Okay, due
to a slight technical hitch, I’ve been unable to bring you the Very Special
Guest post which was originally scheduled for today, so, rather than deprive
you of this pleasure full stop, I’ve decided to deftly step in with my own regular contribution and then (hopefully!) reschedule the guest post for my usual slot in a
couple of weeks’ time.
Anyway,
today I thought I’d reflecton the subject of ‘the voice.’ No, not the television programme of that
name, but the art of finding the right words for what you’re trying to say and
putting them down in the right order, in– perhaps most importantly – a manner
which perfectly suits the story that you’re trying to write.
When I
first joined the Paisley Writers' Group a decade or more ago, this challenge was thrown down almost
immediately. You must find your
voice. Well known authors frequently
remind us of this fact, almost invariably adding (as if trying to become a
writer is not demoralising enough...) that you’ll have to write a million words or
thereabouts until this elusive holy grail is finally within your grasp.
Sadly, there’s
more than a grain of truth in these words.
The art of stringing words together nicely is the easy part of being a
writer, I think. The knack is to move
beyond this, to nestle comfortably into a style that’s yours. As a writer, you know when you’ve got into
this zone because you feel comfortable when you're writing this way. And because you’re
comfortable, the story flows well. This
isn’t to say that the first draft will be flawless – in some rare cases, no doubt it
will be, but with others (myself included) there’s a lot of homing and
polishing required before the block of marble turns into a form that’s pleasing
to behold.
It took me about six years and four false starts
until I finally found the voice I needed to tell the story behind Fire and Sword. Faced with such a thankless task, I’m sure that most people would have chucked the
manuscript aside and left it abandoned, convincing themselves that it was the
story that was at fault, not the way in which it was written. But all along I had faith in the story. I knew instinctively that I just needed to find the right way to tell
it, and yes, it must have taken at least half a million words (on that one
novel alone) until it came out the way I wanted it. After that, writing the follow-up was
comparatively easy. I knew the style and
the tone that I was wanting, so the transition to writing a new book in a
similar vein was relatively seamless.
My current
WIP has been an entirely different matter. It’s set partly in the modern world as opposed to the late 15th century, which means that the characters see the world in a totally different way. But despite the recurring
presence of mobiles, and cars, and street lights, and wheelie bins, and stuff
like that, there's no escaping the truth: the tone and the style remain consistent with my earlier work. All well and good – but when you’re dealing
with two time strands, both crucial to the plot, you need a means of
differentiation.
And that
was the challenge. Finding the right
voice for the backstory.
I tried
omniscient, writing from the viewpoint of the all-seeing narrator. That didn’t work. I tried Tight Third (always my Last Refuge of
the Desperate, because it’s what I invariably use for most of my writing). Nope.
No luck there. I wanted First
Person, a journal. And I wanted it to be
written by a seventeen year old. And
therein lay the problem. When Lucy was
speaking, she was too old, too sophisticated, too intellectual. Whatever I tried, her voice was just out of
reach, a tantalising presence. So I
wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote some more. Over and over again.
And then,
one day, like a shaft of sunlight piercing the clouds, she was there. I knew her.
I saw the world through her eyes.
I found my voice, and suddenly the words were singing. Out onto the page they flowed. A gleaming multitude, a splendid deluge. Okay, so she's more Avril Lavaigne than Kiri Te Kanawa, but you know, she's a teenager. That's only to be expected.
Hard work,
yes. You cannot believe how much of a slog it was. How many times I despaired of
ever capturing the essence of the narrative. All the more frustrating, when I was trying desperately to capture something that was simple and plain in its essence and delivery. Even now, I’ve done no more than reach the point where the true effort really begins, the stage where I begin to sculpt the form from the block of
marble.
But the
block has been quarried, and now it stands before me, waiting. I see its qualities, its
promise, and I'm eager to begin the hard graft.
All of a sudden, the effort is worthwhile.