tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5702916882944464751.post7437951675227942863..comments2024-01-11T02:51:51.079-08:00Comments on the writer type: the writer's voice and how to shut it upPaul Bassett Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09172391833566032219noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5702916882944464751.post-50150819421159923592011-06-03T11:05:24.767-07:002011-06-03T11:05:24.767-07:00Beautiful! I am a bit obsessed with the word '...Beautiful! I am a bit obsessed with the word 'voice' and have read a lot of writing about the so called writer's voice, and currently, this post is my favourite. Very funny too.<br />IWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5702916882944464751.post-12463472585855082882011-05-08T17:41:52.594-07:002011-05-08T17:41:52.594-07:00hilarious!hilarious!Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02894626355758041112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5702916882944464751.post-3745113422786371492011-05-04T08:07:28.293-07:002011-05-04T08:07:28.293-07:00Towards the end of this post I do actually say tha...Towards the end of this post I do actually say that the best writers do have a voice BUT they arrive at it by writing a lot, hence the suggestion that you have to keep "doing the job" until your voice develops naturally through writing. What I'm saying is that some creative writing classes encourage aspiring writers try to assume a ready-made voice, and you can always detect that. The writer I love most is Dickens and he certainly has a distinctive voice. He was also a genius, and his voice is there in his first published work (although it developed and matured), but even he put in a lot of work as a hack parliamentary reporter and columnist before writing his first novel. My complaint is simply that writers keep trying to bypass something that you have to go through to earn a voice: a lot of very hard work.Paul Bassett Daviesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5702916882944464751.post-32176565406557177832011-05-03T08:00:14.396-07:002011-05-03T08:00:14.396-07:00Loved this! Although I am now worried you have nic...Loved this! Although I am now worried you have nicked my cool destabilising of the Flemish potato market idea - hell, are there NO new ideas under the sun? (Apparently not. They are all part of the 7 plots. Or 11. Or 42 or whatever it is.) You better tell it in a very different voice to mine, that's all I'm saying.<br /><br />Don't agree with you about voice and style. Umm. At least, I'm not sure whether I do or not. <br /><br />Voice, I think, is certainly relevent when talking about first person books. Getting an authentic voice is the whole key to them.<br /><br />Apart from that - voice and style. Humm. I think style is how you string the words together. There was a recent article on VL about Kafka writing in the German and how untranslatable it is because he uses the way the language works to deliberately write enormously long sentences where you have no idea at all about what he is talking about until the final word or two. This is something you can do in German, apparently, but not so successfully in English. This, I would call a style of writing. Although no doubt he has voice too and this style is partly what creates the voice - being incredibly ambiguous and double-meaninged (an element, I would argue, of voice) is being created by this style (how he strings the sentences together). <br /><br />A good example of voice would be someone like Alan Bennett (can't you already hear the slightly world-weary wry dry tone already?). So, voice for me is something in the attitude and outlook and character of the writing. The style of writing may suggest the voice, yes, but isn't totally the same thing. Which is why you can get style without content. Or all style and no character. But you don't tend to get voice without content or voice with no character. Voice is usually saying something. And suggests a sense of character of some sort or other.<br /><br />This may well just be my wanky interpretation though.<br /><br />I also disagree about the "doing the job" kind of writing. Very fashionable these days for people to talk of invisible writing and show not tell and throw things at anyone who dares to use a narratorial voice etc etc. I think this obsession with invisibility comes from screenwriting, myself, and I disagree with it because I love books where I feel like they are a friend (preferably a fun or playful one) telling me something I want to hear about. If a book just has writing that "does the job" it is just story - I might as well read a screenplay and I'd probably prefer that really as I like reading screenplays. For it to be in prose, I want there to be something colourful or characterful there in the writing of the thing. And for the thing to have its own personality.<br /><br />There. Phew. That was a long comment. Well, you know I'm argumentative.<br /><br />PS ...you are quite obsessed with potatoes, aren't you?RosyBhttp://vulpeslibris.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com