"How do writers find their voices?"

Mr Flibble · Sep 6, 2014

I don't mean it as a threat. Really you're going to play that card? Really really? From that post? Odin's crusty left nutsack...

I mean, is this going to be a problem for you? Can we have a civil discussion?

Because every time I post, it seems to be a problem for you?

Anyway.

I tend to do the whole "character acting" thing with my MC. But I know what my secondaries are thinking,planning, plotting. I sometimes get in their heads.

But every writer is different. Every book is different, even for the same writer. Trying to see a trend is...well... like trying to see why people are people. We are all different (add in obligatory Python quote: I'm not) . Often the same writer will approach different books or characters in different ways.

Trying to quantify it does not work. It cannot be done.

Every writer is different

So is every book, even if written by that same writer.

However, I find the tone/language of the article to be...pretentious at best.

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

actually, i spend a great amount of time lurking in this forum and quite enjoy your posts.

and we can certainly have a civil discussion (and i contend that i have been all along).

i don't for a moment believe that all character voices arrive in the writer's consciousness in the same way. which is why i thought an article that was based on a survey of writers might be an interesting topic.

it is apparent that it can range from mental illness (literally "hearing voices") which can be harnessed into coherent fiction, to vivid and relatively stable imaginations, to meticulous and deliberate creation by the writer.

Mr Flibble · Sep 6, 2014

William Haskins said:
actually, i spend a great amount of time lurking in this forum and quite enjoy your posts.

and we can certainly have a civil discussion (and i contend that i have been all along).

i don't for a moment believe that all character voices arrive in the writer's consciousness in the same way. which is why i thought an article that was based on a survey of writers might be an interesting topic.

it is apparent that it can range from mental illness (literally "hearing voices") which can be harnessed into coherent fiction, to vivid and relatively stable imaginations, to meticulous and deliberate creation by the writer.

I am not sure that hearing a character's voice counts as mental illness (well, it maybe does in my case but I am in fact mentally ill soo I can't speak for "normal" people

)...

I just found the original article...dry, pretentious, and a bit daft. It made a couple of silly assertions so I kinda lots track there. Your opinion obviously differs.

Now, see how nice it is when you are not so combative? (ETA an yes, I am not so wassname when my back is not up. I am sure we can sort this)

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

Mr Flibble said:
I am not sure that hearing a character's voice counts as mental illness (well, it maybe does in my case but I am in fact mentally ill soo I can't speak for "normal" people )...

In the last note she scribbled to her sister, Vanessa, in March, 1941, Virginia Woolf wrote: "I feel I have gone too far this time to come back again. It is just as it was the first time, I am always hearing voices, and I know I shant get over it now … I have fought against it, but I can't any longer, Virginia."

The next day, she plunged into the River Ouse, her pockets weighted with stones. At 59, Woolf could no longer summon the inner resources to contend with the voices, turned unruly, clamorous and calamitous, that arrived unsolicited, but as if by appointment, each time she finished a novel. In the measured cadence of composition, her racing thoughts, "heard as voices … danced up and down, like a company of gnats, each separate, but all marvellously controlled in an invisible elastic net" (To the Lighthouse).

yeah sounds like she was just probably having a bad day...

Mr Flibble said:
I just found the original article...dry, pretentious, and a bit daft. It made a couple of silly assertions so I kinda lots track there. Your opinion obviously differs.

again, the article was about a survey being carried out by a university and simply provided context for the research.

and the only place i see our opinions differed was what the article is about.

Mr Flibble said:
Now, see how nice it is when you are not so combative?

you keep saying that, but you've kinda been the nasty one here.

in all honesty, i think the competing impulses of reflexive anti-intellectualism and the desire to be funny crashed into one another, with a dash thrown in of the stumble in not actually reading the article, resulting in this post:

I found my voice down the back of the sofa, playing poker with the biros and loose change.

I'm not 100% in what the article means by voice tbh, Character voice or authorial voice? These are different animals. And sometimes they eat each other.

and the last line? it's a damn good line. it would have just sold much better if you'd known what you were talking about,

Mr Flibble · Sep 6, 2014

William Haskins said:
yeah sounds like she was just probably having a bad day...

But most of the writers were not her. Or (afaia) mentally ill. Cherry picking...

Some writers are mentally ill, just like some of the general population are. And?

again, the article was about a survey being carried out by a university and simply provided context for the research.

and the only place i see our opinions differed was what the article is about.

No I think our opinions differed in how we saw it/what we got from it. I am perfectly capable of reading it. It's just you got one thing from it, I got another. Quite probably due to our different backgrounds/perspectives

you keep saying that, but you've kinda been the nasty one here.

