NARRATIVE VOICE

Anybody who has been around me in writing forums know that I am very much anti-jargon. Most concepts that people blithely boggle about are useless (and not just "protagonist", either).

But there is one little item in all this soup that is worthwhile and the funny thing is, people running around having cows about POV and adverbs and crap but don't really talk about it.

Hence:


NARRATIVE VOICE

Very informative Lin.

Lin,

I agree with Abe.

I have been trying to get a publisher for my Cuba book, and have gotten many compliments on the work, but the publishers have problems with marketability.

Last night I saw the woman who hung up on Obama, thinking it was a joke. As I was working in the kitchen I heard something about her link to the Cuban community. It struck me, I have mentioned as possible readers military wives and pilots, those who participated in the Cuban missile crisis, and those interested in the Cold War and history of the 60s. But never the Cuban community. And they are a part of the book. I even include a story by a friend who had 22 Cubans literally "washed up" on the shore in front of her house, to whom she gave whatever food she could find in her kitchen. I mention their hopes and dreams and include a chapter from an interview with a woman from Bulgaria who visited Cuba recently. But I forgot all about the Cuban community in this country. I am not sure how to play this out, but it does give me some ideas.

So finding a voice can be part of nonfiction, even part of marketability.

Right now I have sent materials to a university press. There is a city in my book from this state and I have hopes. I added to my marketability arguments, but I left out this one.

Carol

This sounds like a good project, Carol. There's bound to be a publisher for that.

Did you go to Cuba about this?

(I see Cuban refugees washed up right in front of my house all the time. The Mexican government is saying all these poor illegals coming in is a huge problem and they need to establish a "protective cordon". Like the irony in that one?)

Hello, Lin.

I read your article, and like Abe and Carol, found it very informative. And I agree with Carol that it applies as well to non-fiction as to fiction.

While I was writing A Myth in Action, I found I had a problem maintaining a single point of view, especially while writing of Murphy's war experiences. I had decided the best way to capture the immediacy of Murphy's war was to contrast it, as it appeared in To Hell and Back, with the war described in the third-person histories. Catching the differences meant using a good many quotations, sort of a contrast of those narrative voices. As a result, my own narration of the story had to shift POV depending on whose words I was using. As an English teacher, I had to come to terms with that continual shifting, but once I realized that my narration should use the same voice and tone as the sources I was quoting, it became easier.

Ann

Lin,

I think you need to make a distinction betwees narrative voice (as described in your article) and giving a group of people a voice (as described by Carol).

Ann,

It is good to see you here!!

Shelagh,

You are right.

However, I also think of the book read from the point of view of someone of Cuban background gives it a different voice, and perhaps that is giving a people a voice.

The book speaks of the meaning of freedom and the Cold War, but also of Kennedy's promise to the people of Cuba that has never come about. I am determined to find a publisher for this book, because I believe in its importance, and looking at narrative voice got me thinking of ways to improve it and make it more marketable.

Carol

Hi Carol.

I understand the importance of finding a voice that draws the reader into the story as much as the plot. The Power of Persuasion is thin on plot but I worked hard on the narrative voice. The fact that the story is told from the point of view of first person, gives readers who have never met me the impression that the story is about me. Those who know me read the book as told by Beth, not by me. At no time, from the very first sentence, do they assume that I am the one speaking. To me, this is the success of the book.

Everyone who reads the book enjoys it. I've only received one response from a reader who didn't say whether he enjoyed reading the book or not. He assumed the story was about me, which seemed to affect his opinion of the book.

One of my neighbours told me that he read the book in one sitting -- he couldn't put it down! I asked him if he thought it was me and he said no, it wasn't -- but he thought it was lovely, just lovely. I said that I had found a voice to tell the story and he agreed. I can't tell you how it made me feel.

Shelagh,

This is always difficult for me. People see me in books and stories where I never meant to put myself. I struggle with the difference between POV, and narrative voice. In my historical novel, Flow On Sweet Missouri, my POV changes as time progresses through five generations of ancestral women, and I do not show up until the very end. In my story book I published through lulu, people find me in all the stories, even though I am only meant to be in one and these stories are written from the POV of different women with differing personalities.

If you wrote in the voice of another and it is obvious it is not you I consider that a great accomplishment. I wrote a novel where the main character begins in my circumstances but these change to very different than those I live in and readers still see me.

(I feel like I'm sounding very egotistical here. )

My Cuba book is part memoir and part history book. Although told from my POV I consider it a kind of everywoman story, giving a voice to those who were young women in the 1960s and telling the story from this POV was important to me, not as a person but from my gender, acknowledging those who said good-bye in the middle of the night with nuclear war looming.

Carol

Great article, Lin. I think I understand the narrative voice now.
In Keechie, which I wrote in 1rst person, it was only loosely based on
my early life (setting, time and place), I narrated as if it was a
young boy around 16 writing the narrative. As he aged, so did the
"voice", but I tried to remain true to his perspective and his POV.

