Authorial Voice

[lesbiaphrodite]

I became a rapacious reader long ago, when I was just a child. And, all my life, there have been certain books that have meant so much to me. It is only in recent years that I have become able to "hear" certain authorial voices when I read their works. I don't recall having that ability early on. I'm not sure if I've become a more sensitive reader, or if I've read a great deal of certain authors and have just become more familiar with their voices.

I think it is a true gift to develop a kind of voice in your writing, and I strive for that myself. Writers who have highly-developed voices, to me, are Hemingway, Nin, Bukowski, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner.

What authors would you add? Delete?

 

[Recidiva]

Robert Heinlein, William Shakespeare, Thomas Harris, Christopher Moore, Terry Pratchett, Joss Whedon, Stephen Sondheim...

I just started watching "John from Cincinnati" on HBO with my husband and I started to think that it was sounding the way that Tom Stoppard and David Mamet try to sound when they emulate Shakespeare. The same attempts at pacing, phrasing, comedy relief, character contrast.

Odd to find it in such an unusual place, but I started looking around and I'm not the only one who came to this conclusion.

 

[tickledkitty]

Pat Conroy

 

[denalirayne]

I once read this poem & it finally "clicked" why it was that I could always "hear" the characters in my favorite stories speaking to each other.


THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLY

is not silent, it is a speaking-
out-loud voice in your head; it is *spoken*,
a voice is *saying* it
as you read. It's the writer's words,
of course, in a literary sense
his or her "voice" but the sound
of that voice is the sound of *your* voice.
Not the sound your friends know
or the sound of a tape played back
but your voice
caught in the dark cathedral
of your skull, your voice heard
by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts
and what you know by feeling,
having felt. It is your voice
saying, for example, the word "barn"
that the writer wrote
but the "barn" you say
is a barn you know or knew. The voice
in your head, speaking as you read,
never says anything neutrally- some people
hated the barn they knew,
some people love the barn they know
so you hear the word loaded
and a sensory constellation
is lit: horse-gnawed stalls,
hayloft, black heat tape wrapping
a water pipe, a slippery
spilled *chirr* of oats from a split sack,
the bony, filthy haunches of cows...
And "barn" is only a noun- no verb
or subject has entered into the sentence yet!
The voice you hear when you read to yourself
is the clearest voice: you speak it
speaking to you.

~~-Thomas Lux


The best authors can actually make you see their expressions, smell their essences, taste their sweat and ache for their lives. I am a typical girl in that I LOVE the historical romance novels, especially those written by Julie Garwood. I am not a major sci-fi fan, but I enjoyed the Incarnation series by Piers Anthony.