Hi, Litopians
In this CraftChat we're looking at a writer's VOICE. We all have our favourite authors. Picking apart why we like them can be enlightening. What matters most to you about your favourite author/s? Is it their story-telling, the unexpected plot twists, the great characters, the mystery, the world building etc? Or is it something about the way they write, as well as those other attributes, that keeps you going back for more?
We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Any recommendations on Great Voices are welcome, too.
As before, the discussion thread will be open for FIVE DAYS from when we post the Chat. Let us know your thoughts. If you disagree with anything, that’s fine. Tell us why. We love hearing from you. All opinions are welcome and valid additions to our learning. Keep it civil.
Rachel (RK Wallis), Julie Mitchelmore, and Kay Leitch (Ancora Imparo)
AUTHORIAL VOICE
The word synergy is defined as the “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects”. (My bold and italics.)
Voice is the synergy of your syntax, vocabulary, punctuation, grammar, phrasing and – the unique, individual, one-of-a-kind, cannot-be-duplicated part: you.
“It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
That's voice.
I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath from some of you: oh, dear me, he started with show, not tell. And carried on with show show show. Every sentence in the first paragraph starts with It was, I was, I was, I was.... And oh, pass the smelling salts, he even mentions the weather in the second sentence, and tells us what it wasn’t instead of what it was…He’s doomed…
Yeah, right. Doomed to be so iconic every crime fiction writer reads him in the hope something of his genius will rub off on them.
For me, that first paragraph doesn’t just give us the voice of iconic character, Philip Marlowe, created by the excellent Raymond Chandler in The Big Sleep, it also gives us the voice of the author – something much harder to pin down. Not in the punctuation, although that’s fine. Not in a high-action beginning (there isn’t one), not even in the vocabulary, because there is nothing remarkable about any of those words. It’s in the rhythm and cadence of the sentences, the down-to-earth, take-me-or-leave-me-it’s-your-loss observations, and the obvious humour and intelligence of the character (and, hence, the writer). We feel in safe hands. He was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and didn’t care who knew it. Those last six words rounded off that character for me, giving him a wry humour that I loved. And while the voice coming across loud and clear is the character's voice, the energy of the writer's voice is also strong. Would you read on? Millions of readers have. Millions. Me included.
I know it was written before the middle of the last century, before the rise of the professional pedant and the inundation of writing classes and courses on how-to, and what-not-to, and ohmygod-don’t-start-with-a-dream it’ll be the end of civilization as we know it…but I am SO not bothered by any of the was and were and past continuous, or by Chandler describing his surroundings, rather than laboriously taking us with him and showing the character “patting down” or “putting something in the pocket of” his powder-blue suit. You do not always have to "show". This no-nonsense private eye is telling us, accurately and with humour, what’s going on, and that works.
It may not work for every genre. As a writer, it’s your job to read enough to know which authors (and styles) are most popular with readers: first or third-person, rich detail or spare, a lot of telling, a lot of showing or a mixture. That’s style, and you need to understand it. But it’s not voice.
Voice is different. It’s like your literary fingerprints, or DNA – it’s unique to you.
The words used in Chandler’s opening are the words of the no-nonsense PI character, and they show us his character. But the voice behind it all, giving rhythm and cadence to the sentences – the sky behind the scenery, if you like – that’s the writer.
Vive la difference
There are the voices of characters, and then there is the voice of the writer – much harder to pin down. Some say voice is the mix of vocabulary, tone, syntax, rhythm, cadence, humour, etc that creates a certain flow in the order in which we write our words and sentences. Reading work out loud helps us hear that flow (cadence).
Although authorial voice can often be mistaken for the main character’s voice, and vice versa, I believe the two are different. The first is innate to a writer (and, I believe, cannot be taught, although it can be found); the second is vital to a story (and, I believe, can be enhanced with learned techniques).
Voice can come across in how confident a writer is in what they have to say, whether that’s a piece of well-researched journalism or a piece of fantastic fiction. It’s not whether you use adverbs and adjectives – or not. It’s not whether you write about high or low fantasy, romance, God/s, crime, mystery, or even hard-core, quantum physics-led sci-fi. It’s you. It’s what many lecturers in the MA in writing say is the most important aspect of writing for a writer to “find”. Find your voice.
Which can be a wee bit like handing you some sandwiches, a bottle of water and a chocolate biscuit and saying, “Off you go and don’t come back until you’ve found the Holy Grail.” That would be daunting if you had to head off into the unknown – out there – to look for it.
But it’s not out there. It’s in here. Inside you. Boiled down to its essence: voice is you.
That’s why one of the most important lessons we learn as writers is Be Yourself. Because no one else is better qualified (to paraphrase Frank J Giblin). YOUR voice is unique. I’m not saying it’ll make you a fortune, as it did Agatha Christie or J K Rowling, Raymond Chandler or Neil Gaiman. I’m saying be true to yourself and write with your own unique, individual voice – whatever that is – because then readers will know what they’re getting when they pick up one of your books. And, if they like it, they’ll come back for more.
If all a reader finds within your pages is a writer who has studied “techniques” and “advice” to the detriment of their own unique style, then the reader might carry on down the shelves looking for authors who are distinctive. Sure, if you’re in the game purely to make money, churn out those formulaic thrillers, romances, mysteries, sci-fi adventures. Go for it. But even there, if you want casual readers to become returning clients, give them what no one else can: give them you.
So, enjoy the sandwiches, water and chocolate biscuit, and then sit down and be yourself. Easy-peasy. Want to use adverbs? Use them – but be sensible: use them properly. Love adjectives? Well, a crimson sun sinking into violet and gold streaks will always evoke more images for me than “the sun went down”. Unless, of course, you want to be symbolic. In which case, KISS…
Finding your voice doesn’t mean ignoring good advice about craft. It means incorporating the advice into your work seamlessly, while retaining the most important aspect of it, which is you.
Some writers don’t find their voice until they’ve lived a bit, have made and lost a few friends, won and lost a few battles and learned that – who knew? – punctuation matters. If you truly don’t know where to start to discover your voice, the only way to find out is – surprise surprise – to write. There is no short cut to voice. There is no magic formula to voice. There is no Voice for Dummies manual.
Sounds odd, I know, but the only way to find your voice is to write.
