Tag: how to write with voice

How the Awesomeness Went: Voice Week 2013 Recap

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I think my favorite thing about Voice Week is that it’s like Inspiration Monday on steroids. Everybody posts some amazing piece on Monday, and then the awesomeness just keeps coming at you from different angles all week.

I’m so grateful to each of you for taking the time to join this project, both to create and to appreciate other writer’s voices. I’m astounded and humbled every year, when I write a few blog posts asking a bunch of strangers (but are we really strangers?) to do something crazy with me, and you all come up with this art that makes me gasp and giggle and tear up. There’s a heck of a lot wrong with this world, but if a bunch of random people can get together and do this – that’s a good reason to walk around with a grin on your face.

Every one of you impressed me. Every one. Here are some of my favorite lines from this week – and believe me, they were hard to choose!

 

He watched on the outskirts, unmoved by the tears. Hypocrites, all of them.  Anger swirled like a fog, draping over his shoulders.

From Carrie. Read about the funeral from the beginning.

 

As I fell I hoped he would remember me, and I hoped he could forget me too.

From Christina. Read about the fall from the beginning. Christina has also written a lovely recap of the week and what it taught her about her novel.

 

He says he’s careful: prays away from the others, doesn’t rub his faith in their faces, but a mother worries.

From Elmo. Read thoughts from the mothers of warriors from the beginning. Read Elmo’s recap, too.

 

They were different, all of them–different hues, different subjects, different strokes–but they all had the same eyes.

Leonardo’s eyes.

From Evan. Read the story of two renaissance legends from the beginning. Evan also has an interesting post on how much of yourself to put in your characters.

 

As fiercely intense as they looked in their full pads and helmets, it was easy to forget that they were just boys, and Michael had more reason than most coaches to remember that.

From Jennie. Read about the last nine seconds from the beginning.

 

The world is full of smells and, if you pay attention, your nose will tell you more than your eyes and ears combined.

From Jubilare. Read about the eerily empty house from the beginning.

 

The furnace is blazing, the bellows are blowing; a man must stand amid adversity and forge his own fortune.

From LLD Fiction. Read thoughts from the New World from the beginning.

 

He suddenly feels so young, so burdened. A wish burns within his chest—a heart-pounding desire that this sword remain lodged in place, a stubborn tribute to a monarch who could not possibly be him.

From Love The Bad Buy. Read the voices of the Aurthurian legend from the beginning.

 

Sunken, skeletal features look hollowly back.

You’re so fat, I hate you. You are a weak pathetic loser.

You had three grapes today, that is a small victory, but don’t backslide.

From Mr. Perfect. Read the voices of hunger from the beginning.

 

Do these words I’m reciting mean something to them?  Or is it just background noise?

From The Imaginator. Read thoughts from the gravesite from the beginning.

 

I am used to indifference; but how to confront love which is thicker and quicker than blood?

From The Inner Zone. Read about the boy who found his family from the beginning.

 

I can see the medics watching me. They’re waiting for me to fall down so they can run in and help. Stop watching me, you vultures.

From Writing Sprint. Read about the last leg of the race from the beginning.

 

Subconsciously I go to twist the gold band on my ring finger -except it’s not there, I look down at my hand, diverting my eyes from the phone; an indentation of the ring screams stark realisations to me…it also explains Tom’s cold cup of coffee each morning and the dinner he never eats.  It makes sense, but it does not…

From Yikici. Read a wife’s reactions to a life-altering phone call from the beginning.

 

The Prize

Remember that? The random number generator gave me #2, which make Christina Kann the lucky winner of a lovely hardcover copy of one of my favorite voice-ridden books, The Book Thief! Christina, I’ll be emailing you for your address so I can send it to you!

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What were some of your favorite moments from Voice Week? Tell me in the comments!

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October Wallpaper: Voices (what else?)

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Voice Week 2013 is just a little over a week away! Now’s the time to sign up – tell me in the comments if you want to. You can actually sign up right through November 4, but the earlier the better!

Aaaand here’s some wallpaper. I like the faces. Though at a glance it looks kind of creepy.

1440×900

Photos by Greeblie, Nadia, Seth Woodworth, Arielle Calderon and The US Army.

 

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When Editing Goes Too Far

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measuring tape

Photo by Ciara McDonnell

I preach plenty about trimming the fat from writing. Strunk, White and Zinsser command it, and I’ve learned it firsthand from dealing with limited space in ads, radio commercials and billboards.

Efficient writing is better writing.

But this isn’t some professional writing secret. You’ll read it on all the forums, hear it at all the conferences and even in your local writers’ group. Cut, cut, cut. Maybe it’s the growing popularity of flash fiction, maybe it’s the waning attention spans of the masses, but whatever the cause, the fact remains:

Skinny writing is in.

We’re all shaking our pages till the adverbs fall out, beating the paragraphs till the parentheticals flee, ever striving for that low, low word count.

The red ink flows in our lust for trim prose.

And what are we seeing as a result? Leaner literature?

Or malnourished manuscripts?

Are we perpetuating a healthy word diet – or an editing disorder?

There is a point when the art becomes emaciated, with wording so simple you can’t differentiate the work of one author from another. Cut too deep, and the voice will bleed right out of your sentences.

Cutting words is one of those rules you have to learn first, to break later.

First you learn how to make each word count. How to construct clear thoughts. How not to waste your readers’ time.

But then you have to find your voice: that special way of writing you have (or your narrator has) that no one else has. And that voice may require a few “unnecessary” words.

Once you know the mechanics of writing efficiently, you can start learning the art of writing uniquely.

What happens if you don’t?

I took the red pen to the three wordiest excerpts from the 5 fantastic examples of voice I posted two years ago. Here’s how they came out.