First person (for me) is way more difficult than third. I have read samples of second person and it makes my head hurt.

Narrative voice can be illustrated by comparing authors - say, Stephen
King and James Michener. Both very unique and identifiable.

Great article, Lin. I do so like your sense of humor!

First,

I would like to say to Ann, MY GOD! IT IS HIGH TIME YOU GOT HERE!!


The voice in Wooffer is kind of like the narrative voice in the old Once Upon A Time tales.

I love that kind of soothing narrative of stories that bathe the soul of children or adults in smiles. No abrasive attitude, no overt voice. But, voice is there, and opinion, and imagination.

I think that all good stories have those things. Voice, opinion, attitude and imagination. Presentation is the key.

I learn day by day and one day I will get it right.

Love,
Betty

How many of us struggle with "telling" a story instead of letting the story do the telling?

"show don't tell"

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/show-dont-tell/

You're right Shelagh.
When I read your reply however, "show and tell" came to mind. That's happens to be an event in my grand-daughter's kindergarten class. On her last "show and tell" day, she took a copy of my book. That girls has potential!

What abe said about letting a story tell itself has nothing to do with "show don't tell".

We tell stories. We don't show them. movie directors do that. Slide shows do that. Mimes.

Personally, I find "show don't tell" to be one of the more obnoxious, over-rated and over-cited little chestnuts in the writer advice tool kit.

There is PLENTY of "telling" going on in literature". And the more literary, the more so, actually.


But that doesn't have anything to do with the voice that tells the story.


The preceding has been an example of "telling remarks"

I can tell you are not best pleased about the off-topic remarks about telling tales (double entendre?)

I'm joking, I'm joking!

I write literary fiction and I tell more than I show. I agree with you about this particular little chestnut and I find the snotty group of wannabee writers who spout this particular mantra obnoxious in the extreme.

I'm glad I threw it in though to find out that I'm not the only one who thinks this!

You go, girl!

Lin,
It takes guts to tell it like it is. I like that.
When someone knows what they're talking about one can hear it in their voice or written expression. There are many seeking help and often are too timid to ask for fear of appearing dumb or foolish. The irony of that is that they are dumb or foolish if they don't ask.

I remember giving a seminar discussing the subject of learning. I asked, "Who does the most learning: A six year old, a 26 year old or a 56 year old?"
Most chose the 26 or the 56 year old. They were wrong.
A 26 year old most often with a college degree, won't ask questions for fear that they will appear dumb and should already know. The 56 year old feels with his age and wisdom feels he should know and also is also reluctant to ask. The six year old will ask questions that will drive a person nuts. The more they ask the more they learn. They don't have the inhibitions that adults have. They are also not apt to over analyze everything. Perhaps we should become more like children.
Now if you can tell me how to reverse the aging process.....

Abe,

I agree. I am often afraid to ask questions, but this is a good message board where there is a lot of patience for questions.

Lin does tell it like it is, but not in a threatening way.

Carol

Carol,
this is a good place to get some feedback on the remark one of your would-be publishers made concerning letting the story do the telling instead of the author doing the telling. It is not always an easy thing to do. I struggle with the same thing and I freely admit it.

Abe,

One thing I have been doing is going back and reading the book after a long period of time. One of my concerns is that in writing history I will use other's words, but in rereading I find myself with a voice, and when something isn't in that voice, I see it as a red flag that I need to make changes.

I also think that publisher you spoke of was looking for memoirs and personal experiences and mine is that as well as history, which is difficult to show, but I also think that is important. I strongly disagree with the way history is taught in schools today with dates and names, and try to look at issues and personalities and "show."

Story teller works better than showing for me. My daughter took the chapter I sent to the latest publisher and made some good changes, like calling my husband's plane with missiles a "chariot of doom." She also used names of people, like hers instead of "my little girl." She is a professional technical writer so this was outside her usual writing.

Carol

Lin, I hear what you are telling.

Carol,

You have written historical fiction, as I am trying to do right now. We have both been very careful to be historically accurate.

But I wonder: How accurate are our historical perceptions? I wonder if there really is an objective history. I am currently reading a history of the Civil War in Missouri - so vital to our mutual ancestors, written by a descendant of Unionist Jayhawkers, written, he says, from the perspective of the Secessionist Bushwackers, telling what he says is an objective version. (talk about needing a strong narrative voice!)

As you know, my direct maternal ancestor was, like so many in Missouri at the time, caught in the middle: her husband on one side, her brothers on the other.

These are stories that must be told - just as your story of the missle crisis must be told. Relating the action as directly as possible is, of course, important, but relating it through a unique voice, as you are doing with your story, is what makes for a special tale. Keep working and suvmitting. It's a great story.

Ann

Ann,

It sounds like you are making progress. Isn't the Civil War in Missouri interesting? It seems there are many voices when it comes to writing the history of this time.

Carol