Voice in Writing

Example 1
There were two voices involved in this example. One was the stereotypical bartender speaking in the local jargon who was merely going through the motions of holding a conversation. Our second character was perhaps depressed by his situation and a cynic. His internal thoughts were in direct contrast to what he displayed in the bar. He may have not wanted to talk, but he was capable of thinking and did so in jargonless speech. As I would have expected, the dialogue was quickly over and in short spurts of language. The internal thoughts were in longer better formed sentences. I noted that the forms of address underlined the lack of closeness of the two individuals whether they saw each other every day or not. I would say the overall tone of the piece was cynicism spiked with a good dose of depression.

Example 2
There was only one voice in this piece and it was the author through and through. As I mentioned to you earlier, I didn’t really get the piece nor had I noticed who wrote it until I got to the end. So, realizing I knew the author, I re-read it and neither time did I “get it”. However, I noted that it was a different voice from the first one. I thought about this piece off and on for several hours and then I had an epiphany. I love it when I can read something that continues to indwell my mind. I went back and realized a few things about the voice. First, the author was driven by others in her life to escape reality and become that which she loves so much….animals. The gradual appearance of this led me to believe it was a shape shifting, freeing experience. It is not written in a stuffy formal tone, but in Ruby’s distinctive conversational style full of guts and backtalk! I think Ruby may be a Native American version of Walter Mitty.

Example 3
The voice of this piece is parental in tone and a conversation between two people with limited educations. While the husband seems to be playing the tough love advocate, he is just waiting for an excuse to help save his daughter. Dialectic in tone and word usage, the piece is full of run-on sentences or phrases. That makes it, in my mind, much like we speak to those who know us intimately as these two obviously do. I’m torn in two directions about the man’s giving in. I think it might also be a gesture of support for the wife or a desire to ignore what he knows to be the truth, and to try to help the daughter one more time. The tone is the opposite of Example #1. These two people are not going through the motions of holding a conversation. I feel they are really having a heart-felt conversation. Their forms of address are personal. The overall tone I feel is one of angst, but hope that THIS time the daughter will make a change. No matter how small the hope, we have to have some smidgen of hope to be parents.

Overall, I like the way the three pieces played out when displayed together. One has no hope, one has the dream of hope in shape shifting—going to another place, and the last one, hoping they can have hope.

Defining My Personal Voice: Thanks for asking this question, NOT! I have often wondered what my voice was. I would say I tend to be funny or sarcastic. Then, I would say that I am capable of being totally serious, yet reviewers usually comment on my humor what I consider dead serious pieces like the He Taught Me piece. I do know that I am quite redundant and lean toward long sentences before I seriously edit a half million times. The main thin is that I write from my heart whatever that may be. I write about things that are important to me. I think my journalistic background gives me an editorial voice as well as a conversational tone. I do know that when I create different characters, I hear their speech in my head and it is usually fits their personalities. Whether I get it down on paper that way or not, I do not know. What do YOU think?