Comments on: Approaching Voice: summary of comments http://www.darcypattison.com/voice/approaching-voice-summary-of-comments/ Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Joni http://www.darcypattison.com/voice/approaching-voice-summary-of-comments/comment-page-1/#comment-146 Joni Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:52:57 +0000 http://darcypattison.com/voice/approaching-voice-summary-of-comments/#comment-146 Your parenthetical about ghostwriting got me thinking. In my day job, I used to write a lot of executive speeches. Which was really hard to do if I didn't know the executive I was writing for or couldn't spend a little time listening to that person talk in a meeting or something. Because I needed to get in my ear (and thus my head) their "voice" and the elements I could use to recreate it -- bluntness or political correctness, favorite words/turns of phrase, sophistication of vocabulary (and favorite jargon and buzz words), sense of humor, sense of propriety, pace of phrases, complexity of sentences, and even things like the pitch of their voice, which has bearing (or so it seemed to me) on my selection of words for them -- vowel-y or gravelly, ponderous or self-important or rapid-fire, etc. All voice issues applicable to fiction, IMO. It would be a good voice exercise to listen to a writer friend, or even someone on TV, talk and then try to write a speech for them. And repeat with the same topic but other people. Or even to transcribe the talking (not prepared speeches, which might not be theirs) of others on similar topics. Your parenthetical about ghostwriting got me thinking. In my day job, I used to write a lot of executive speeches. Which was really hard to do if I didn’t know the executive I was writing for or couldn’t spend a little time listening to that person talk in a meeting or something. Because I needed to get in my ear (and thus my head) their “voice” and the elements I could use to recreate it — bluntness or political correctness, favorite words/turns of phrase, sophistication of vocabulary (and favorite jargon and buzz words), sense of humor, sense of propriety, pace of phrases, complexity of sentences, and even things like the pitch of their voice, which has bearing (or so it seemed to me) on my selection of words for them — vowel-y or gravelly, ponderous or self-important or rapid-fire, etc.

All voice issues applicable to fiction, IMO. It would be a good voice exercise to listen to a writer friend, or even someone on TV, talk and then try to write a speech for them. And repeat with the same topic but other people. Or even to transcribe the talking (not prepared speeches, which might not be theirs) of others on similar topics.

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