Write short stories, long stories, novellas, novels, tomes. Hell, write a shopping list and make someone smile, if you want. A man wrote me a small shopping list forty years ago. He needed a few things for his shoes, which he took great care of. He wrote the brand of shoe polish he needed. That he needed black polish, brown polish, a tan polish and some colour I can’t remember. At the end of the wee list he wrote a PS: “sorry I had to write this note in Polish”.
Could I hear his “voice” come through in that last silly sentence? In a shopping list! Yes, I could. It made me smile because I heard his voice, his humour and his sense of the completely ridiculous. I still have that note; and him.
You, too, can make a sky
Write and read and keep studying the craft. Some techniques are clunky, some will improve your prose; take what works for you but remember: this is your voice. You decide the flow of the words, the cadence of the sentence, the gravitas of the vocabulary, and the simplicity or density of the prose. That is your voice.
Some writers are very spare, like Cormac McCarthy; some are rich: Stephen Donaldson, Sir Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Brandon Sanderson, N.K. Jemisin…There is no right or wrong here, just different voices. If you don’t like fantasy, or religious writing, or romance, that’s fine, but don’t denigrate anything because of its genre. That’s as crazy as saying Mozart was rubbish because classical music doesn't appeal to you. Voice is separate to genre. There are great voices in every genre.
Sir Terry Pratchett’s work can come across as absolutely bonkers. I love it. He was a genius. Neil Gaiman – brilliant. His Neverwhere is a masterclass in character creation and world building, not to mention dialogue, character arcs and how to create gut-wrenching betrayals.
Gaiman’s voice, as with Pratchett’s, McCarthy’s, Donaldson’s, Jemisin’s, Sanderson's et al, is like the sky: it’s always there, behind everything, even when we can’t “see” it. We can see the scenery: the mountains and people (world and characters); rivers and trees (rhythm and cadence); flowers and bushes (adverbs, and adjectives). Your voice – style, phrasing and syntax – becomes the sky, setting it all off beautifully and holding it all together.
Listen…
Reading for Litopia’s Pop-Ups has shown me how some writers have a wonderful rhythm to their sentences, no matter what the genre. Even submissions where there's too much telling, not enough action, too much exposition too soon, story starting in the wrong place, poor dialogue…All these things can be mended, techniques learned to improve them. But if the writer has a voice, I know they’ll make it if they work at the craft.
Reading work out loud reveals a multitude of sins. And virtues. If you don’t already read your work out loud, start. Listen, and you’ll hear the rhythm and cadence of your own work and can adjust it as you see fit. That way, you’ll hear your voice.
Ancora Imparo
VOICE
Voice is that inimitable quality in writing that has the power to hook a reader, impelling them to stay with a story, its world and its characters. Perhaps the best fiction stories are where the authorial voice retreats and the voice of the narrator and characters takes centre stage. Voice does not have to be kind and pleasant; perhaps the most engaging ones aren’t.
Of course, it is the writer’s skills that lie behind the voice, be it their own voice or their creation of a narrator and/or characters. Word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, punctuation, syntax, point of view, the use of the vernacular or colloquial all contribute to constructing voice. Like Frankenstein delivering the electrical current into his monster’s body to initiate movement and life, so it is with voice. Voice must fully inhabit the writing if it is to live in the reader’s mind. Characters need to be plausible; they exist for the reader in the things they say and do (which is why it’s helpful to read work aloud; it’s easier to hear if the writing flows and whether the voice ‘works’). Inflection is more readily available to pick up on when someone speaks. How might a writer show the pitch of voice or the intention of how the words should hit? In writing it is maybe easier to convey the tone of a piece, its mood and attendant emotions than it is inflection. Dialogue tags can also indicate whether a character has screamed, shouted or mumbled. When accentuating dialect and accent in voice, a writer may use contractions such as ‘C’mon,’ or ‘what’ve.’ Words may be written phonetically and punctuation placed in such a way that when read, one may hear where a particular character hails from, or understand nuances in their speech. Look to Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange for Nadsat, the fictional language that drives the voice of Alex and his ‘droogies.’ Read Irving Welsh if you want to know how he conveys the Scottish accent or uses slang to really ramp up voice. Do you have an author you enjoy because of their ability to give you a voice you want to stick around with until the end of the story?
In non-fiction writing, such as a book on quantum mechanics or the history of the Romans, the focus is on delivering facts. If the subject matter is complex, then a voice capable of being clear and vibrant is essential. In memoirs and autobiographies, readers expect to hear truth and authenticity in the author’s voice. If it’s a known public figure, then while the writing might surprise, the reader will want to hear that figure’s voice come through, even if they suspect it’s ghost-written.
Let’s Look At Some Examples of Voice in Literature:
The Stone Boy by Gina Berriault
If you are unfamiliar with the story, it concerns a nine-year-old boy, Arnold who accidentally shoots dead his older brother. In this extract, we see Arnold being questioned by the sheriff. As you read, observe how Berriault captures the gravity of situation and how it seeps into the voice.
‘How did you happen to shoot him?’
‘We was crawlin’ through the fence.’
‘Yes?’
‘An’ the gun got caught on the wire.’
‘Seems the hammer must of caught,’ his father put in.
‘All right, that’s what happened,’ said the sheriff. ‘But what I want you to tell me is this. Why didn’t you go back to the house and tell your father right away? Why did you go and pick peas for an hour?’
Arnold gazed over his shoulder at his father, expecting his father to have an answer for this also. But his father’s eyes, larger and even lighter blue than usual, were fixed upon him curiously. Arnold picked at a callus in his right palm. It seemed odd now that he had not run back to the house and wakened his father, but he could not remember why not. They were all waiting for him to answer.
‘I come down to pick peas,’ he said.
‘Didn’t you think,’ asked the sheriff, stepping carefully from word to word, ‘that it was more important for you to go tell your parents what had happened?’
‘The sun was gonna come up,’ Arnold said.
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘It’s better to pick peas while they’re cool.’
The sheriff swung away from him, both hands flat on his desk. ‘Well, all I can say is,’ he said across to Arnold’s father and Uncle Andy. ‘he’s either a moron or he’s so reasonable that he’s way ahead of us.’ He gave a challenging snort. ‘It’s come to my notice that the most reasonable guys are mean ones. They don’t feel nothing.’
