The Great Blog Voice Experiment (Intro)

So a few weeks ago, there was a flurry of posts on the lit blogosphere reacting to complaints about similar stories by different writers. This is what happened: a reader (Amazon reviewer) or similar would write a scathing piece about how Story A was a total “ripoff” of Story B, usually based on such flimsy evidence as they were both “futuristic lady cops” or “Beauty and the Beast” stories. Occasionally, writers themselves would get in on the action, wondering why the story they had just sold was so wildly similar to another story recently sold to another house by a stranger. Writer reaction to these statements of concern about “ripoffs” and “stealing” were vehement.

“I say the concept of every romance novel is a woman and man who are attracted to each other and eventually end up together. It’s the journey to the end that’s different. It’s the dialogue, the tone, the setting, the characters and their pasts. It’s the voice. Every story has already been written. All I can do is put my own twist on it. Same with other authors.” — Gena Showalter

“My point is…this is a perfect example of how very similar ideas are out there, floating in the muse-ether as I call it, and yet can be executed totally differently. I always hear that there are only a handful of original plots and all stories are some version of those (Beauty and the Beast theme, the Quest theme, Cinderella theme), and it’s true!” — Susan Grant

“I’m weary of seeing Amazon posts where “reviewers” toss accusations of copycatting around freely. In this current market, there are particular types of books that are selling; that’s what editors want. That’s what reader’s want. It doesn’t make the authors’ works derivative. Nor are they writing in a vacuum—they are a product of their times (pop culture, novels, media) like every other author alive right now. Naturally their work bears the stamp of the times within which they live.” — Deidre Knight

“Hello….anyone want to compare that theme to countless others out there? Anyone want to start bitch slapping me for stealing an idea thought up by someone else? Or lots of way famous someone else’s.” — Jaci Burton

The prevailing attitude in these posts is that every story has already been written, and it’s the characters, the nuances, the voice, whatever, that sets them apart from one another, and that there seems to be a group subconscious where complete strangers simultaneously come up with the same idea.

So I thought I’d run an experiment — I’d give a variety of authors the same basic scene structure and let them run with it, and see how many different takes we could get based on the writers’ vastly different writing styles. I got this idea first from the above posts, and second from a fabulous article by Julie Leto called “Ditching ‘The Book of Your Heart’ for ‘A Book of Your Voice,'” which I know I’ve lauded before on this blog, but really, I can’t say enough about this article, and how there are so many brilliant facets to it.

In the article, Leto mentions that a good way to discuss what voice is is to get a bunch of authors to write the same scene to see how differently each person handles the same material. I decided to give it a whirl. I picked authors from a variety of gernes, authors with very strong, individual voices. Almost everyone jumped at the chance. No one knew who else participated, or got to see another person’s scene before they wrote their own.

I asked them all to write a scene on the following topic:

“A young woman confronts her parents after discovering she has inherited telekinetic powers.”

Unfortunately, looking back on it with my fabulous 20/20 hindsight, I realize that the design of my experiement was mildly flawed. Perhaps it was because I asked these writers to write the scene for me, or maybe, as one participant noted, it was because I used the word “parents,” but almost every participant wrote me a contemporary young adult piece, even if that meant straying from her genre of choice. As one participant said when I expressed surprise at her choice, “I wanted to do something erotic but … the words “young woman” and “confronts her parents” made me feel like I was being a pervert.” Another told me that she couldn’t imagine putting parents in a book that wasn’t young adult, even when I reminded her that her upcoming adult romance featured several scenes of her heroine confronting her parent. ::shrug::

However… and this just goes to show you the value of this experiment, I think you’ll be surprised at how much indivduality manifests itself in these scenes –even though many are in the same genre. So perhaps this turn of events actually made my experiment more relevant. Instead of superficial differences like “she is confronting her parents in ancient Hibernia” or “she is 50 and confronts her 90 year old parents” we have much deeper variations in theme and make up.

But we also have some similarities. I vacilated quite a bit between wanting to group the entries according to their similarities or according to their differences. And I finally decided that it would be most amusing and most valuable to show the differences within superficially similar scenes. Remember, no participant knew what another was going to write.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my utter gratitude to all of the participants in the Great Blog Voice Experiment (hereinafter GBVE). I totally owe you guys drinks. You completely blew me away with the scope of your entries, your talent, and your willingness to take time out of your writing to play on my blog.

So, here’s the way it’s going to work. Each day this week, I will post two or three scenes. All work belongs to the author and may not be reproduced. Enjoy, and tell your friends!

And now, without further ado, may the Great Blog Voice Experiment begin…

Part 1 – TV NITE: Karen and Jana
Part 2 – SOME PARTY: Diana and Marley
Part 3 – AT ANY PRICE: Rachelle and Shannon
Part 4 – PATRICIDE: Jennifer and Karmela
Part 5 – DINNER TABLE: Wendy and Sasha
Part 6 – OUTER LIMITS: Colleen and Nalini