Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Any suggestions on activities related to voice?

This is topic Any suggestions on activities related to voice? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

My in-person writer's group is meeting tomorrow and we're talking about voice, that authorial thing that makes up each of our unique styles and ... well voices.

I already have a strong sense of the voice of each writer in the group, they each have such a distinct style that I suspect I could pick them out blind. So my first writing exercise idea is for us all do to a short writing exercise from a prompt/trigger, then have someone read them all and vote/discuss who wrote which piece and why we think that. That should be good fun, but I need another exercise.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Any ways you've noticed authorial voice coming out in certain works? Any online resources that have really helped you understand voice (or references to Characters and Viewpoints by OSC that I have a copy of.)

Thanks in advance!

Posted by Troy (Member # 2640) on :

I think I came to really understand voice by reading stories written in first person, and in the voice of the narrator, rather than in the voice of the author. For example, when (in the course of reading The Chronicles of Amber) I began the Chronicles of Merlin, I realized that a major shift had occurred in the voice of the narrator; this wasn't Corwin anymore. Then I realized that Corwin's voice hadn't exactly been Zelazny's voice. Another (and perhaps better, as you don't have to read a ten-volume series to get the gist of it) example would be Jim Thompson's 'The Killer Inside Me'. This led me to conclude that a good practice would be to write passages, or even entire stories, in the voice of a character who is very different from yourself. That's obviously pretty basic, but it's something that has helped me a lot. By exploring the voices of various characters, you bit-by-bit shed the voices of the writers you're (As we all inevitably are) imitating, and your own voice becomes clearer and clearer.

At least, that was my theory.

It also leaves you with the ability and skill, hopefully, to slip into other voices when necessary, and leaves you better able to write, even in third person stories where you are the narrator, characters of different backgrounds.

Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :

An excercise in a nonfiction creative writing workshop I was in was to write in a different authorial voice than we normally would. In order to access another voice, I reoriented on the characters involved in the circumstance. I stepped outside myself and wrote someone else's perspective that I didn't agree with. Of course, being nonfiction, that required interviewing the other person to get their side of the story.

In a fiction workshop, the same voice changing exercise presented. In that case it was take a story previously presented and tell it in different voice from a different character's perspective. That wasn't any easier than the nonfiction one. It was however simpler once I put myself in the shoes of the adversary and sympathized with his motivations and stakes.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited January 21, 2009).]

Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :

I don't know if reading the pieces out loud would be a good idea. As I read, I typically assign a sound to the writers voice based on the style of the writing.

I will borrow from some of our Hatrackers: I may be completely wrong in these, but this is how I hear them. When I read what extrinsic writes, I hear very proper grammar, which indicates to me that his voice shows very little regional inflection (a neutral accent). When I read something Talespinner has written, I hear a British accent. There are others who use southern colloquialisms, and so on.

If I'm reading it blind without knowing who wrote it, I can often recognize the author by word usage, syntax and punctuation. But if a person with another type of voice were reading it to me, I would have a harder time identifying the author because I couldn't see these attributes.

You might consider doing the activity both ways - first read to them and then let them read. This in itself may be a good example of the use of voice.

You could possibly extend this further and have people write while thinking in an accent other than their own - British, broken English, southern, etc. and see how this might change their style. This could take some mental gymnastics for some who are not accustomed to experimenting with accents - the Kevin Costners and Keanu Reeves of the bunch.

Posted by TaleSpinner (Member # 5638) on :

How about getting everyone to write a passage based on a trigger, sharing them (not reading aloud, just reading quietly), and asking people to identify the cues that enable them to determine whose voice it is? Or maybe, the cues that enable them to distinguish between Northern and Southern, American and Brit? This might help sharpen observational power and the ability to adopt other voices, e.g. for dialogue.

Posted by dee_boncci (Member # 2733) on :

One exercise I ran across somewhere was to take a scene with multiple characters and retell it from the POV of the different characters, who should be substantially different from one another. For example, a wealthy woman and her rebellious college-aged son arguing while riding in a taxicab. You could create three versions of that scene. Of course, that's more of an exercise for "story voice".

The best advice I've heard for an "author's voice" that transcends their entire body of work is to not think about it and just write. It will naturally grow and evolve over time, and who's to say what's good or better or worse or bad anyway? A sometimes humbling exercise is to read what we've written aloud. If it comes across lucid and smooth when expressed orally, you're probably in good shape.

None of that really answers your question, just some random thoughts on voice. Writing from a trigger you're as likely to tell each other's work from "subject matter" as from voice/style. Maybe find a short passage of dialogue from somewhere and strip out everything that's not in quotes and have each person rework it adding tags, actions, and thoughts. Or provide a summary of a short scene and have everyone dramatize (i.e., show) it.

Don't know if any of that helps...

[This message has been edited by dee_boncci (edited January 22, 2009).]

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

A couple exercises I've come across are to write a passage imitating an author that you like. I think this might help make you aware of work choice, construction, etc.

As for character voices, writing the same incident in two or three different character POVs might show you how different characters will experience, and "say", completely different things.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Hmm. I wonder if this would work as a writing challenge?

Pick a fairy tale and an author, and try to write the first 13 lines (at least) of the fairy tale in whatever you perceive to be the "voice" of the author. (I remember doing this once for a creative writing class--I tried to do "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" as F. Scott Fitzgerald might have done it.)

Anyone want to start such a challenge?

Posted by aspirit (Member # 7974) on :

Maybe. I'll think of good combinations if no one else posts.

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

I took Dee's idea and took a passage from The Great Gatsby and took out everything other than dialogue, changed the names, then added in some dialogue tags so it was clear who was talking (but not enough, as some of the writers were confused.)

It was definitely interesting, but I don't think we got too deep into the idea of voice. Not a bad exercise, though (would have been better with a cleaner bit of dialogue with more accurate tags, my mistake, I was rushing.) We had a lively discussion about it all, which was good.

I like the ideas suggested here, and in particular, TaleSpinner I think I'll try your idea with this group next time, particularly because I really "hear" each author's voice, not sure if I can identify what it is that makes them so unique to me, so it would be a good exercise for me personally to try to puzzle through this. I'll let you know how it goes! (we meet every two weeks.)