Voices Carry

I spent 8 hours today teaching a course on writing the first novel and will do so again on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (I wasn't aware that the Super Bowl was going to be played this Sunday until about two weeks ago, at which point  I began emitting a low, painful whine, not unlike an injured Yeti) and its inspired me to think about a few craft issues and issues about the value of just what I do.

The craft issue has to do with something I'll be talking about in one of my lectures: voice. I'm never sure how to talk about this, never quite sure what to "teach" and what to let the students figure out on their own. I went searching a bit this evening and found a rather, in my opinion, wrongheaded essay on voice written by a romance writer named Amy Garvey. She said:

A friend of mine gave me the ultimate compliment recently. (Sadly, it wasn’t about how much I look like Nicole Kidman.) She’s not much of a romance reader, but she was interested to see what I’d written. So I gave her my first book and got an email back which read, “It is so ‘you.’ I feel like you are sitting there telling me the story.”

Not impressed? I was. Because what it meant to me was that beneath the story, this reader had heard “my” voice——the writer lurking behind the characters and the plot.

Voice is one of those vague, nonspecific entities that defies simple explanation. It’s not just style, and it’s not just tone, and it’s definitely not dialogue, contrary to what my brother once thought. You have one, whether you know it or not——you just have to figure out how to let everyone hear it.

Think of it this way: You know the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yes? (Points off if you don’t. See me after class.) The cheat sheet: high school girl is chosen to battle evil, even though she would rather go shoe shopping than stake vampires. Now think of Charmed. Same kind of idea: three sisters discover they’re witches, and not just the fun Bewitched variety, but “charmed” ones who (you guessed it) have to vanquish evil.

What I find wrongheaded -- and I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I'm just looking at it in terms of what I believe to be true, which might not be true at all -- is that when I write (and what I teach), I'm always searching for what I don't know. When someone tells me that they hear me in a book or story (fiction only here -- in my essays and columns, you often are getting unfiltered Tod) I feel disappointed. My characters aren't me and if you see me, hear me in the narration, that 4th wall is broken.  I want you to hear the narrator, whomever that might be. If it feels like I'm sitting there telling you a story, I believe I've failed -- I'm not my characters and in that regard the voice of my work should change from piece to piece, book to book, but my style should at least let you know I wrote it. As a dead poet once said, art's aim is to reveal the art and conceal the artist. I believe in that. (The other wrongheaded stuff has to do with the author's thoughts on Buffy and Charmed later on in the essay, but I'll let my brother harp on that should he read it...)

As for the thoughts on teaching in general, it is always difficult to believe that what I'm doing will always amount to good. I can honestly say that I never took a novel writing class (and if any of you read Fake Liar Cheat, that won't come as a surprise), though the things I teach I certainly believe. What I also know is that a few of the people will leave dispirited, that the comments I give them on their work, while truthful and often cutting, will stop them in their tracks, may convince them that they are not writers. And I guess, finally, that's my job in some regard. Not all of us are writers, not all of us are able to take criticism of our work and change what we are doing and I suppose that's fine if publication is not your end goal. Even still, I guess what I'm trying to get at is that teaching writing is never an easy thing because there are human emotions involved. When I tell a writer that their novel isn't working, or that they write in cliche, it's a bit different from a teacher telling a person that their mathematical equations are off and sometimes I feel I should lie, but, truly, I never do.

Comments

[Kristy]

I can't write for shit when it comes to fiction, YOU told me that (basically..) and I still like you. But I CAN get an A on a paper I don't give a shit about. So your honesty in my case did some good. I put my pen down and I'm in college for something else. Yes, so when I'm hunched over a desk full of business plans listening to some twit of a boss with a golf themed tie on sporting my own "I hate my job attitude" someday...it's YOUR fault pal. :-P

Incidentally, I have figured out that if I "take an interest" in my teachers, they LIKE me and this influences their grading. That's just entirely so WRONG to me I cannot even tell you how much. Every teacher post's their bio and I ALWAYS find something interesting in their boring lives. I would bet a million dollars (if I had it) that you don't lie to your students...even if they LOVE and ADORE you with admiration. You'd still red pen their work with brutality, all in the name of good writing. And THAT is why I am your biggest fan. Because you are not a sell out....not as of yet.

[Clair Lamb]

Your honesty is what makes your class great, Tod -- not just about what doesn't work, in absolute terms, but also about what simply isn't your taste. You don't want or expect anyone to write the way you do, which puts you ahead of a few other instructors I've met.

I also applaud your thoughts about "voice" -- I could never teach the kind of class you do, because I have so little patience with the thinly-veiled-memoir-as-novel. The big trick of writing in the first person is to make sure, as Evelyn Waugh says at the beginning of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, "I am not I; you are not you; he, she and it are not they."

Though I know you don't like that book...

[Lynsi the Great]

I'm the third Tod fan to comment. I'm losing ground!

A) You're a great teacher. You actually tell people what they need to hear. You're the Simon Cowell of writing.

B) Can you - at some point - stop insulting Fake, Liar, Cheat? I liked that book! It was fun. And Claire was crazy as hell. Let it go.

[Larissa]

I could be wrong about the Amy Garvey article, but I took something else away from her post. I didn't think she meant that her voice comes through AS her characters.

When people tell me that they hear me in my work, they don't mean that they recognize me in the characters or dialog. My characters are VERY different from me and very different from each other. What they are seeing is my writing style they've grown used to, or my sense of humor that tends to come out in my fiction, etc. I think that's what she meant.

