…here’s a wee reflective piece, targeted mainly for my Author pals, but many of our dear and invaluable readerships will no doubt understand it, too… one of the weirdest things to grasp as a new scribbler is the sum’time-elusive ‘Author’s Voice’… that quality which seeps into and exudes from yer writing… identifying the Writer by his/her ‘style’… for this ol’ Jurassic, it’s not just the WURDS used, nor a peculiar turn of phrasing… nor even the ‘pace’ or ‘tone’ or recognisable characterisations in the narrative… it’s the all-embracing embodiment of ‘how’ yeez tell yer stories… fr’instance, pick up any book by Dickens, Steinbeck, Austen, Child, Archer, or any of the well-known pensmiths, without looking at the author’s name on the cover… more often as not, yeez wouldn’t be far into the book without being able to tell which author wrote it… that is the ‘Author’s Voice’… however, I think that description’s a bit of a misnomer… a ‘Voice’ is a sound… albeit with an accent, a dialect, a twang… but merely a sound… there’s more to it than that… I’m often asked by readers, ‘…how much of yerself is in yer books…’
…when I first started on this amazing novel-production gig, I felt p’raps a wee bit of me was in there… all these years later, I’ve come to understand I was widely off the mark… oh sure, Mabel, there’s wee snippets of my own life experiences in there, altered to protect the guilty… but these are only little thumb-marks… when I talk with fellow quill-scrapers, I begin to see a common trait… the enthusiasm… the energy… the sweat, blood and midnight tears that pour into their creations… and it dawns on me that most writers give more than just the noise of their ‘Voice’… part of their soul is embedded in the writing… the fears, conscious and otherwise… the loves, the angst, the pride and prejudices… all of it sum’how or other creeps into the pages… and with that thought in mind, as a reader myself, it imparts much more respect and pleasure when I read other folks’ books, the bygone giants of literature, our present day big names, and newbies et al… see if yeez can spot the ‘Author’s Soul’ next time, not just the ‘Voice’… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…
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I wonder if it isn’t harder to develop a voice these days than it was when the past greats has a distinctive style for those times. That old style was as if the author was speaking to the reader. They sometimes wrote, “Dear Reader.” We’re told not to write that way these days. The reader isn’t supposed to hear the author, just the characters. The author’s “voice” or “style” comes through if they’re good at what they do.
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…I think p’raps it’s not sum’thing to be worked at, but more an unconscious reflection of our unique style of expression… from a word to a sentence to an entire book, m’Lady, Suzanne:) ..
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That’s an interesting perspective Suzanne and you could well be right. I haven’t taken any formal courses in how I’m “supposed” to write, so I can’t say whether I’m following any of the rules of how we’re supposed to write or not. I do know that my characters tell me what they want to say and how they want to say it and without any planned thought to it at all pieces of my “Author’s Soul” definitely ended up within the pages – it was an interesting revelation when I figured that bit out myself.
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,,,hi, again, Tanya… please see my response above to Suzanne… I really believe that an ‘Author’s Voice’ is a natural consistent product of his/her own unique way of telling narrative…
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I tweeted this not five minutes before reading your blog!
‘When you write, write how YOU want it to be. It’s your work, your child. Writing is not a committee event. Write from your soul’
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….100% agreed, that man:)
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I honestly believe that we are part of everything we write. Our heart and soul, even what we yearn to be. Writers don’t use ink, we use our lives blood…
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…can’t refute that, m’Lady:)
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Right indeed. You cannot work at it. It’s you, and can’t be helped…
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..the evolution of a scribbler! 🙂
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Totally at your side!!!!!!
OOOOO XXXXX
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:):)
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