Point out where I have been anything other than civil. On the otehr hand I can point out several occasions where you have been...less than civil. Strangely, I recall these occasions, Strangely, being human, they may colour our interactions because i then expect you to be the same again. It can be summed up in "you reap what you sow"

in all honesty, i think the competing impulses of reflexive anti-intellectualism and the desire to be funny crashed into one another, with a dash thrown in of the stumble in not actually reading the article, resulting in this post:

In all honesty? We just disagree on what we read. This isn't a bad thing, as such, the thing is, HOW do we disagree. In this thread, not too badly...

nd the last line? it's a damn good line. it would have just sold much better if you'd known what you were talking about,

And we were getting on so famously until you insulted my intelligence!

/end sarcasm

Ah well.

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

Mr Flibble said:
But most of the writers were not here. Or (afaia) mentally ill. Cherry picking...

no, i merely illustrated one end of a spectrum, clearly stated:

it is apparent that it can range from mental illness (literally "hearing voices") which can be harnessed into coherent fiction, to vivid and relatively stable imaginations, to meticulous and deliberate creation by the writer.

as for the rest, i've made the points i've wanted to make.

i wasn't combative and i didn't insult your intelligence, but if you feel i was out of line, let the mods know and they can take some action.

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

Mr Flibble said:
On the otehr hand I can point out several occasions where you have been...less than civil. Strangely, I recall these occasions, Strangely, being human, they may colour our interactions because i then expect you to be the same again. It can be summed up in "you reap what you sow"

i'm not really sure lowering yourself to my level is the answer.

Mr Flibble · Sep 6, 2014

Clearly

if you'd known what you were talking about,

Is not insulting anyone. At all.

In your world, perhaps.

And hey, I have my big girl pants on. They have frilly bits, look, and a pocket.

Pretentious article is pretentious. This is all I have been saying. Disagree all you like. But mayhap try to do it without insulting people?

'm not really sure lowering yourself to my level is the answer.

Really? You can lower yourself to that crap but not to me?

An you aren't being nasty?

OK.

You delude yourself all you like.
Over and OUT

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

lighten up, francis.

MacAllister · Sep 6, 2014

Don't make me stop this car and come back there, you two.

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

1. she pinched me first.
2. can we stop for ice cream?

blacbird · Sep 6, 2014

I write shit.

caw

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

do not.

blacbird · Sep 6, 2014

The thread title was "How do writers find their voices?"

i find mine by writing shit. Every new piece of shit I write develops its own voice appropriate for that particular piece of shit. That's how it works for me. I can't say I have a writing "voice". The "voice" is organic to the writing, and that is individual to the piece of writing.

Some writers, I concur, do have individual "voices" that permeate pretty much all their work: Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Vonnegut, Bradbury, García Marquez, come to mind. Others, not so much.

Me, I just write shit. Can't say it works all that well, but hey, what else can a poor boy do? Sing in a rock-and-roll band?

In sleepy Anchorage town there's just no place for a shit-writin' man.

caw

William Haskins · Sep 6, 2014

i didn't get the context. but i get it... it's like hemingway said.

i was defending you from you. it was like getting between a dog and its bone.

blacbird · Sep 6, 2014

William Haskins said:
i didn't get the context. but i get it... it's like hemingway said.

i was defending you from you. it was like getting between a dog and its bone.

Never get between me and my bone. My cats will take care of you.

caw

Fruitbat · Sep 6, 2014

Writers find their voices when they get their first critique. They immediately discover that the suggested changes are really attempts to ruin the valuable voice that they (and we) didn't even know they had until then. It occurs at the same time they realize we're trying to ruin their equally valuable and newfound style, too.

Kylabelle · Sep 7, 2014

Fruitbat, I think you're on to something there.

Okay, confession: I have not read the full article, only skimmed the first few paragraphs. But it seems to me there is a built-in confusion from the start, between the writer's voice, and the writer's characters and their respective voices (and whether or how the writer is able to "hear" those.)

The article title specifies the writer's voice, but right away the meat of it goes to the whole "hearing characters" bit.

Most of you have more experience with this than I do, but to me anyway it's clear in my own writing experience that my voice is one level or aspect of Voice, and the voice of characters is a different level or aspect.

Yes? No?

Liosse de Velishaf · Sep 7, 2014

Fruitbat said:
Writers find their voices when they get their first critique. They immediately discover that the suggested changes are really attempts to ruin the valuable voice that they (and we) didn't even know they had until then. It occurs at the same time they realize we're trying to ruin their equally valuable and newfound style, too.

I remember when I "found my voice" as described here. XD

"How do writers find their voices?"

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

William Haskins

poet

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

William Haskins

poet

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

William Haskins

poet

William Haskins

poet

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

William Haskins

poet

MacAllister

'Twas but a dream of thee

William Haskins

poet

blacbird

William Haskins

poet

blacbird

William Haskins

poet

blacbird

Fruitbat

.

Kylabelle

unaccounted for

Liosse de Velishaf