Yesterday, browsing in the library, I picked up a book. I hadn’t intended to pick it up, or read three pages, or bring the book home with me. But I did. What made me choose the book? It was in a mildly interesting non-fiction section, but the main reason I opted for that particular book was the voice of the title and writing, welcoming me in to the opening pages.
‘I’d like more of this,’ my reading mind told me.
‘Then that is what you shall have’’ I replied.
So now the book has added a teeny tiny smidgeon to the writer’s PLR and is waiting at home here, by my bed.
I often fall in love with a book for its ‘voice’, that magic quality that brings a subtle wit to the way the writer writes, gives glimpses of the writer’s stance on their story, adds cadence and rhythm to their style – and is often lost when a book is ‘translated’ into a film.
Voice is there from the very start, confidently carrying us into the story. How about this opening to Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate diCamillo?
My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice and two tomatoes, and I came back with a dog. This is what happened. I walked into the produce section of the Winn-Dixie grocery store to pick out my two tomatoes and I almost bumped right into the store manager. He was standing there all red-faced, screaming and waving his arms around.
‘Who let a dog in here?’ he kept on shouting. ‘Who let a dirty dog in here?’
Or this from ‘I Catherine, Called Birdy’ by Karen Cushman, set in the 13th Century:
12th Day of September: I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.
13th Day of September: My father must suffer from ale head this day for he cracked me twice before dinner instead of once. I hope his angry liver bursts.
14th Day of September: Tangled my spinning again. Corpus bones, what a torture.
15th Day of September: Today the sun shone and the villagers sowed hay, gathered apples and pulled fish from the stream. I, trapped inside, spend two hours embroidery on a cloth for the church and three hours picking out my stitches after mother saw it. I wish I was a villager.
My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice and two tomatoes, and I came back with a dog. This is what happened. I walked into the produce section of the Winn-Dixie grocery store to pick out my two tomatoes and I almost bumped right into the store manager. He was standing there all red-faced, screaming and waving his arms around.
‘Who let a dog in here?’ he kept on shouting. ‘Who let a dirty dog in here?’
Or this from ‘I Catherine, Called Birdy’ by Karen Cushman, set in the 13th Century:
12th Day of September: I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.
13th Day of September: My father must suffer from ale head this day for he cracked me twice before dinner instead of once. I hope his angry liver bursts.
14th Day of September: Tangled my spinning again. Corpus bones, what a torture.
15th Day of September: Today the sun shone and the villagers sowed hay, gathered apples and pulled fish from the stream. I, trapped inside, spend two hours embroidery on a cloth for the church and three hours picking out my stitches after mother saw it. I wish I was a villager.
Or even this opening, written many years ago:
This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I think when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about the looking.
There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how beastly it is when a story begins, “‘Alas!” said Hildegarde with a deep sigh, “we must look our last on this ancestral home”’—and then some one else says something—and you don’t know for pages and pages where the home is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it.
Our ancestral home is in the Lewisham Road. It is semi-detached and has a garden, not a large one. We are the Bastables. There are six of us besides Father. Our Mother is dead, and if you think we don’t care because I don’t tell you much about her you only show that you do not understand people at all.
Dora is the eldest. Then Oswald—and then Dicky. Oswald won the Latin prize at his preparatory school—and Dicky is good at sums. Alice and Noel are twins: they are ten, and Horace Octavius is my youngest brother. It is one of us that tells this story—but I shall not tell you which: only at the very end perhaps I will. While the story is going on you may be trying to guess, only I bet you don’t. It was Oswald who first thought of looking for treasure. Oswald often thinks of very interesting things. And directly he thought of it he did not keep it to himself, as some boys would have done, but he told the others, and said—
‘I’ll tell you what, we must go and seek for treasure: it is always what you do to restore the fallen fortunes of your House.’
From, rather obviously, The Story of The Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit, with that proud but quietly voiced aside: ‘I will not tell you which’.
I love the completeness within those three first-person openings, and the way the writer leads the reader securely into the whole ‘amusement’ of the story, with no doubt, continuing small asides and comments throughout the whole narrative.
The Jericho Writers website, which offers writing tuition and other services, says that: ‘Voice is to writing as personality is to humans’ and ‘refers to the author’s writing style, or authorial voice. It is the stylistic imprint of the individual author – their unique, signature style, if you like.‘
It ‘should have an instantly recognisable quality, or personality, and it should remain present throughout the novel. It’s what will captivate your readers and hook an agent.’
A distinctive ‘voice’ can hook an agent, but can be a mixed blessing. I never read a certain historical writer’s popular tomes because I can hear no ‘voice’ within his writing. However, after indulging in a vivid series of crime novels set and around in and around the Florida Everglades, I wanted no more, no more, no more of that once-captivating tone.
Does the same fate affect strongly-voiced writers on social media too? When does the distinctive tone that so interested us in a blogpost or Sub-stack article suddenly become too much, and turn readers away? Or, worse, be too strong a reminder of the personality’s real voice, and all that comes with it?
A distinctive ‘voice’ can hook an agent, but can be a mixed blessing. I never read a certain historical writer’s popular tomes because I can hear no ‘voice’ within his writing. However, after indulging in a vivid series of crime novels set and around in and around the Florida Everglades, I wanted no more, no more, no more of that once-captivating tone.
Does the same fate affect strongly-voiced writers on social media too? When does the distinctive tone that so interested us in a blogpost or Sub-stack article suddenly become too much, and turn readers away? Or, worse, be too strong a reminder of the personality’s real voice, and all that comes with it?
Oh heavens. I’d like to have a ‘voice’, but please let it be a good one!
Wishing you all Happy Reading and Writing for November.
Penny Dolan
ps. For anyone still curious, the chosen book came from the Cookery shelves in the library, and is 'Midnight Chicken (& Other Recipes Worth Living For' by Ella Risbridger, who describes herself as 'Writer, bit of everything. More butter than toast.' I hadn't heard of Ella either, but the book does start more dramatically than most cook books, and is full of the kind of simple enjoyment that can bring comfort on too-wide-wake nights. She is also a poet and has a newsletter You Get in Love and Then You Die. Which contains, surprisingly recipes and other stuff.
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