Let's just say voice is important.
A few things started me thinking about voice lately. First, I started my current contemporary, inspirational romance wip by writing a complete synopsis. I posted it to me crit group for feedback. I was told it had a "chick-lit voice".
Waaaahhhh? Chick-lit?!
Let's forget that pretty much every agent and editor will tell you that chick-lit is dead. I choose to assume my writing style isn't.
Instead, I took that feedback to mean that the story, as I conveyed it, sounded kind of fun and upbeat. The critiquer thought my heroine was early 20's when in fact she's 30 so clearly I have work to do on the synopsis. But it was useful feedback as I write the story to make sure she doesn't come across as younger than I want her to be.
Another thing that got me thinking about voice was a workshop that Claudia Mair Burney, whose "voice" I absolutely looove, did during the recent Visions in Print online workshop. If you haven't heard her publishing story, in short, she had no designs on being anything more than a blogger. A publisher loved her blogging voice and contacted her to write fiction for his house. Get that!
Knowing nothing about writing do's and donts, she simply wrote. And what came out, although it needed much editing to be publishable, was her voice.
Last, lit agent Rachelle Gardner has begun talking about voice on her blog. Rachelle defines voice like this:
your writer's voice is the expression of YOU on the page. It's that simple—and that complicated. Your voice is all about honesty. It's the unfettered, non-derivative, unique conglomeration of your thoughts, feelings, passions, dreams, beliefs, fears and attitudes, coming through in every word you write.This is at the same time that you're presenting your fictional world from your character's point of view.
Sound confusing?
Yeah, just a bit.
Ms. Gardner says voice is not about style but I'm not so sure. So I ask, how do you define voice? Is a style of writing or maybe an author's brand? Does it change from genre to genre when an author writes in multiple genres?
Peace & Blessings,
Patricia
Stay focused. Move Forward. Believe.
5 comments:
Speaking only for myself, Patricia, my voice is my voice whether I'm writing romance or women's fiction. I define it as me.
I hear you, Bettye, and I agree. Your voice is you and it is unique.
Same is true for all writers but many don't know it. And new writers are told to "find their voices", which I must creates yet one more barrier to publication, while they're futzing around trying to figure out something they already really know.
I have pondered this question ever since I first heard the term, but recently I was told by more than one of my crit partners that I'd "found my voice" in my latest WIP.
What I think they mean is that my voice is casual and slightly hip without being too "hip-hop," if that makes any sense. :)
We'll see what happens with the next manuscript.
Hey :) Been lurking, finally decided to comment.
I think style conforms to your voice. If someone has a thoughtful, dreamy voice, their style tends to be prosy. Some people have darker voices and clipped styles.
I think your voice is the way you tell a story. It's the way it resonates afterwards in a readers head. The voice is what the author feels.
I heard a wonderful quote about voice that really made it clear to me when Barbara Samuel came to my RWA chapter to give a workshop. She said voice is your body and style is the clothing you put on your body.
Gwyneth
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