This weekend, I went to a workshop on “voice” with Barbara Samuel. I thought it would be very helpful, because I’m having a bit of a split personality issue regarding my writerly voice right now.
It used to make perfect sense — in fact, way way back in the very beginning of this blog, I even had a whole series on writerly voice, where I invited other writers to write a scene on a certain subject to see how voice made even similar premises into very different stories. But now i”m rethinking the whole idea. Because, over the last six years, I’ve come to think of the voice I use in any particular project as being another tool in my toolbox — the voice I use is dependent on the character and the story. Talk of “voice” no longer resonates for me outside of thinking “does X voice work for Y story” — or not. It doesn’t seem like the proper use of “voice.” “Author theme” or “storyline” maybe. Is it all about finding the story most suited to the voice that’s easiest for you to write in?
Having typed that, I think that’s what she’s getting at. But writing in the same voice/the same story forever? Nah, that’s not me.
I wrote four short stories this year. Maybe it’s because you can be more experimental in short stories, but the voice in each is markedly different. Some, indeed, are almost unrecognizable to people who think they know what to expect from a Diana Peterfreund story.
One of the voice exercises Barbara had us do was list our ten favorite movies, our favorite book at fifteen, and our favorite book we read in the last six months. This was my list:
Movies (in no particular order):
- The Empire Strikes Back
- The Terminator
- Casablanca
- Working Girl
- Swingers
- A Letter to Three Wives
- Persuasion
- Pride & Prejudice (1995)
- The Incredibles
- The Princess Bride
Favorite Book at 15: The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Favorite Book I Read in Last Six Months: The Daughter of Smoke & Bone, by Laini Taylor
Barbara called on volunteers to share their list and from them attempted to analyze their general tastes and what kind of genre and story they were drawn to. I did not volunteer, but I didn’t need to. It’s pretty obvious from my list.
(FWIW: Ten movies is not enough. Twenty-five, Barbara said, gives a much clearer picture. 25 would also have made it way easier for me to pick — I have at least 5 alternates that could easily be switched out for the ones on that list.)
This is what I saw:
Stories of empowerment and self-discovery; about women and/or employing strong female characters*; love stories, especially love stories that are really about something else entirely; strong secondary characters; lots of speculative/fantastical elements; wry humor.
*Note: Swingers is a notable exception to this. I love this movie, but it doesn’t pass the Bechdal test.
I guess I’m doing okay on writing what I love.
There were a lot of other exercises, some which resonated with me more than others. I’m not sure I came away with an answer to this voice conundrum though. Having said that, however, I think this would be an excellent workshop to attend if you’re feeling in a rut about your writing, or if you’re a beginning writer and you want to explore and develop your natural voice.
When I write like Amy or Astrid or Elliot or Kai, I’m writing like Amy or Astrid or Elliot or Kai. I work hard at making them sound different.To me, how they sound the same — they are very intellectually curious people, for one — is part of what makes them the kind of characters I’d write about. There are things about my writing, about the stories and characters and situations I’m drawn to, that I’m not sure I’d be able to escape from, even if I tried.
There are definitely writers with singular styles, but they are also styles they have, for the most part, chosen. To compare it to art, I’m sure when I say Monet or Dali or Picasso, you get an image in your head of a particular kind of art. But if you go to a museum, you can see Dali experimenting with impressionism or cubism or other styles. There wasn’t actually ONE way these guys could paint. They developed that way or chose that way and they were very successful at it, but one wonders, if they were successful in some other way, might they have stuck with it? If they were not successful in the style we know them for now, would they have done something else?
Some of the writers I know are remarkably versatile, like Justine Larbalestier, who can do romantic comedies and psychological thrillers and everything in between. Some friends of mine found their niche early and stuck to it, some had a false start in a genre that wasn’t right for them (say, chick lit), and then found their footing in something completely different (literary horror). I tried writing category romance for years until I realized that it wasn’t the right venue for my writing talents.
A few years ago, a big publishing exec told me that all the successful writers only write one kind of thing. My response was that that was great, if you were successful at that one thing. But what would have happened if I’d kept writing romance novels? Over and over and over. I’d written four (and two novellas). I’d submitted them, I’d entered contests, I’d won contests. I was doing revisions on one for an editor at Harlequin, and I got an offer on an another from an agent. What if one of those books had sold? Or what if — and here’s a road-not-taken that’ll keep me up nights — what if it did JUST good enough to keep me from branching out? What if it got an agent but didn’t sell, for example? what if I’d kept at the romance because I was getting all this close-but-no-cigar feedback?
Because the problem was, though I was writing about romance, I wasn’t writing romance novels. Now I understand there’s a big difference.I don’t know if I would have wised up. Or when. But my career would not look like this.
Back to that “successful writers only do one thing.” Some do. This is true. But a lot of artists evolve. A lot of artists experiment. Picasso has blue periods. Scorsese directed The Age of Innocence *and* Goodfellas *and* now he’s doing Hugo. (The difference is, the writers who do the Scorsese thing usually have to take pseudonyms to do so.)
Sailor Boy likes to remind me that for all I’ve got seven books out (and one in the hopper), I’m still at the beginning of my career. So far, readers have pretty much only seen me do the secret society girl thing or the unicorn thing (Morning Glory doesn’t count, as in that case, I was writing in the voice of the screenwriter). When FDSTS comes out, they’ll see something not quite like either. And I’ve just finished what is possibly my most experimental short story yet.
That was another valuable thing I took away from Barbara’s workshop. She had us do writing prompts in the voice of ourselves at different times in our life. Who we were at 7 or 15 or etc. It was meant, I think, to show us how our voice even in different times of our life was all connected. But it reminded me of something else. My foray into short stories has allowed me to experiment with my writing in ways I didn’t dare do in long form. And, after taking those practice runs, I learned how to utilize what I’d learned in my full length books. For instance, after writing “Errant” in third person narrative, after years (and 7 books) in first person, I was willing to try another book in third. So the shorts have been important, too. They’ve shown me I can write in other voices, in other styles, and in doing so, unleashed the potential for many new stories.
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