GENREALITY


December 30th, 2009 by Bob Mayer
Point of View & Voice

I’ve written over 40 manuscripts.  All that time I’ve struggled with my voice as an author.  In the Warrior-Writer program I’ve developed (more on this week once it’s up and running) I focus a lot on blind spots and the power of the subconscious.  It’s taken many years and a lot of hard work for me to finally figure voice out.  Often the voice that is your strongest, is the one you are most afraid of and uncomfortable with.  This is because it cuts closest to the core of who you are, and you want to protect that core.  We bleed onto the page and there is a difference between bleeding with a paper cut and bleeding from an artery.  To be a successful writer you need arterial blood.

What authors do you love to read?  What voice do they write in?

In the same way I tell people that however they organize their day is the same way they are going to outline their book, I believe the voice we love to read is the voice we want to write in.

I’m currently rewriting The Jefferson Allegiance once more.  I already rewrote it for plot and that is now solid.  Focused on character without the big, dark back-story overwhelming things.  Now I’m rewriting it, sentence by sentence, for voice, and I’m loving it.  My voice is omniscient.  Not first, not third limited, but omniscient.  I sat down over the weekend and read several Dennis Lehane books that I had already read before, and I focused on his voice.  Then I realized a lot of authors I really enjoyed wrote in the same voice:  Richard Russo, Larry McMurtry, JRR Tolkein, etc.

Related posts:

  1. The Writing Life…From Another Point of View
  2. Trailer Boy on Character, Part 3: Point-of-View
  3. Voice

One comment to “Point of View & Voice”

  1. fran
    Comment
    1
     · October 3rd, 2011 at 7:07 pm · Link

    Hey really enjoy your blogs just learning and need all the help I can get thanks.



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