Mr. Dickens: A Christmas Carol

There is no doubt Marley was dead. The clergyman, clerk, undertaker, and chief mourner all signed the register of his burial. Scrooge Signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.

I don’t know what is particularly dead about a doornail; I might regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery. But our ancestors’ wisdom is in the simile; and I won’t disturb it, or the Country’s ruined.

WORDS CUT: 60

Mr. Adams: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

In the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small yellow sun.

Orbiting this at about ninety-eight million miles is an insignificant blue-green planet whose primitive ape-descended life forms still think digital watches are cool.

This planet had a problem: most of its people were unhappy. Most of the suggested solutions for this problem involved the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

WORDS CUT: 48

Mr. Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

You don’t know about me, unless you read “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that doesn’t matter. Mr. Mark Twain made that book, and told the truth, mainly. He stretched some things, but everybody lies sometimes, except Tom’s Aunty Polly, Mary, and the Widow Douglas.

WORDS CUT: 55

Feel that? That something missing? How it seems rushed?

I could have cut even more: Dickens’s entire second paragraph; several of the adjectives from Adams’s piece. But honestly, would there be anything left?

Learn to write efficiently, by all means. But don’t cut so much that you lose yourself.

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Need help finding your voice? Sign up for Voice Week, November 4 – 8! You’ll have a chance to win a copy of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief!

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measuring tape

Are you over-editing?

The 300th Post: Featuring the Top 10

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Yes folks, you are reading post number 300 on BeKindRewrite! Applause! Music! Fanfare! And in monument to this momentous moment, I present the top ten most viewed posts (so far). Click through and read ’em if you haven’t already.

#10. Tips for Creating Lovable and Relatable Protagonists

#10. Tips for Creating Lovable and Relatable Protagonists

#9. 4 Steps to Convince People They Need to Read Your Novel

#9. 4 Steps to Convince People They Need to Read Your Novel

#8. Online Writing Resources

#8. 20 Great Free Online Writing Resources

#7. the 21 Best Tips for Your Opening Scene

#7. the 21 Best Tips for Your Opening Scene

#6. 7 ways to Motivate Yourself to Write

#6. 7 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Write

#5. 6 ways First Person Narrators Can Describe Themselves

#5. 6 ways First Person Narrators Can Describe Themselves

#4. Which fiction genre sells best?

#4. Which Fiction Genre Sells Best?

#3. Fantastic examples of voice.

#3. 5 Fantastic Examples of Voice.

#2. How to Control People's Thoughts with Words

#2. How to Control People’s Thoughts with Words

#1. The 7 Narrator Types

#1. The 7 Narrator Types

The awesomeness of Voice Week 2012 and how it went

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I had forgotten, since last year, just how fun Voice Week was. In fact, what with the wedding and all, I was a bit leery of how much time it would take to collect all the links and so on and so forth…

Then I started reading. All the unique voices. All the different perspectives. All the little glimpses of life and layers of genius. And with story after story I was gasping with awe and delight.

Most of us wrote one scene from the perspectives of five different characters – and these ranged from ancient mythology to space-age cruise ships – while a few of us used slightly different methods. Let’s take a look!

Billie Jo Woods showed us a scene in a bar from the perspectives of four very different characters, each piece revealing more about the characters and the story through their thoughts, their drinks – and, of course, their voices. I hope to see a fifth piece soon!

Carrie gave us a wedding reception with a collapsing bride, skipping round from a vengeful sister to an innocent flower girl, each voice illuminating the chasm between the faces people put on, and who they really are underneath.

Chris White detailed the thoughts of passengers and staff on a space cruise to Holinx 3, from a religious zealot to a prostitute, both amusing and intriguing us with what the characters think of each other – and how little humanity changes even in the distant future.

Craig Towlsey’s scene had great depth, contrasting innocent imagination with harsh reality through a dramatic pretend train robbery and the thoughtless violence of an abusive father.

Elmo explored five alternate realities centered on a man escorting his aging mother to a boat on a shore. Each voice shed a different light on the scene, from sorrowful, to frightening, to comforting.

Juan Villagrana let us into the minds of five characters awaiting a great, terrible – and to the reader, mysterious – event. The voices were alternately terrified and ecstatic, and we were left somewhat disturbed (in a very satisfying way).

Kim Patrick Moody began with a third person narration of a 60-year-old man being hit on by a younger (but not quite young) woman in the office, then followed with the man’s inner perspective, and beyond – all the way to the hilarious voice of extraterrestrials.

LoveTheBadGuy gave us a gorgeous retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone, from the perspectives of all the major characters, making us feel the not-quite-healthy love of Hades as well as the mixed emotions of Persephone.

Mike brought us to the deathbed of an old, hated rich man, and through various voices made us ask ourselves whether or not he deserves to be hated – and whether or not he’s really dying of natural causes.

Parul’s brilliant approach involved writing the thoughts of a character who has spent years chasing down and killing another – but each of five voices sees the dead character differently.

Paul cleverly used one story, from one perspective. That perspective was his first voice – the story continued with the first character interviewing four others, who consequently had their own unique voices.

Raina used both poetry and prose to explore life, death, and truth through the voices of characters both human and inanimate, but somehow all intrinsically connected.

S.W. Sondheimer wrenched our hearts by showing the death of a hero from the voices of those who loved him, those who despised him, and those too self-absorbed to care.

Undue Creativity wrote about a rock star – brilliantly keeping the thought process of each piece almost identical to its fellows, so that the stark uniqueness of the voices could shine through.

I decided to make time my guide this year and wrote about a rainy picnic in five different eras, from the judgment of the Great Flood through a divine revelation in a future that has rejected God.

 

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What was your favorite part of Voice Week! Spill it in the comments!

 

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