The adults do not understand Arnold’s apparent lack of remorse, the absence of tears, and his reason for not immediately alerting his parents. Although, they know it was clearly a terrible accident. The dialogue is expressionless mirroring Arnold’s flat voice. He speaks colloquially, with eliding consonants and vowels: “crawlin,” “An’” and “gonna.” Their use reinforces Arnold’s naivety and young age (although I note his father says “ . . . must of caught”). This is further built upon by Arnold’s sticking to the facts. A child and one in shock, he lacks the intellect to go beyond simple statements; he doesn’t attempt to argue or plead. As I read it, I see a boy who is in deep shock, dissociated from the event as a means of self-protection; the voice shrunk. Arnold prompted by the sheriff’s questions answers each honestly.
The sheriff is a man who sees the facts, but he doesn’t understand Arnold’s actions. His statement, “But what I want you to tell me is this.,” ends with a full-stop, giving space for Arnold to consider his answers to the questions that follow. The sheriff’s voice leans to the accusatory. His use of timeframes as in “. . . right away?” and “ . . . pick peas for an hour?” are careful, yet, the sheriff is intimating to Arnold that he should have acted immediately by seeking out his father.
Written in 3rd person limited, we come closer to Arnold, slowly travelling into his thoughts. Dialogue is suspended. Everything Arnold thinks and experiences moves dreamlike, again echoing the surrealness he is experiencing. He “gazed over his shoulder at his father. . .” the tone is one of aloneness to the nth degree. Arnold no longer has a brother. Him causing a death singles him out, strikes him from the family, literally. This distance, his aloneness is emphasised by the positioning of his father. Arnold has to physically turn to see his father. A father who might be at his son’s shoulder, is instead, behind him.
Arnold notices his dad’s eyes are “larger and even lighter blue than usual.” What can we make of this? Does it make for an expression that shows someone unsullied? Open? Innocent? If eyes are the window to the soul, it feels significant that father’s eyes look upon his son, and Arnold takes their detail in. Is father like Jesus? Will he save him? Is this what is intimated? “Curiously,” is Arnold’s understanding. It steers Arnold towards a shift that he can’t quite articulate. There is the picking “at a callus,” which is absentminded because Arnold’s voice – his thoughts, are equally vague in that to him, “It seemed odd now . . .” Only now through the shock is he considering his actions as “odd.” The voice in this paragraph is of buried distress. He is not able to understand what the adults might be thinking or seeing when they look at him. The fact that he couldn’t remember why he didn’t wake his father, to me, points to shock and grief.
Yet, they are the adults and they want him to say something. So, he talks about picking peas, which was the reason the boys had gone out in the first place. I guess we would say that continuing to pick peas was Arnold’s coping mechanism.
Berriault has the sheriff “stepping carefully from word to word.” We pick up on a voice that enunciates as if to an idiot. He asks a question, but really he is telling Arnold what was more important than picking peas. To the sheriff there is only black and white, no nuances. Finally, dismissive of Arnold, he too turns from him, and addresses the other two adults. Unfortunately, the sheriff has already determined what kind of boy Arnold is, and the man he will become. To the sheriff, Arnold’s coming across cool, cool as the peas he’s picked. “It’s come to my notice that the most reasonable guys are mean ones. They don’t feel nothing.”
Read the full story and make up your own mind as to whether Arnold feels nothing.
Berriault, Gina The Stone Boy. First published Mademoiselle Magazine, 1957
The Stone Boy. Gina Berriault. Gina Berriault. The Stone Boy - PDF Free Download (docplayer.net)
After I was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned
Oh I’m a fast dog. I’m fast-fast. It’s true and I love being fast I admit it I love it. You know fast dogs. Dogs that just run by and you say, Damn! That’s a fast dog! Well that’s me. A fast dog. I’m a fast fast dog. Hoooooooo! Hooooooooooooo!
You should watch me sometime. Just watch how fast I go when I’m going my fastest, when I’ve really got to move for something, when I’m really on my way─man do I get going sometimes, weaving like a missile, weaving like a missile between trees and around bushes and then pop! I can go over a fence or a baby or a rock or anything because I’m a fast fast dog and I can jump like a fucking gazelle.
Eggars, Dave. How We Are Hungry. London: Penguin, 2005
This is one of my favourite short stories. Eggars’ totally captures the nature, and voice of a free-spirited dog (as humans must imagine what goes on inside a dog’s mind!). Personally, I am charmed by the voice Eggars’ has created. In fact, it’s such an authentic sounding voice that I am totally within the narrator’s (dog) story world. A dog who is somewhat of a braggart, but a dog with an infectious zest for living full-pelt.
So how is this conveyed?
Most noticeably are the thirteen references to ‘fast.’ The opening paragraph has them practically rolling one after the other. The breathless rhythm is strung with a series of anaphora that depict dog’s heightened emotion. There is the superlative “fastest,” when dog wants you to know he has a focused purpose when he’s running. A first person PoV with the use of second person, dog’s direct address to the reader, is a voice that pulls you in, demands you listen. And you have to listen because dog speaks so fast, and there’s so many ways that he’s fast, as dog is keen to tell. Punctuation also lends itself to voice with hyphen use “I’m fast-fast.” It’s dog’s way of emphasising with his particular way of speaking his speed. Exclamation marks also emphasis his passion, and so too when they follow the onomatopoeic words, “Hoooooooo!” and “Pop!” They are sounds we can associate with speed and excitement.
To further develop dog’s voice, there is also the absence of punctuation in a few sentences, which again makes for a breathless rhythm rounding out dog’s persona, his voice. There is repetition of clauses and similes in “. . . when I’ve really got to move . . when I’m really on my way . . .” and “Weaving like a missile,” making it seem as if dog’s whole way of living and thinking is so fast that it’s not in his makeup to slow down, even to consider what he’s saying beyond repeating. The voice is childlike in his boasting and demandingness, “ You should watch me sometime. Just watch how fast I go.” Elevating him above the childlike attention-seeking, for he is not a puppy, are the soft and hard expletives. “Damn!” could have been ‘Whoa!’ or ‘Wow.’ But perhaps “damn!” is more an expression that verbalises shock or exclamation. “Fucking gazelle,” when spoken has the impact of excelling the noun “gazelle”. The reader knows gazelles jump very high. Without the expletive, the reader might skim over “gazelle.” Adding the expletive, there is the aural sense of relish that dog, if he had hands would be brushing them across each other to show that he had that done and dusted. Emotion, inflection are conveyed without a single dialogue tag.
