A typical complaint about today’s writing is that it all sounds the same. According to many critics, the average novel enjoys all the flavour and texture of Cheez Whiz.
So it is no surprise that voice is an urgent item on the writer’s wish list. Whether you see it as a mark of authenticity, or an essential component of the novelist’s marketing plan, you need your writing to sound distinctive.
After all, being perceived as part of the herd is the same as not being perceived. And that’s death to your literary ambitions.
Stirrings Of Voice
So how do you develop voice? Is it born in you? Or does it come from hopping on freight trains and drinking hard liquor when you’re not spitting rivets into hot steel?
The conviction of raw experience is too powerful to be doubted. But if some types of project insist that you write what you’ve lived, other books renowned for their authors’ voice are works of pure imagination. Raymond Chandler didn’t ply those mean streets himself, and Tolkien never bumped into an Elf. J.D. Salinger’s most resounding experiment in voice arose not from the terrifying D-Day invasion he took part in, but an alienation from school familiar to millions.
Nobody denies that writers like these have stunning gifts. And you’ve guessed what’s coming next: they also have terrific capacity for application. Thing is, what’s the connection between their endless hours of prose-polishing and the striking voices they developed?
Expanding the Diaphragm
Well, they all started off with voices of a sort. Voices that echoed their reading, their backgrounds, and their reactions to the world: a medley of puppy-dog barks, baby talk, and treble counterpoints to grown-up themes they heard around them.
But probably the most immediate concern of a child writer (of 21, 33, or 55, as it may be) isn’t so much individuality as resonance: the desire for the voice to carry, rather than to be instantly recognizable. With points to make, themes to elaborate, characters to introduce, and stories to tell, the juvenile writer who takes endless trouble to say the thing in the best way they can, whatever that thing is, is the writer who’ll end up with a recognizable voice.
Modulating the Tones
In that sense, developing voice works best when you don’t know you’re doing it. It’s the secret, unlooked-for result of careful, even obsessive, editing: cutting out needless words and writerly expressions, of organizing paragraphs as deftly and logically as you can, of giving your characters permission to deliver their own dialogue.
It’s the result of spotting and combatting, through the discipline of precise expression, that deceptive pseudo-voice – the novelist’s equivalent of a telephone manner – that’s more interested in hearing itself talk than in story-telling.
Promise Me I’ll Develop A Voice!
Perhaps not! Some people who batter a keyboard simply have a tin ear. Still, individuality isn’t so hard to come by: few of us are such ciphers that we don’t stand out a little. If you truly thought you were faceless, writing would be the least of your problems. You know very well that the sound of your talk is one which others recognize. Talking for the wider public demands a dense schedule of rehearsals, turning the endless burble of society and your consciousness into a markedly personal performance.
Voice and Genre
And just sometimes, voice isn’t wanted. The impact of film-editing techniques on today’s bread-and-butter novel can’t be overestimated. It’s hard, if not impossible, to see your genre novel as a form of screenplay and still invest it with an individual voice. Of course there’s no harm in cutting to the chase – that’s quite the best way of describing an onslaught of giant robots – but be aware, in that case, that your success will depend on the impact of selection rather than expression. The words you choose to depict events like those, if you see them in terms of film-editing, are unlikely to ring through eternity.
For Now
Whatever you might think, being an inveterate reader is more likely to result in developing your own voice than in parroting those of others. Really knowing your characters and background means that writing them will sound individual. Making sure all the mechanics of writing in place ensures you won’t have a frog in your throat. Above all, joining a critique group, local or online, is a great way of distinguishing that tinny echo from the voice that is truly you.
David Neilson is the author of The Prussian Dispatch. For more information about the series, visit http://sophierathenau.weebly.com