Discussion → Old School

  • Sup.thumb
    Samuel Brase
    Feb 12, 11:40am

    John, I want to speak briefly to a few things you said--

    I think you're absolutely right about our desire to imitate writers. We all create a personal canon of writers we think are the best, and we take elements from each and blend them in with our own bit of style. We hope something unique is the result.

    I think you're wrong about "a sound," however. I think a writer having a particular voice is as valuable as a musician having a sound. Neither artist needs that uniqueness to create, but it helps if they want to be noticed.

    And not everyone wants to be noticed. That's fine--that's great, in fact, because those people can be satisfied with any phase of their career.

    But to get an agent, to get a book published--much like the record deal, having a singular voice is crucial.

    Now, let's see if I can post this twice.

  • Mail.thumb
    John Minichillo
    Feb 12, 04:17pm

    Samuel,

    I guess I should do a better job of explaining myself. When I go talking in analogies like that, of course there's a good chance I'll be misunderstood.

    I think there are A LOT of very talented writers on this site who have spent years trying to land agents through various strategies. I think most of us would love to be able to have a book accepted at a major publisher and/or get paid to write - you know the things the agents seem to have control over, as gate keepers. And I think many of us would compromise our writing sensibilities in order to do be represented. We would most likely do what an agent or editor wanted if they would get our book out there.

    I was merely suggesting that most of us here don't have agents, so we are free to pursue our own interests, to write about what we want, as we want.

    I don't see this as part of a "growth" model, i.e. of "finding a voice." If I borrow or steal or emulate the writers I love, they did it to, we all do it to some extent. But finding a thing that defines my work isn't the same as "voice" for me.

    As readers we want to be able to classify writers. But I think readers can handle it if writers aren't always easily classified. And I would hope we wouldn't want to be so easily classified, but maybe that's just me.

    I have a different understanding of "voice" than a lot of folks. I don't believe in voice. I don't think it exists. I think a writer may have a particular POV, they might take on particular subjects, or write about certain kinds of characters. If by "voice" we mean the presence of the narrator, or what words are used to convey the story, these limiting factors (POV, subject matter, character type) all have a major role in that.

    I don't see the words and phrases that a writer uses, as the "voice" of that writer, however. I think we listen to the culture(s) and use the words and phrases that live in the murk around certain topics, POVs, and character types. So if Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield have a "voice" that's not the same as saying Mark Twain or Salinger have a voice. And that's only one very particular kind of 'voicy' fiction. Did T. S. Eliot have a voice? And if we talk about voice with respect to Hemingway I think we have to assume that means getting as much of the voice OUT as possible. And when we get into the more formalist fiction that's all over the web today - if it's not realism - then does it have a voice? I guess I see it as a term that is confusing because it's not very accurate. I guess I see it as outdated, as a pre-modern way of looking at stories and novels. Dickens had a voice. Jane Austen had a voice. And just so we understand each other, if I tell someone they write like Jane Austen, I don't mean it as a compliment.

    But agents use the term, book reviewers use it, creative writing instructors use it. So I know I'm in the minority, and I know I'm fussy, that I probably am taking this personally. Because when it used to apply to writers without agents it is suggested as the thing that is lacking, and when it is used with respect to writers with agents, it is seen as the thing that has been achieved.

    We would all love to be talked about as having "a voice" because it would mean getting paid, getting reviewed, and being read by creative writing students. But it wouldn't mean anything different about what we write or the way we write it. Except, of course, that it comes with expectations about keeping a level of continuity in the writing.

    We can't change our historical moment. Some of us will hit the jackpot and they will do so through luck + talent. The rest of us are merely talented. I was only trying to see all this in a positive light. We should be grateful that we are talented, not because it means there's hope that our talent will one day be recognized, but simply because we are talented.


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