
I had written several chapters of my MG novel as part of a workshop several years ago. Then much later, I wrote the rest of the novel surrounding those chapters, start to finish, with just some short breaks in the schedule here and there. I thought everything flowed fairly well in the completed novel, but my critique group picked out the old chapters 100% of the time – because the voice changed. The voice change was so subtle I couldn’t detect it in my read-alouds. But the coincidence of the old chapters picked out as the culprits was too strong to ignore. I rewrote most of the chapters salvaging little and the novel is much stronger for it. I think an objective reader may be the only person who can pick out the subtle problems.
Jean

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