Without giving too much away, the reader soon learns that as a puppy, dog was thrown into a river to drown, but survived. Knowing this, adds appreciation and understanding as to why dog grabs every single moment to live life beyond the full. This is the voice of a dog that is living life on the edge. However, the story title suggests annihilation; live fast, die young.
Authorial voice in non-fiction
It is quite easy to understand the author’s voice in non-fiction writing. Here, we look at how the writer’s personality and viewpoint enter their writing. Below, is a small section of Sharon Blackie’s work. What do you think her primary standpoint is? How do you know? Does her voice feel like it’s speaks to you? For you? About you? Against you?
The world which men have made isn’t working. Something needs to change. To change the world, we women need first to change ourselves – and then we need to change the stories we tell about who we are. The stories we’ve been living by for the past few centuries – the stories of male superiority, of progress and growth and domination – don’t serve women and they certainly don’t serve the planet. Stories matter, you see. They’re not just entertainment – stories matter because humans are narrative creatures. It’s not simply that we like to tell stories, and to listen to them: it’s that narrative is hard-wired into us. It’s a function of our biology, and the way our brains have evolved over time. We make sense of the world and fashion our identities through the sharing and passing on of stories. And so the stories that we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, shape not just our own lives, but the world around us.
Blackie, Sharon. If Women Rose Rooted, A life-changing journey to authenticity and belonging. September Publishing, 2019
Blackie’s voice is assertive and confident; she isn’t afraid to voice her opinions: that men have got it all wrong. The use of ‘we’ is inclusive of all women, and yet while it might appear she is damning of men, what she’s really saying is that it’s the cultural narrative that men have dominated that needs redressing. Their stories of “male superiority . . . and domination,” have blitzed both planet and women. For Blackie, stories become the paradigm we adopt and live our lives by; if the stories denigrate women’s identities then women become trapped by a narrative that subjugates. Eco-feminism and folklore are Blackie’s passions, and evidence of this is clear.
The tone and sentence structure give us a voice that could be rallying women; the tone in places is conversational and address the reader, “Stories matter, you see,” and “It’s a function of our biology . . “ There is a lot of repetition such as four repetitions of “change” and nine of “stories.” Note the repetitions build in successive sentences as if the reader must be drip-fed so as to remember the writer’s salient points.
At first, it might be construed that Blackie is anti-man, but she puts men and women back together: “. . . stories matter because humans are narrative creatures.” Now, she is inclusive, referring to “our biology,” “our identities,” and “our own lives.” What Blackie intimates is a redressing of balance. The use of the em dash is the author’s voice highlighting particular clauses that she wants the reader to be struck by; to pull them up and make them think. To further emphasise her points, she uses double adverbs to counteract her imagined readers’ responses: “They’re not just entertainment – stories matter because humans are narrative creatures. It’s not simply that we like to tell stories, and to listen to them. . . ”
In this section, the writing is persuasive although with very little in the way of facts. Instead, she appeals to something every man, woman and child is familiar with – stories. Changing the stories; giving women voice in their stories, to Blackie is the way forward in making fundamental changes to human lives, and therefore re-establishing balance in society and the greater world.
Julie Mitchelmore
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO INJECT VOICE INTO YOUR WRITING?
Ancora and Julie have given excellent accounts of how unique voice is and how we can identify it in books. So now let’s consider how we can inject some voice tricks into our own writing.
First, I suggest an exercise. Write a list of your favourite book (or movie) beginnings, midpoints, climaxes, protagonists, antagonists or pretty much anything. Learn your tastes. Read a lot. Watch a lot. Know yourself. Know what you like. Be brave. Build your own style. That’ll make a solid start.
Next you want to learn the tools of the trade, and which you prefer. Ask yourself questions, such as:
What POV do you like?
First (in the protagonist head/Immersive)? Third Limited/Deep POV (A little distant from the protagonist’s head/not as immersive as first pov)? Third? Omniscient (distant/non-immersive)?
What tense? Past or present?
Can you slip your brand of worldbuilding onto the page?
Could a worldbuilding name also help set the tone of your WIP? As Jennifer Armentrout does in From Blood and Ash when she says, “Blood Forest.” Those two words work double fold for her – we have tone plus worldbuilding.
Perhaps you like alliteration? I feel everyone knows this one: Pride & Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, Spinning Silver
Or similes or metaphors or both?
Is juxtaposition your specialty?
A juxtaposition is when you place two things close together or side by side, for the purpose of comparison or contrast.
Black, Sacha. The Anatomy of Prose: 12 Steps to Sensational Sentences (Better Writers Series) (p. 302). Atlas Black Publishing. Kindle Edition.
For example: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities (AmazonClassics Edition) (p. 1). Amazon Classics. Kindle Edition.
Or, strike me blind, do you like repetition? That’s such a controversial preference. You’re either for, or against, in much the same way you’re for, or against, Prince Harry. To this reader, repetition done right adds poetry. For example:
A girl is running for her life…
…Seven freckles. One for every love she’d have, that’s what Estele had said, when the girl was still young.
One for every life she’d lead.
One for every god watching over her.
Now, they mock her, those seven marks. Promises. Lies. She’s had no loves, she’s lived no lives, she’s met no gods, and now she is out of time.
But the girl doesn’t slow, doesn’t look back; she doesn’t want to see the life that stands there, waiting. Static as a drawing. Solid as a tomb.
Instead, she runs.
Schwab, V.E.. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (p. 12). Titan Books. Kindle Edition.
What about Onomatopoeia? A word that sounds like it’s meaning: burble, chirrup, fizz, hiss, snap
On top of these devices, writers need to choose how they’ll foreshadow, flashback, arouse a reader’s curiosity, hook or surprise them with word play, humor, dialogue, character, actions, clever sayings, such as:
Luc’s smile darkens. “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because vision weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.” He leans close, twists a lock of her hair around one finger. “Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”
Schwab, V.E.. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (p. 351). Titan Books. Kindle Edition.
SPOLIER: This line has more impact once you know, Luc has cursed Addie, and everyone forgets her. When he digs the knife in, saying, “everyone wants to be remembered,” the reader feels a visceral reaction.
