Many years ago, I was recruited to work in second grade
Sunday School. I had little experience with children, but I was “volunteered”
anyway. One morning, the little darlings were a wee bit rowdy. I watched in awe
as my friend Donna calmed their restlessness with one word. Just one! “Enough.”
My entire paragraph of words had failed to make a dint in their noise. How did
she do it? With just one word?
A few months after my daughter was born, my first child, I
discovered Donna’s secret. The Mommy Voice. It just sorta sprung up from my gut
and poured from my mouth and I realized I had it—the tone that meant, “I’m an adult person with authority. You’d
better listen to me you little urchin!” In time it became apparent my child
responded to my Mommy voice quicker than other children, yet sometimes I could
fake the little buggers out and corral them with my surrogate Mommy tone.
Occasionally, there was the wily child that realized I wasn’t really their
Mommy and she/he could ignore me at will.
Voice is important. It sets the tone, gives the speech,
written or verbal, the feel of
authority. Lends credibility to the communication. Expresses just a little more
to the recipient than the message. That’s why, as a writer, it’s wise to
develop a distinctive voice. The one your readers will respond to the minute
they recognize it.
Voice is a difficult thing to define. When I first read this
term, I was clueless. “What the heck are all the experts(?) talking about?” How
do you relate something generally considered audible in a visual format? It
ain’t easy folks. After years of writing, I believe I’ve finally developed a
tone and style of writing that is distinctively mine. Considering all the words
in the English language and all the possible combinations that could possibly
form sentences, it’s how I combine those words and phrases and how I arrange
them into paragraphs and chapters and stories that makes my writing unique to
any other writer’s efforts. It’s my unique syntax.
When I read some of my earlier writing, I cringe. If I
managed any kind of style or tone at all, I was usually copying my current
favorite writer. Yikes! I don’t want to be someone else. I want to be me! Most
of the time, my paragraphs were just collections of sentences strung together
with very little… Argh, how do I define this? The syntax was just…bland,
boring, uninteresting. I would have put my book down and forgot about it!
Okay, I’ll give you an example, just because I want to! The
same paragraph, before and after. (Consider this a free snippet of my current
WIP!)
BEFORE (please forget this as soon as you read it! pretty,
please!): Cole looked around them. “Oh,
it was just the attic door.” It was already hot in the attic, despite the mild
outdoor temperatures; so they had left the door open. He went over to the door
to reopen it. He grasped the knob, but the door wouldn’t open. He pulled
harder, struggling with the door for another minute or two. “It’s stuck,” he
said, trying to control the panic in his voice.
ANOTHER ATTTEMPT (one of many!): Cole looked around, searching for the source. “Oh, it was just the
door.” Despite the mild outdoor temperatures, it was already hot in the attic,
so they had left the door open. Cole grasped the doorknob, but the door refused
to budge. “It’s stuck.” He pulled harder, struggling for a minute or two. “I
can’t believe this.”
AFTER (hopefully the final draft): A loud bang startled Cole. He tossed the drop cloth he was holding onto
the floor and turned around, searching for the source of the disturbance.
Despite the mild outdoor temperature, it was already hot, so he had left the
door open. How had it slammed shut? He eased his way through the stuffy,
overcrowded attic, avoiding packing crates and heavy antiques, portraits of
dead ancestors and large brass spittoons. When he grasped the doorknob, it
refused to budge. “It’s stuck.” He pulled harder and then thumped the door in
frustration.
See…ahem, read…the progression? I hope so. What makes the
last version clearly my own? I don’t know. Ask writers to create something from
the same prompt and you’ll get as many versions as you do writers. No one else
would write this scene exactly as I did. I can’t tell you what
distinguishes the last effort as uniquely mine. But it is. I’d know it
anywhere.
So here’s the big question that mystifies beginning
writers… How do I develop my voice so it’s mine alone? Simple answer? (Don’t
you hate simple answers!) Just keep writing. Scribble something as often and as
long as you can. Every day. You may not like what you write some days, but at
least you’re moving toward your goal. The more you write (and the more you have
the privilege of excellent reviewers/editors critiquing your work), the sooner
your own distinctive style will emerge.
And finally one more piece of advice. (And an anecdote…)
Right before I met the man that would one day be my husband,
I was crushing bad on a very handsome man. To my surprise, this hunk of
handsomeness asked me out. I bet you can guess the next line. No, he never
asked me out again. It took all the courage I could manage to hint I wanted
another date. As men will do, he went around the world six times to tell me he
just wasn’t interested, and he had the audacity to give me some advice on how
to make my personality more pleasing! “Just be yourself.” Humph. I thought I
was. And he was a jerk. But that’s beside the point. He was right. In all you
do, just be yourself. Let your unique personality glow through your writing and
your voice will one day spring from your gut and pour from your mouth…uh, fingers…just
like my Mommy voice did so many, many years ago.
Happy writing!
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