The HEA Cafe

ESSENTIALS:

Voice

In Dianne Castell’s “Up Close and Personal” from March 2007 RWR featuring a Audrey LaFehr of Kensington Publishing: (on page 37)  and I quote:

“Question What aspects of a new writer’s work really catch your eye? I know it’s been said a million times before, but it is the voice that catches my eye or ear if you well.  It’s a voice that intrigues me and appeals to me, a voice I want to listen to from the start, and more and more as the pages go on.  It’s a voice that’s appropriate to the genre and matches the type of story being told, whether that’s a taut and weighty thriller, a soft and lyrical literary novel, fun and sassy contemporary fiction, or an intense and emotional romance.  It’s a consistent and insistent voice, where you feel the author’s intention quite clearly and powerfully, but you don’t “see” the author herself behind that narrative voice.  Sorry voice is intangible and very hard to describe.  I did my best!”

Frankly I think she did a very good job.  Voice is the very hardest thing to learn or distinguish for the new writer because it’s just developing.  The only way you develop your voice is by writing A LOT. And sometimes we confuse it with a character voice, two very different things.  My suggestions:

·       Keep a journal and periodically read aloud from it.  Write about your life, your characters, what you are trying to write, etc.

·       Try to decide which genre or sub genre reflects or correlates to your natural voice.  I write in three sub genres of inspirational novels: romance, romantic suspense, and historical saga. Each one of them is written in my voice for that sub genre.  But evidently, my voice is strongest in the last one, historical sagas.  I realized this due to contests.  Occasionally, one of my contemporary novels will final in a contest.  But only my historicals rise to place in many contests and my 1996 Golden Heart finalist manuscript was historical and my first RITA nomination was with my historical CHLOE in 2006.

So you need to ask yourself what you want to write the most, and enjoy writing most, and what receives the most positive response from readers and contest judges. For nine years, I was unable to sell anything to anyone in NYC.  It took Wendy McCurdy. Senior Editor at Bantam, in 1994 to tell me at a conference that I was writing for the inspirational market.  She could hear it, but I was clueless!  As soon as I investigated and changed markets, I sold. That’s how important voice is.

v    Exercise for finding your voice–Rewrite your first chapter in first person.  This will bring out your voice and your characters’ distinctive voices.  The story will suddenly become much more personal, much more yours.  It will also show up any Point of View errors and clumsy constructions. Today, why don’t you try writing at least the first page of your manuscript in first person and when you’re happy with it, post it here and at the end of it, give your genre and subgenre, i.e.., “Secular romance, romantic suspense.”  (Of course, this is just an exercise. Third person subjective is the POV of choice today. But perhaps a few of you may find your voice is 1^st Person. That is the Voice of a few authors.)

And ask the other participants:

• Is my voice distinctive?
• Does my voice fit what I am writing?
• Is my sub genre clear from my first page? And do the same for them. BUT JUST FOR TUESDAY!