So many choices, the list is endless. That’s why it’s vital to understand what you like, then bake that into your story. Best of luck
Vlogs:
Rachel
In this CraftChat we're looking at a writer's VOICE. We all have our favourite authors. Picking apart why we like them can be enlightening. What matters most to you about your favourite author/s? Is it their story-telling, the unexpected plot twists, the great characters, the mystery, the world building etc? Or is it something about the way they write, as well as those other attributes, that keeps you going back for more?
We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Any recommendations on Great Voices are welcome, too.
As before, the discussion thread will be open for FIVE DAYS from when we post the Chat. Let us know your thoughts. If you disagree with anything, that’s fine. Tell us why. We love hearing from you. All opinions are welcome and valid additions to our learning. Keep it civil.
Rachel (RK Wallis), Julie Mitchelmore, and Kay Leitch (Ancora Imparo)
AUTHORIAL VOICE
The word synergy is defined as the “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects”. (My bold and italics.)
Voice is the synergy of your syntax, vocabulary, punctuation, grammar, phrasing and – the unique, individual, one-of-a-kind, cannot-be-duplicated part: you.
“It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
That's voice.
I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath from some of you: oh, dear me, he started with show, not tell. And carried on with show show show. Every sentence in the first paragraph starts with It was, I was, I was, I was.... And oh, pass the smelling salts, he even mentions the weather in the second sentence, and tells us what it wasn’t instead of what it was…He’s doomed…
Yeah, right. Doomed to be so iconic every crime fiction writer reads him in the hope something of his genius will rub off on them.
For me, that first paragraph doesn’t just give us the voice of iconic character, Philip Marlowe, created by the excellent Raymond Chandler in The Big Sleep, it also gives us the voice of the author – something much harder to pin down. Not in the punctuation, although that’s fine. Not in a high-action beginning (there isn’t one), not even in the vocabulary, because there is nothing remarkable about any of those words. It’s in the rhythm and cadence of the sentences, the down-to-earth, take-me-or-leave-me-it’s-your-loss observations, and the obvious humour and intelligence of the character (and, hence, the writer). We feel in safe hands. He was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and didn’t care who knew it. Those last six words rounded off that character for me, giving him a wry humour that I loved. And while the voice coming across loud and clear is the character's voice, the energy of the writer's voice is also strong. Would you read on? Millions of readers have. Millions. Me included.
I know it was written before the middle of the last century, before the rise of the professional pedant and the inundation of writing classes and courses on how-to, and what-not-to, and ohmygod-don’t-start-with-a-dream it’ll be the end of civilization as we know it…but I am SO not bothered by any of the was and were and past continuous, or by Chandler describing his surroundings, rather than laboriously taking us with him and showing the character “patting down” or “putting something in the pocket of” his powder-blue suit. You do not always have to "show". This no-nonsense private eye is telling us, accurately and with humour, what’s going on, and that works.
It may not work for every genre. As a writer, it’s your job to read enough to know which authors (and styles) are most popular with readers: first or third-person, rich detail or spare, a lot of telling, a lot of showing or a mixture. That’s style, and you need to understand it. But it’s not voice.
Voice is different. It’s like your literary fingerprints, or DNA – it’s unique to you.
The words used in Chandler’s opening are the words of the no-nonsense PI character, and they show us his character. But the voice behind it all, giving rhythm and cadence to the sentences – the sky behind the scenery, if you like – that’s the writer.
Vive la difference
There are the voices of characters, and then there is the voice of the writer – much harder to pin down. Some say voice is the mix of vocabulary, tone, syntax, rhythm, cadence, humour, etc that creates a certain flow in the order in which we write our words and sentences. Reading work out loud helps us hear that flow (cadence).
Although authorial voice can often be mistaken for the main character’s voice, and vice versa, I believe the two are different. The first is innate to a writer (and, I believe, cannot be taught, although it can be found); the second is vital to a story (and, I believe, can be enhanced with learned techniques).
Voice can come across in how confident a writer is in what they have to say, whether that’s a piece of well-researched journalism or a piece of fantastic fiction. It’s not whether you use adverbs and adjectives – or not. It’s not whether you write about high or low fantasy, romance, God/s, crime, mystery, or even hard-core, quantum physics-led sci-fi. It’s you. It’s what many lecturers in the MA in writing say is the most important aspect of writing for a writer to “find”. Find your voice.
Which can be a wee bit like handing you some sandwiches, a bottle of water and a chocolate biscuit and saying, “Off you go and don’t come back until you’ve found the Holy Grail.” That would be daunting if you had to head off into the unknown – out there – to look for it.
But it’s not out there. It’s in here. Inside you. Boiled down to its essence: voice is you.
That’s why one of the most important lessons we learn as writers is Be Yourself. Because no one else is better qualified (to paraphrase Frank J Giblin). YOUR voice is unique. I’m not saying it’ll make you a fortune, as it did Agatha Christie or J K Rowling, Raymond Chandler or Neil Gaiman. I’m saying be true to yourself and write with your own unique, individual voice – whatever that is – because then readers will know what they’re getting when they pick up one of your books. And, if they like it, they’ll come back for more.
If all a reader finds within your pages is a writer who has studied “techniques” and “advice” to the detriment of their own unique style, then the reader might carry on down the shelves looking for authors who are distinctive. Sure, if you’re in the game purely to make money, churn out those formulaic thrillers, romances, mysteries, sci-fi adventures. Go for it. But even there, if you want casual readers to become returning clients, give them what no one else can: give them you.
So, enjoy the sandwiches, water and chocolate biscuit, and then sit down and be yourself. Easy-peasy. Want to use adverbs? Use them – but be sensible: use them properly. Love adjectives? Well, a crimson sun sinking into violet and gold streaks will always evoke more images for me than “the sun went down”. Unless, of course, you want to be symbolic. In which case, KISS…
Finding your voice doesn’t mean ignoring good advice about craft. It means incorporating the advice into your work seamlessly, while retaining the most important aspect of it, which is you.
Some writers don’t find their voice until they’ve lived a bit, have made and lost a few friends, won and lost a few battles and learned that – who knew? – punctuation matters. If you truly don’t know where to start to discover your voice, the only way to find out is – surprise surprise – to write. There is no short cut to voice. There is no magic formula to voice. There is no Voice for Dummies manual.
Sounds odd, I know, but the only way to find your voice is to write.
