I hope that everyone’s holidays were scrumptious, memorable,
filled with family traditions, and enjoyable. But if you’re like me, you are
ready to get back into the normal swing of things! I’ve had just about as many
Christmas cookie’s as I can stand. Ok, I’m lying… I could eat more!
But now I have the dreaded task of coming up with a way to
lose the weight I gained from over eating these last few months!
One way I plan to do it is by keeping busy. Nothing works
better than when I’m so busy I forget to eat! However, unfortunately that
doesn’t happen often enough. My voice just doesn’t speak to me loud enough and
my mind takes over and imagines how good that bag of chips would taste.
So I not only need to control my mind better in 2013, I need
to find my voice more often. Voice is so important in the world of writing as
well.
I remember the first time someone commented on a story I’d
written by saying, “I just love your voice!” At first I had no idea what they
meant. But the more I write, the more I understand.
I have come to discover that voice comes from bits and
pieces of myself that reveal the emotional truth of the story. My beliefs, my
experiences, my dreams, my imagination, my feelings. By finding that emotional
truth in myself, that is how I can make my character unique and different that
no one else can totally replicate.
A voice can not only be the words your character speaks but
also their hidden thoughts, motivations, desires, intentions, doubts,
suspicions, expectations. These things
to me are what turn my characters into superstars versus just characters.
Voice to me is indeed tricky because you need to bring out a
little bit of yourself in your characters and yet make each character unique.
How do you do that? Practice, practice, practice and most of all imagine,
imagine, imagine!
For me to accomplish a special voice for each character I
first have to envision that character in my mind. That ultimately means I have
to outline. Most writers hate to outline but I do believe a little outlining is
necessary. It works for me.
How about you? Have you found your special voice yet?
For me, the biggest challenge is staying true to a voice throughout a novel or story. One of the things that makes a voice work is a controlled use of vocabulary. Often the perfect word or phrase to describe something is not the correct word or phrase in terms of the story's voice, so you have to find a different approach. Very tricky. As you say, practice, practice, practice.
ReplyDeleteThat is so true, Anne!
ReplyDeleteIt took me a long time to understand voice as well, but it has come to me slowly (at least I think it has! LOL).
ReplyDeleteI know when I haven't 'hit' my character's voice. I wrote an MG novel draft last year, rewrote it, and I still know I'm not there with my narrator's voice yet. I'll keep writing to find it, hopefully soon!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post thanks for writing it
ReplyDelete