Voice and ... something
May. 2nd, 2006 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranFinally back on ADSL again after moving house. That took a lot longer than expected.
In the meantime, I feel like I've levelled again in my writing. I've done a bit of exploring of different voices and I think I've learnt something useful and important about consistency of voice and what you can do with it.
Part of it is to do with establishing a consistent voice quickly. It's been nagging at me for a while now just how fast my favourite authors seem to be able to establish a voice - by that I mean not just a recognizable style, but also a set of rules and understandings about what sort of information can be transmitted and how. Alexander McCall-Smith is a good example - within what seems like a single paragraph of any of his books, you already feel like you've been handed a secret book for reading what the author is really saying. Or the way the very first line of The Hobbit lets you know that the author will hold you by the hand and lead you somewhere, or the way Jane Austen can say one thing and tell you something completely different from the very first page. In contrast, it's quite common for new writers to never establish a consistent voice, or to take whole chapters to do it in, in which time valuable information has slipped past.
I think I've got more of a feel now, for how the good writers do it, and especially how they do it so quickly.
The second thing is about what having a consistent voice gives you - it lets you convey all sorts of information by using what is not said, as well as what is. It's something that's very hard to do without an established voice because there are too many variables. For each clue you lay, there may be dozens of possible interpretations (including "this person can't write"). The best analogy is probably comparing the relationship between character and dialogue. Dialogue gives a window into character, but character is also needed to interpret dialogue. ("A rough flight" from one character might mean his connection was delayed two hours and then his coffee was spilt in turbulence. "A rough flight" from a test pilot might mean that the no. 2 engine caught fire and then the tail fell off.) There's a similar relationship between voice and narrative. Knowing the voice helps the reader decode the story and lets you put the good stuff on the edges of the narrative, instead of right in the middle.
I'm getting a new sense now of how to tell a story without driving straight through it. How I can paint exactly the same story by showing things at an angle, as long as I'm consistent about it. This gives a whole lot more room for the little things - detail, character, and so on, and hopefully makes it a more interesting experience for the reader.
In the meantime, I feel like I've levelled again in my writing. I've done a bit of exploring of different voices and I think I've learnt something useful and important about consistency of voice and what you can do with it.
Part of it is to do with establishing a consistent voice quickly. It's been nagging at me for a while now just how fast my favourite authors seem to be able to establish a voice - by that I mean not just a recognizable style, but also a set of rules and understandings about what sort of information can be transmitted and how. Alexander McCall-Smith is a good example - within what seems like a single paragraph of any of his books, you already feel like you've been handed a secret book for reading what the author is really saying. Or the way the very first line of The Hobbit lets you know that the author will hold you by the hand and lead you somewhere, or the way Jane Austen can say one thing and tell you something completely different from the very first page. In contrast, it's quite common for new writers to never establish a consistent voice, or to take whole chapters to do it in, in which time valuable information has slipped past.
I think I've got more of a feel now, for how the good writers do it, and especially how they do it so quickly.
The second thing is about what having a consistent voice gives you - it lets you convey all sorts of information by using what is not said, as well as what is. It's something that's very hard to do without an established voice because there are too many variables. For each clue you lay, there may be dozens of possible interpretations (including "this person can't write"). The best analogy is probably comparing the relationship between character and dialogue. Dialogue gives a window into character, but character is also needed to interpret dialogue. ("A rough flight" from one character might mean his connection was delayed two hours and then his coffee was spilt in turbulence. "A rough flight" from a test pilot might mean that the no. 2 engine caught fire and then the tail fell off.) There's a similar relationship between voice and narrative. Knowing the voice helps the reader decode the story and lets you put the good stuff on the edges of the narrative, instead of right in the middle.
I'm getting a new sense now of how to tell a story without driving straight through it. How I can paint exactly the same story by showing things at an angle, as long as I'm consistent about it. This gives a whole lot more room for the little things - detail, character, and so on, and hopefully makes it a more interesting experience for the reader.