Write short stories, long stories, novellas, novels, tomes. Hell, write a shopping list and make someone smile, if you want. A man wrote me a small shopping list forty years ago. He needed a few things for his shoes, which he took great care of. He wrote the brand of shoe polish he needed. That he needed black polish, brown polish, a tan polish and some colour I can’t remember. At the end of the wee list he wrote a PS: “sorry I had to write this note in Polish”.
Could I hear his “voice” come through in that last silly sentence? In a shopping list! Yes, I could. It made me smile because I heard his voice, his humour and his sense of the completely ridiculous. I still have that note; and him.
You, too, can make a sky
Write and read and keep studying the craft. Some techniques are clunky, some will improve your prose; take what works for you but remember: this is your voice. You decide the flow of the words, the cadence of the sentence, the gravitas of the vocabulary, and the simplicity or density of the prose. That is your voice.
Some writers are very spare, like Cormac McCarthy; some are rich: Stephen Donaldson, Sir Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Brandon Sanderson, N.K. Jemisin…There is no right or wrong here, just different voices. If you don’t like fantasy, or religious writing, or romance, that’s fine, but don’t denigrate anything because of its genre. That’s as crazy as saying Mozart was rubbish because classical music doesn't appeal to you. Voice is separate to genre. There are great voices in every genre.
Sir Terry Pratchett’s work can come across as absolutely bonkers. I love it. He was a genius. Neil Gaiman – brilliant. His Neverwhere is a masterclass in character creation and world building, not to mention dialogue, character arcs and how to create gut-wrenching betrayals.
Gaiman’s voice, as with Pratchett’s, McCarthy’s, Donaldson’s, Jemisin’s, Sanderson's et al, is like the sky: it’s always there, behind everything, even when we can’t “see” it. We can see the scenery: the mountains and people (world and characters); rivers and trees (rhythm and cadence); flowers and bushes (adverbs, and adjectives). Your voice – style, phrasing and syntax – becomes the sky, setting it all off beautifully and holding it all together.
Listen…
Reading for Litopia’s Pop-Ups has shown me how some writers have a wonderful rhythm to their sentences, no matter what the genre. Even submissions where there's too much telling, not enough action, too much exposition too soon, story starting in the wrong place, poor dialogue…All these things can be mended, techniques learned to improve them. But if the writer has a voice, I know they’ll make it if they work at the craft.
Reading work out loud reveals a multitude of sins. And virtues. If you don’t already read your work out loud, start. Listen, and you’ll hear the rhythm and cadence of your own work and can adjust it as you see fit. That way, you’ll hear your voice.
Ancora Imparo
VOICE
Voice is that inimitable quality in writing that has the power to hook a reader, impelling them to stay with a story, its world and its characters. Perhaps the best fiction stories are where the authorial voice retreats and the voice of the narrator and characters takes centre stage. Voice does not have to be kind and pleasant; perhaps the most engaging ones aren’t.
Of course, it is the writer’s skills that lie behind the voice, be it their own voice or their creation of a narrator and/or characters. Word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, punctuation, syntax, point of view, the use of the vernacular or colloquial all contribute to constructing voice. Like Frankenstein delivering the electrical current into his monster’s body to initiate movement and life, so it is with voice. Voice must fully inhabit the writing if it is to live in the reader’s mind. Characters need to be plausible; they exist for the reader in the things they say and do (which is why it’s helpful to read work aloud; it’s easier to hear if the writing flows and whether the voice ‘works’). Inflection is more readily available to pick up on when someone speaks. How might a writer show the pitch of voice or the intention of how the words should hit? In writing it is maybe easier to convey the tone of a piece, its mood and attendant emotions than it is inflection. Dialogue tags can also indicate whether a character has screamed, shouted or mumbled. When accentuating dialect and accent in voice, a writer may use contractions such as ‘C’mon,’ or ‘what’ve.’ Words may be written phonetically and punctuation placed in such a way that when read, one may hear where a particular character hails from, or understand nuances in their speech. Look to Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange for Nadsat, the fictional language that drives the voice of Alex and his ‘droogies.’ Read Irving Welsh if you want to know how he conveys the Scottish accent or uses slang to really ramp up voice. Do you have an author you enjoy because of their ability to give you a voice you want to stick around with until the end of the story?
In non-fiction writing, such as a book on quantum mechanics or the history of the Romans, the focus is on delivering facts. If the subject matter is complex, then a voice capable of being clear and vibrant is essential. In memoirs and autobiographies, readers expect to hear truth and authenticity in the author’s voice. If it’s a known public figure, then while the writing might surprise, the reader will want to hear that figure’s voice come through, even if they suspect it’s ghost-written.
Let’s Look At Some Examples of Voice in Literature:
The Stone Boy by Gina Berriault
If you are unfamiliar with the story, it concerns a nine-year-old boy, Arnold who accidentally shoots dead his older brother. In this extract, we see Arnold being questioned by the sheriff. As you read, observe how Berriault captures the gravity of situation and how it seeps into the voice.
‘How did you happen to shoot him?’
‘We was crawlin’ through the fence.’
‘Yes?’
‘An’ the gun got caught on the wire.’
‘Seems the hammer must of caught,’ his father put in.
‘All right, that’s what happened,’ said the sheriff. ‘But what I want you to tell me is this. Why didn’t you go back to the house and tell your father right away? Why did you go and pick peas for an hour?’
Arnold gazed over his shoulder at his father, expecting his father to have an answer for this also. But his father’s eyes, larger and even lighter blue than usual, were fixed upon him curiously. Arnold picked at a callus in his right palm. It seemed odd now that he had not run back to the house and wakened his father, but he could not remember why not. They were all waiting for him to answer.
‘I come down to pick peas,’ he said.
‘Didn’t you think,’ asked the sheriff, stepping carefully from word to word, ‘that it was more important for you to go tell your parents what had happened?’
‘The sun was gonna come up,’ Arnold said.
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘It’s better to pick peas while they’re cool.’
The sheriff swung away from him, both hands flat on his desk. ‘Well, all I can say is,’ he said across to Arnold’s father and Uncle Andy. ‘he’s either a moron or he’s so reasonable that he’s way ahead of us.’ He gave a challenging snort. ‘It’s come to my notice that the most reasonable guys are mean ones. They don’t feel nothing.’
