Showing posts with label Writing Voice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing Voice. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

What I’ve Learned Wednesday: Voice

I started listening to “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert the other day. From the very first word I fell in love with the book’s voice. Glibert’s writing voice is so unrestricted, so playful, so extraordinary. If I could eat a writing voice, I would gobble hers up in about two seconds.
Not only is the writing voice beautiful, but Elizabeth Gilbert’s speaking voice is stunning (fyi: she narrates the audio book). Her voice is like being stranded on a deserted island for twelve years, and then you finally are rescued by someone. When they speak, their voice rings in your ears as the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. That is how I feel about Elizabeth Gilbert’s voice. I sort of wish mine sounded that breath-taking. In other words, I’m going to say her voice rocks!

Taking all of this into consideration, I have been thinking a lot about writing voice. I’ve found that reading A LOT helps me to develop my voice, my style. With reading other authors, you can see what you like about their writing voice and what you may not like as much. Like I said, I really liked Elizabeth’s voice, however, it doesn’t lend itself easily for my book. It has given me some ideas, though, of how I can polish my manuscript and make it even better.


So on this “What I’ve Learned Wednesday, I am going to suggest that you read a lot and study how other authors relay their voice to you through their stories. You may even want to do the same with blogs. I’ve found some way awesome voices through the blogs I that frequent (ie: Carrie Harris & Kiersten White). This may help improve your own voice with the added benefit of eating up a good story at the same time.

So tell me, how do you cultivate your own writing voice? And which author’s writing voices do you absolutely love?

Friday, December 10, 2010

Writing Your Voice

I’ve been thinking about writing voice lately. Voice is something that’s important to developing your characters. You’re writing what they’d really sound like if they were talking. This makes them real—practically human or inhuman depending on your genre. (Yah, for supernatural books. Love the vamps and warewolves - just not Jacob) Anyway, voice is also important to blogging and other forms of social networking. The voice you portray is who you are, how you sound, or how you want people to think you sound. Probably don’t put up a façade though. Keep it real.

An example of a writer who is A-FREAKING-MAZING at voice is Carrie Harris. Her voice brings a humongous grin on my face. I’ll admit her voice is delicious. You just want to eat more and more of it, like chocolate. Sounds, creepy, but she does write zombie books. Hehe. Carrie is probably the cleverest of bloggers I’ve come across; and I’ve read a lot lately. The way she writes her posts makes me ache to read her book “Bad Taste in Boys.” It comes out next year. I can’t wait any longer for the zombierific book to reach bookstores. I’m dying for it—literally. Just kidding, but you know that already. Right? (I hope so)


Check her blog out at http://carrieharrisbooks.blogspot.com/

Anyway, what’s my voice? I can’t really peg it down, but I think my voice should be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. I’d say I’m a conglomerate of silly, serious, angsty, and evasive. It will forever be named SANGSTIVE. Yes, I just created a new word. Shakespeare can’t be the only person to make up words. It should be in the dictionary. Like. Right. Now. I stamp my foot. See there’s my silliness coming out. Actually, I like the word silly so maybe that’s why silly is one side of my voice.
With all this thought about writing voice, I’ve decided I need to write more like I speak. It’s just cooler that way. It could get confusing though, cuz sometimes I don’t finish my sentences, and on rare occasions I stutter. But I like my voice—just not the recorded version of it. Who does though?

What kind of voice do you have? Do tell!