Sunday, October 30, 2005

Voice and Fiction

Spent part of the weekend going to random bookstores and listening to the author-of-the-day talk about his or her book. It's cool to just hear what other writers have to say about their projects and their process.

One shared something really cool in terms of discovering your writing voice, especially if you're writing in first person in your fiction: take a look at your e-mails.

No, not the business and work-related e-mails, though that might help with technical/protocol type narratives in fiction. But this author suggested looking at the personal/confessional e-mails you write to your friends. Especially the e-mails that re-cap your weekend, a date, or some gossip or news you're sharing.

Look at the words. The pacing. The detail you share or leave out. And look at how comfortable and easy the writing seems to be. And think about how easy it is to write these type of e-mails to your friends. This... is the level of comfort, this author suggested, a writer should be with their character's voice in fiction. But, essentially, the voice you use in personal/confessional e-mails is your voice.

I thought it was an interesting and kinda cool. I'll be pulling up some recently sent personal/confessional e-mails to see how close my e-mail voice matches my fiction writing voice.

Or... at the very least, the author suggested, if you don't keep a journal you can print out some of your personal/confessional e-mails and stick them in a notebook. And you've got a journal without even thinking about it.
fs

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