The adults do not understand Arnold’s apparent lack of remorse, the absence of tears, and his reason for not immediately alerting his parents. Although, they know it was clearly a terrible accident. The dialogue is expressionless mirroring Arnold’s flat voice. He speaks colloquially, with eliding consonants and vowels: “crawlin,” “An’” and “gonna.” Their use reinforces Arnold’s naivety and young age (although I note his father says “ . . . must of caught”). This is further built upon by Arnold’s sticking to the facts. A child and one in shock, he lacks the intellect to go beyond simple statements; he doesn’t attempt to argue or plead. As I read it, I see a boy who is in deep shock, dissociated from the event as a means of self-protection; the voice shrunk. Arnold prompted by the sheriff’s questions answers each honestly.
The sheriff is a man who sees the facts, but he doesn’t understand Arnold’s actions. His statement, “But what I want you to tell me is this.,” ends with a full-stop, giving space for Arnold to consider his answers to the questions that follow. The sheriff’s voice leans to the accusatory. His use of timeframes as in “. . . right away?” and “ . . . pick peas for an hour?” are careful, yet, the sheriff is intimating to Arnold that he should have acted immediately by seeking out his father.
Written in 3rd person limited, we come closer to Arnold, slowly travelling into his thoughts. Dialogue is suspended. Everything Arnold thinks and experiences moves dreamlike, again echoing the surrealness he is experiencing. He “gazed over his shoulder at his father. . .” the tone is one of aloneness to the nth degree. Arnold no longer has a brother. Him causing a death singles him out, strikes him from the family, literally. This distance, his aloneness is emphasised by the positioning of his father. Arnold has to physically turn to see his father. A father who might be at his son’s shoulder, is instead, behind him.
Arnold notices his dad’s eyes are “larger and even lighter blue than usual.” What can we make of this? Does it make for an expression that shows someone unsullied? Open? Innocent? If eyes are the window to the soul, it feels significant that father’s eyes look upon his son, and Arnold takes their detail in. Is father like Jesus? Will he save him? Is this what is intimated? “Curiously,” is Arnold’s understanding. It steers Arnold towards a shift that he can’t quite articulate. There is the picking “at a callus,” which is absentminded because Arnold’s voice – his thoughts, are equally vague in that to him, “It seemed odd now . . .” Only now through the shock is he considering his actions as “odd.” The voice in this paragraph is of buried distress. He is not able to understand what the adults might be thinking or seeing when they look at him. The fact that he couldn’t remember why he didn’t wake his father, to me, points to shock and grief.
Yet, they are the adults and they want him to say something. So, he talks about picking peas, which was the reason the boys had gone out in the first place. I guess we would say that continuing to pick peas was Arnold’s coping mechanism.
Berriault has the sheriff “stepping carefully from word to word.” We pick up on a voice that enunciates as if to an idiot. He asks a question, but really he is telling Arnold what was more important than picking peas. To the sheriff there is only black and white, no nuances. Finally, dismissive of Arnold, he too turns from him, and addresses the other two adults. Unfortunately, the sheriff has already determined what kind of boy Arnold is, and the man he will become. To the sheriff, Arnold’s coming across cool, cool as the peas he’s picked. “It’s come to my notice that the most reasonable guys are mean ones. They don’t feel nothing.”
Read the full story and make up your own mind as to whether Arnold feels nothing.
Berriault, Gina The Stone Boy. First published Mademoiselle Magazine, 1957
The Stone Boy. Gina Berriault. Gina Berriault. The Stone Boy - PDF Free Download (docplayer.net)
After I was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned
Oh I’m a fast dog. I’m fast-fast. It’s true and I love being fast I admit it I love it. You know fast dogs. Dogs that just run by and you say, Damn! That’s a fast dog! Well that’s me. A fast dog. I’m a fast fast dog. Hoooooooo! Hooooooooooooo!
You should watch me sometime. Just watch how fast I go when I’m going my fastest, when I’ve really got to move for something, when I’m really on my way─man do I get going sometimes, weaving like a missile, weaving like a missile between trees and around bushes and then pop! I can go over a fence or a baby or a rock or anything because I’m a fast fast dog and I can jump like a fucking gazelle.
Eggars, Dave. How We Are Hungry. London: Penguin, 2005
This is one of my favourite short stories. Eggars’ totally captures the nature, and voice of a free-spirited dog (as humans must imagine what goes on inside a dog’s mind!). Personally, I am charmed by the voice Eggars’ has created. In fact, it’s such an authentic sounding voice that I am totally within the narrator’s (dog) story world. A dog who is somewhat of a braggart, but a dog with an infectious zest for living full-pelt.
So how is this conveyed?
Most noticeably are the thirteen references to ‘fast.’ The opening paragraph has them practically rolling one after the other. The breathless rhythm is strung with a series of anaphora that depict dog’s heightened emotion. There is the superlative “fastest,” when dog wants you to know he has a focused purpose when he’s running. A first person PoV with the use of second person, dog’s direct address to the reader, is a voice that pulls you in, demands you listen. And you have to listen because dog speaks so fast, and there’s so many ways that he’s fast, as dog is keen to tell. Punctuation also lends itself to voice with hyphen use “I’m fast-fast.” It’s dog’s way of emphasising with his particular way of speaking his speed. Exclamation marks also emphasis his passion, and so too when they follow the onomatopoeic words, “Hoooooooo!” and “Pop!” They are sounds we can associate with speed and excitement.
To further develop dog’s voice, there is also the absence of punctuation in a few sentences, which again makes for a breathless rhythm rounding out dog’s persona, his voice. There is repetition of clauses and similes in “. . . when I’ve really got to move . . when I’m really on my way . . .” and “Weaving like a missile,” making it seem as if dog’s whole way of living and thinking is so fast that it’s not in his makeup to slow down, even to consider what he’s saying beyond repeating. The voice is childlike in his boasting and demandingness, “ You should watch me sometime. Just watch how fast I go.” Elevating him above the childlike attention-seeking, for he is not a puppy, are the soft and hard expletives. “Damn!” could have been ‘Whoa!’ or ‘Wow.’ But perhaps “damn!” is more an expression that verbalises shock or exclamation. “Fucking gazelle,” when spoken has the impact of excelling the noun “gazelle”. The reader knows gazelles jump very high. Without the expletive, the reader might skim over “gazelle.” Adding the expletive, there is the aural sense of relish that dog, if he had hands would be brushing them across each other to show that he had that done and dusted. Emotion, inflection are conveyed without a single dialogue tag.
