Observations on Voice

I came to know myself and my voice better in Barbara Samuel’s wonderful Voice Workshop and I am taking up Macy’s challenge to name the top three things I discovered. Actually, I’m not sure she said to name the top three, but I’m sure she meant to select an important three.

It’s such an intriguing concept. Voice. The sound of our speaking voice is unique to each of us. If you shut your eyes and listen to ten people speaking in a room, you’d detect differences in pitch, cadence, word choice, volume, and so much more. Even those family members who tend to sound so similar on the phone wouldn’t be identical.

It’s the same with the written voice too. It’s the same with our voices. We’re all unique. And this uniqueness is what agents and editors say they’re looking for. Actually, they say they want a fresh, new voice, but underneath it all, I think what they’re really looking for is honesty.

Not George Washington’s “I cannot tell a lie” sort of honesty, but fearless emotional honesty that will reach out and grip the reader by the heart. That’s one of the things I learned and that’s one of the things that I’ve avoided in the past. During the workshop I noticed that when I wrote from the heart, letting myself show the depth of pain and longing I’ve felt, as well as those rich moments of joy, the reaction from readers was stronger than when I felt I was writing in my most clever style. Honesty is what readers connect with, and isn’t that really what we long for when we pick up a novel? To feel an emotional connection to the characters? To the story?

Personal truth also seems to be a huge part of voice as well and to me this is linked to emotional honesty. Every moment we’ve lived has led us to what we believe about the world and our place in it, which is our own personal truth, and it’s as unique to each of us as a fingerprint. These views of the world naturally flow into our writing and are expressed as part of our voice.

As we worked our way through the weekly exercises, I also discovered that we all had themes. You know how books have themes? Well it seems that we, as individuals seem to have life themes too, or at least themes that surface in our writing. My primary theme was all wrapped up in journeys. Journeys to freedom, to hope, to understanding, to love. It’s all about the journey with me. I hadn’t realized that before. It’s so funny that I never put that together. I love adventure movies (preferably with romance) and even love to travel, and have often described the thrill of arriving in a new place with all that possibility before me. Yep, journeys are huge with me.

Lastly (for purposes of this blog only), I learned that touch is one of my stronger senses. It never occurred to me that any sense would be stronger than another. Stronger might not be the right word here, but what surfaced was that my observations and descriptions often focus on how things feel physically, both through touch and inner physical feelings. I didn’t notice this myself, but Barbara and other workshop members pointed it out to me. The more I thought about it the more I realized they were correct. This too is a part of my voice.

I don’t think this means that I have to go around describing how everything feels physically, but if that’s a strength for me, I should use that fully in my writing. As a side note, I realized that the writers I love focus a lot on physical sensations in their writing too. Those who skim the physical reactions and focused more on the emotional or sight or some other sense, leave me feeling unsatisfied. Like I need more and they’re not giving it to me. I wonder if readers are not only drawn to writers because of their style and stories, but because they speak to those senses the readers are in tune with.

So, I’m at three here. I learned quite a bit more and I’m still processing it all, but these three give you a glimpse into what surfaced for me during this class.

I guess now I need to get back to the novel about the heroine who’s on the journey of her life…

Katrina