I heard a song once with the lyric, "I'm not beautiful like her; I'm beautiful like me."Voice is a bit of a nebulous concept. Agents say they're looking for voice; informed readers often cite voice as the one thing that will or won't pull them into a story; an editor at SiWC 2009 mentioned she could fix plot problems and SPAG errors, but if the writer hadn't developed voice yet, she couldn't help them.
If your voice isn't flowery, then don't try to make it so. Be beautiful like you, not like someone else, or you'll always be a poor imitation rather than the real deal.
If you're worried about injecting more beauty into what you do, one tactic would be: Rather than going pretty, try going deep.
You can create something that can resonate with a reader--choke them up with emotion--using very simple language. Guy Gavriel Kay does this well. He writes clean and simple prose, but holy crap, he can drill right into your heart.
And the impression he leaves is one of beauty, but his prose remains un-flowery. The trick is he goes deep, and makes sure the emotions his characters feel resonate powerfully in the reader.
But what is voice? It seems to be having the confidence and competence needed to give your written words a particular flavour--a personality. Characters can (and should) have voices that are distinct from one another, and writers develop a voice that's as unique and recognizable as the one that comes from their physical mouth.
I agree with the editor who said you can't teach a person voice. But is voice necessary?
(I think it is, however...) I think some writers get away without one. The only rule for your prose is it should be invisible--it shouldn't ever get in the way of the story blooming in the reader's head.
Does Dan Brown have a voice? His prose strikes me as workman-like, which is perfectly acceptable. Did Stephenie Meyer in the first Twilight book? With the exception of the passages describing Edward, I think her prose was also fairly invisible, and that works just fine.
Also, I've read books where I thought the voice was so distinctive it became intrusive. Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson, and Gossamyr by Michele Hauf, both struck me that way. That's obviously a matter of personal taste, but I think it shows it's possible to have too much voice--at least for one particular reader.
All the same, a great writing voice pulls you in. It gives you enough confidence in the writer's abilities that you're willing to trust they'll do something wonderful to you in this story. And from the writer's point of view, absolutely anything that keeps you reading is a powerful tool in their arsenal.
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How important is voice to you when you read a book? Have you ever stopped reading because of (either too much or too little) voice? Have you ever kept reading something that wasn't engaging because of the great voice?
What would you describe voice as? And what do you think goes into a writer acquiring their voice? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
4 comments:
I'm a big fan of voice, but having said that, there are some books I won't read because I find the voice offputting/dislikeable. It's possible to admire that type of voice - without actually wanting to read it!
There's a big difference I think between a voice that's 'invisible' or, non-interfering - which is actually fine by me, although I prefer something more distinctive - and bland. Sometimes the power of the story means that it can overcome the lack of a distinctive voice. To me, that's invisible. Bland, though, is a killer for me. A dull story, with no voice - not for me.
I don't think that a lot of agents and editors and even readers know what they mean when they talk about "voice." Some books, like Junot Diaz', lean heavily on the style, but a lot of the time I think that "good voice" just means "not unpleasant prose to read" and that an invisible narrator is just as good as one who throws his own personality over every page. My last book had a first-person narrator and I wanted him to sound engaging and smart and trustworthy and believable, but not necessarily be overpoweringly present all the time. I think a lot about character's voices, but not much about narrative voice in my current novel. I just want the writing to be understandable though I am shooting for beautiful prose. In the end, clarity is more important than poetry.
Anyway, I think we acquire our writerly voices through our reading choices and through trying to write what we imagine. In a lot of ways, a writer's voice is sort of a distillation of that writer's reading history and that writer's honesty and (as you say) depth. We can all spot when a writer is "doing a voice" that's just not a good fit for them or is just trying too hard. Rambling now.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned giving the writing "personality" because that's what voice really is, the writer's personality coming through.
I think that of all of the artistic mediums, writers are the ones most forced to directly reveal their personalities in their work. You can see a beautiful painting or hear a guitar riff and while it's certainly there, the creator's personality can remain hidden, at least initially, but with a novel it's all there, front and center, black and white, clear as crystal!
"In a lot of ways, a writer's voice is sort of a distillation of that writer's reading history and that writer's honesty and (as you say) depth."
My thoughts align with Scott's.
Honesty and clarity have a lot to do with voice.
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