Without giving too much away, the reader soon learns that as a puppy, dog was thrown into a river to drown, but survived. Knowing this, adds appreciation and understanding as to why dog grabs every single moment to live life beyond the full. This is the voice of a dog that is living life on the edge. However, the story title suggests annihilation; live fast, die young.
Authorial voice in non-fiction
It is quite easy to understand the author’s voice in non-fiction writing. Here, we look at how the writer’s personality and viewpoint enter their writing. Below, is a small section of Sharon Blackie’s work. What do you think her primary standpoint is? How do you know? Does her voice feel like it’s speaks to you? For you? About you? Against you?
The world which men have made isn’t working. Something needs to change. To change the world, we women need first to change ourselves – and then we need to change the stories we tell about who we are. The stories we’ve been living by for the past few centuries – the stories of male superiority, of progress and growth and domination – don’t serve women and they certainly don’t serve the planet. Stories matter, you see. They’re not just entertainment – stories matter because humans are narrative creatures. It’s not simply that we like to tell stories, and to listen to them: it’s that narrative is hard-wired into us. It’s a function of our biology, and the way our brains have evolved over time. We make sense of the world and fashion our identities through the sharing and passing on of stories. And so the stories that we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, shape not just our own lives, but the world around us.
Blackie, Sharon. If Women Rose Rooted, A life-changing journey to authenticity and belonging. September Publishing, 2019
Blackie’s voice is assertive and confident; she isn’t afraid to voice her opinions: that men have got it all wrong. The use of ‘we’ is inclusive of all women, and yet while it might appear she is damning of men, what she’s really saying is that it’s the cultural narrative that men have dominated that needs redressing. Their stories of “male superiority . . . and domination,” have blitzed both planet and women. For Blackie, stories become the paradigm we adopt and live our lives by; if the stories denigrate women’s identities then women become trapped by a narrative that subjugates. Eco-feminism and folklore are Blackie’s passions, and evidence of this is clear.
The tone and sentence structure give us a voice that could be rallying women; the tone in places is conversational and address the reader, “Stories matter, you see,” and “It’s a function of our biology . . “ There is a lot of repetition such as four repetitions of “change” and nine of “stories.” Note the repetitions build in successive sentences as if the reader must be drip-fed so as to remember the writer’s salient points.
At first, it might be construed that Blackie is anti-man, but she puts men and women back together: “. . . stories matter because humans are narrative creatures.” Now, she is inclusive, referring to “our biology,” “our identities,” and “our own lives.” What Blackie intimates is a redressing of balance. The use of the em dash is the author’s voice highlighting particular clauses that she wants the reader to be struck by; to pull them up and make them think. To further emphasise her points, she uses double adverbs to counteract her imagined readers’ responses: “They’re not just entertainment – stories matter because humans are narrative creatures. It’s not simply that we like to tell stories, and to listen to them. . . ”
In this section, the writing is persuasive although with very little in the way of facts. Instead, she appeals to something every man, woman and child is familiar with – stories. Changing the stories; giving women voice in their stories, to Blackie is the way forward in making fundamental changes to human lives, and therefore re-establishing balance in society and the greater world.
Julie Mitchelmore
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO INJECT VOICE INTO YOUR WRITING?
Ancora and Julie have given excellent accounts of how unique voice is and how we can identify it in books. So now let’s consider how we can inject some voice tricks into our own writing.
First, I suggest an exercise. Write a list of your favourite book (or movie) beginnings, midpoints, climaxes, protagonists, antagonists or pretty much anything. Learn your tastes. Read a lot. Watch a lot. Know yourself. Know what you like. Be brave. Build your own style. That’ll make a solid start.
Next you want to learn the tools of the trade, and which you prefer. Ask yourself questions, such as:
What POV do you like?
First (in the protagonist head/Immersive)? Third Limited/Deep POV (A little distant from the protagonist’s head/not as immersive as first pov)? Third? Omniscient (distant/non-immersive)?
What tense? Past or present?
Can you slip your brand of worldbuilding onto the page?
Could a worldbuilding name also help set the tone of your WIP? As Jennifer Armentrout does in From Blood and Ash when she says, “Blood Forest.” Those two words work double fold for her – we have tone plus worldbuilding.
Perhaps you like alliteration? I feel everyone knows this one: Pride & Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, Spinning Silver
Or similes or metaphors or both?
Is juxtaposition your specialty?
A juxtaposition is when you place two things close together or side by side, for the purpose of comparison or contrast.
Black, Sacha. The Anatomy of Prose: 12 Steps to Sensational Sentences (Better Writers Series) (p. 302). Atlas Black Publishing. Kindle Edition.
For example: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities (AmazonClassics Edition) (p. 1). Amazon Classics. Kindle Edition.
Or, strike me blind, do you like repetition? That’s such a controversial preference. You’re either for, or against, in much the same way you’re for, or against, Prince Harry. To this reader, repetition done right adds poetry. For example:
A girl is running for her life…
…Seven freckles. One for every love she’d have, that’s what Estele had said, when the girl was still young.
One for every life she’d lead.
One for every god watching over her.
Now, they mock her, those seven marks. Promises. Lies. She’s had no loves, she’s lived no lives, she’s met no gods, and now she is out of time.
But the girl doesn’t slow, doesn’t look back; she doesn’t want to see the life that stands there, waiting. Static as a drawing. Solid as a tomb.
Instead, she runs.
Schwab, V.E.. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (p. 12). Titan Books. Kindle Edition.
What about Onomatopoeia? A word that sounds like it’s meaning: burble, chirrup, fizz, hiss, snap
On top of these devices, writers need to choose how they’ll foreshadow, flashback, arouse a reader’s curiosity, hook or surprise them with word play, humor, dialogue, character, actions, clever sayings, such as:
Luc’s smile darkens. “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because vision weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.” He leans close, twists a lock of her hair around one finger. “Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”
Schwab, V.E.. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (p. 351). Titan Books. Kindle Edition.
SPOLIER: This line has more impact once you know, Luc has cursed Addie, and everyone forgets her. When he digs the knife in, saying, “everyone wants to be remembered,” the reader feels a visceral reaction.
So many choices, the list is endless. That’s why it’s vital to understand what you like, then bake that into your story. Best of luck
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