Voice is so much a part of who we are. In life, I’m often impatient. Today, after rewriting an exercise for voice class, I saw how my writing reflects that.
We’d done a four part imitation exercise last week, where you find an author you love, type out one or two of her paragraphs, then rewrite them in your own voice. Next, you write an original bit of your own and then rewrite it in the author-you-admire’s voice. I wanted to do Paul Auster, but I didn’t see how our voices, on the word-by-word, sentence level, were different enough even though he’s a fabulous writer and way past what I do, and his work adds up to a more beautiful whole than mine will ever hope to emulate.
So I did the exercise using Jane Austen, because I knew our voices would be way different. They were, and it was fun, but I didn’t learn anything new. I knew I could do a Regency imitation, so really, I was taking the safe route. I’ve been a fan of Regency romances for thirty years. And I wrote a couple practice historicals in that voice several years ago. So no light bulb moments. I mentioned all this during discussion, and Barbara encouraged me to try the exercise again using Paul Auster. So this morning, I did.
Wow. Here’s what I’ve learned about voice:
1. I saw right away, even as I was typing his paragraph, how our differences come out on the word/sentence level. He uses unusual words in interesting ways. I’m too impatient to wait for the perfect word, I use whatever pops into my head, and my vocabulary, it must be said, is not as impressive as his.
2. On the sentence level, and this is still just typing out his piece, I noticed that he uses lots of long, complex, very elegant sentences. I admire these kinds of sentences, but I don’t normally write them.
3. And then his dense paragraphs. I don’t have the confidence he does with the long dense paragraphing. He seems assured that he can keep a reader’s attention. I keep my paragraphs short; they sort of metaphorically wave their hands and tap dance and say “hey, I’m interesting! pay attention to me!” His paragraphs say “I’m smart, and erudite, and I know it. I’m a confident storyteller used to holding everyone in the room’s breathless attention.”
So I think there’s a confidence in Auster that I lack. A confidence and a sureness and a certain level of intelligent diction. At the same time, he’s not pompous. He’s funny and clever, too. It’s such a dazzling act…and I knew that, I just didn’t know quite HOW he pulled it off until I did this exercise.
And then when I tried to rewrite my original paragraphs in Auster’s voice, it was harder than rewriting HIM in MY voice. Because again, I’m not about to linger and sweat over the sentences. So because I was doing it quickly, off the top of my head, it was really hard to imitate his wonderful voice with any authority, although I think I COULD do better if I really took the time.
There is a point in my writing when I DO take time to polish the sentences (that would be the final draft) but by then my syntax is already established so it would never come out quite Auster-like. Which is fine. I am who I am, voice and all. But at least now I know WHY.
If you want to read the four paragraphs, you can find them here:
Cindy
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