But I could be wrong about Amy's point--I didn't agree with her assessment of voice in regards to Buffy and Charmed, either, but then, maybe she just didn't explain herself well enough. I think I "get" what she's saying...but maybe she didn't make it clear.

As an aside, I LIKE to hear the author come through in their novels. I've bought a lot of books because I loved an author's blog, and I hoped I'd get the same voice in their books. On the other hand, I don't want the author shoved down my throat--that can be really annoying!

Great post, though--you made me think! *g*

[Lee Goldberg]

I have to disagree with you, Tod. SOme of my favorite authors have a very distinct voice, regardless of the characters they are writing about (Larry McMurtry and Elmore Leonard, and John Irving come to mind). I think that voice is part of what makes their books special.

I also don't think she's wrong about TV (though I quibble with her definition of voice.. I think she confuses voice with franchise, but that's another discussion). Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedeon, David E. Kelley, Stephen J. Cannell, David Milch are examples of writer/producers who have a distinct voice that come through no matter what shows they are doing. Does it hurt the shows? I don't think so...it helps them stand out.

[Angela Stubbs]

First off, Tod, I completely respect your honesty when it comes to writing. I never once heard you lie to anyone in our class and that is also one of the reasons I respect your criticism in workshop and know that your comments are your honest-to-God feelings. The one thing that is truly a disservice to students is an instructor who won't or can't tell his students when their work is lacking something or rather, just never had it to begin with. And yeah, it helps to weed out the writers from the non-writers. I think, and I may be alone, students respect that. Or at least truly evolved students respect that and can appreciate the constructive criticism and if they can't, well they shouldn't be writing to begin with. I do, however, agree that I don't want others to think everytime they read something that it's semi-autobiographical and therefore "Is so you!" That is by and far, to me, one of the worst things someone can say.

However, I think that having a distinct voice, like say Diane Williams or Aimee Bender doesn't hurt them. In fact, I think it's the familiarity of that voice that increases the readership. People like to tune in, or read about characters, while different from short-story to short-story or novel to novel, still come through to the reader as a very Bender story or very whomever. No?

[Tod Goldberg]

I'm not saying that a writer's style shouldn't come out, merely that THEY shouldn't come out. Aimee isn't her narrators, neither am I or Lee, or Angela or any of us. We have a voice that is singular, but I think it isn't in direct correlation to who we are. The essay seems to say that it's best when the author herself permeates the work, vs. the style of the author. I want my books to sound like a Tod Goldberg book, I don't want them to sound like Tod Goldberg, which I think is a big difference.

[Angela Stubbs]

Touche!

Hey Tod, off the topic, when exactly is your book coming out?

[Wendy]

Voice is a uniquely magical thing that happens when syntax, pacing, word choice, topic and theme come together to create something larger that its components. The fallacy of Amy Garvey’s thoughts on voice—as Tod pointed out—is her confusion of author voice with author intrusion. Of course all authors have, or should have, a clear and unique voice. But the voice they craft for fiction shouldn’t be obscured by intrusion.

[Larissa]

Respectfully, Wendy, I have to disagree with you. I understand what you're saying, but where is the line between intrusion and voice? Sometimes it's obvious, but have you read anything of Amy's? Do you think her voice is intrusive? I don't think she's talking about author intrusion.

Again, I could be wrong. I just didn't see how she's confusing voice and intrusion. We all write with different voices, and what may be intrusive to me may not be intrusive to you, and vice versa. Saying that the voice they craft for fiction SHOULDN'T be obscured by intrusion can almost be one of those "Rules." A lot of people hate Jennifer Crusie's work because they believe her voice is too intrusive...but she sure sells well, and a lot of people DO love her.

Great topic!

[Alison Kent]

I happen to be one reader who can't read Jennifer Crusie for the reasons mentioned above. I've heard her give too many workshops, I've read too many articles, and I've lurked on her writing loop online too long to separate her public voice from her authorial voice! I hear Jenny even when I'm in the head of her male characters.

That said, I firmly believe VOICE is a combination of an author's view of the world, hers and that of her characters', as well as her use of language. My view of my personal world has a huge impact on the themes in my books. Another author would write the same external story in an entirely different vein based on HER personal world. Is that voice?

We can't avoid infusing our work with who we are. Ergo, it becomes part of our voice.

[Lee Goldberg]

You think Crusie is bad, Stephen King's books are ALL about his voice. He intrudes all over the place. Hell, he even put himself into a book as a character. But his voice is 90% of what makes his books work (well, at least before I stopped reading him, which was around the time of THE TALISMAN).

[Bill Rabkin]

I think when he's writing well, King's voice is the best thing about a lot of his books. It's comforting and familiar, an old friend telling you a story. Unfortunately, this old friend seems to have run out of stories about a decade and a half ago, and the familiarity of that voice combines with the familiarity of the story elements so that in effect he keeps writing the same two or three books over and over. But in his case, that's the franchise. People keep buying Stephen King -- and, I'd venture, the Spenser novels and a lot of other series books -- for the same reason they go to McDonald's.

But speaking of the author's intrusion -- and Parker shows up here, too -- nothing makes me throw a book across the room faster than when the narrator starts yapping about the particular imported beer he drinks, or the obscure jazz musician whose records he plays, or the brand of cereal he has ever morning and you just know this is the writer's place to tell everybody what he thinks is good and bad in the world. "As I thought back over the case, I opened a bottle of Vrzng Lager, a little know Czech beer that only a select few of us are actually cool enough to know about..."