Writers Speak Up, I Can't Hear Your Voice

So, the topic of voice was brought to my attention today. Questions like what are we talking about when we say an author has a good voice, what is voice in writing, can it be taught, how does someone improve their authorial voice; these were all discussed in length, though it was never concluded as to just what voice really is in a text. I tried to define it several different ways because I know voice exists I just wasn't really sure how to point it out. It can be painfully obvious when compared that different authors have different ways of saying things. Stephen King comes to mind instantly because he has a very distinctive voice; I can always guess an quote from King. There are other obvious examples, like Faulkner or Hemingway, authors who we use to now describe the voice of new authors, but what is voice really?

Voice could be almost anything, it could be the author's choice of words, where they put certain phrases, how they say certain phrases. Voice could be how the author constructs thoughts, describes a tree, strings words together; voice could be the feeling of the author coming through the text. Passion, coming through the words.

Maybe that is why voice is so hard to find in modern stories. Maybe, due to the readily available numbers of MFA programs - due to the thought that creative writing can be taught like history, mathematics or science - due to the very business-like world of publishing and the ability to screen artists for the proper academic degrees the feeling, the emotion, has been sucked out of the art. And isn't that the heart and soul of the whole endeavor; passion?

A friend once told me that it is a curse to be an artist because we are entrusted with feeling and expressing emotions for our whole society. He said we feel emotions twice as strong because we need the surplus to poor into our art. I loved this idea because it gave me an excuse for my "moods"; for crying at every episode of Bones I watch and for getting as passionate as I do over all the little things in life. (I will literally sing over a particularly fluffy blanket or dance for a bizarre new fruit at Shnucks) The more I think about what he said the more I see he is right. Emotion is what brings the story off the page, it's what fills each word and makes the pages fly by unseen but felt. The good books make me feel the same emotions as the characters.

The great books can make me sob.

Voice in a story is the emotion of the author; for the topic, story, even the individual characters. (I've cried over killing some of my darlings, but for the sake of the story it must be done.) A strong voice can transfer those emotions from the page to the reader.

So, what has sucked this passion from our modern writers; and, more importantly, what can we do to get it back?

I am truly frightened. I was procrastinating, tooling around on the internets trying not to think about how I couldn't seem to write ANYTHING today, when I stumbled across a list of various blog sites. Now I thought I knew a lot of blog sites, but this was ridiculous! I mean seriously, what is hi5? Or bebo? This was crazy! But, not as crazy as it gets. Have you heard, oh make believe readers, of a site named Writernia?

Now I've been through a few creative writing workshops because that is what creative writing majors do. We read each other's work, usually while feeling pretty good about our own, and try to offer the best advice we can. Well, not always the best, we don't want a lot of competition out there in the old publishing world, but we offer some basic advice. You think, things like verb tense changes and whatnots. Sometimes, if I'm the one reading your story, you'll find huge red marks that read, "Hell no!" But such plot advice can be rare depending on who is reviewing your work.

Anyway, so I've read peer work in these classes, and usually with a LOT of bemoaning if that particular peer has a history of just awful stories. (Mind you, there are some peers whose work far out does my own! I love and hate to read it because the stories are both very good and way better than my own, hence depressing.) Anyway, this site, Writernia, is a WRITERS blog!!! So guess what, it's filled with peer work!!! And just like in a workshop, while there will be some diamonds, there is a LOT of rough. A lot of rough. Wow! So much rough!

Now, PLEASE don't get me wrong, I don't believe my writing is, well, anything to write home about, but I am a reader. I read just about anything. I LOVE cheesy fantasy novels with knights on horses and wizards and fay folk running about causing a ruckus, love it! I read Stephen King and I read Jane Austin, I read EVERYTHING. I love stories. So, when I say that some of the stories on the blog are horrific and NOT because they are horror stories, you have to understand that I'm saying this from the opinion of an avid devourer of words! It was crazy!

Which naturally means I'll be making several visits to this site to read more stories. Why, you ask? Because I did leave there feeling a little more confident in my amateur work AND in my basic ability to at least know how a story is suppose to work. I've been learning the technical for years now, and it's just nice to know that I've retained a little knowledge. That, and it's a LOT of fun to read some of these stories out loud in a very dramatic Shakespearean act voice. It makes me giggle.

... yes, I am evil.