Hooray, Hooray,
it’s Election Day! So, here’s my special public service announcement…
Vote!
Let your voice be
heard.
Well, now that we’ve
got that out of the way, let’s make sure your voice is heard in another way as
well.
Yeah – I’m
talking about on the page.
Editors and
agents will tell you that they’re always
on the lookout for new “voices.” And no, they are not referring to the posse of
little voices that reside inside their own heads.
They’re talking
about new writers who say what they say in a unique sort of way.
Well, that sounds
easy enough for us scribblers to do, right?
But here’s the
rub –
You can learn
grammar. You can learn punctuation. You can learn plot, conflict, suspense,
telescoping, flashback, foreshadowing….etc… etc.
Until the cows
come home…
from jumping over
the moon.
But you can’t
learn voice.
Voice is
something you must find.
And where do you
find it?
In a box?
With a fox?
In the rain?
On a train?
No. No. No. No.
You find it in a
thousand pages of scribbles and notes and stories and poems and drafts and revisions
–
which is one
great reason why NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo are such wonderful challenges.
Because after 30
days of slamming scenes on the page, you’ll probably start to notice that your
words no longer sound like they’re fresh from Seuss, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King,
Chuck Norris, or the neighbor’s fat cat.
They’ll sound
like they’re coming from you.
And if you listen
closely, you might hear something else as well…
Those little
voices inside the heads of editors and agents offering up a great BIG
little-voice cheer!
They’ll hoot and
holler, whoop and rejoice!
For they’ll have
found an amazing VOICE!
One that’s fingerprint-snowflake
YOU—
And wonderfully,
totally,
brand spanking NEW!
PROMPT: Find your voice by exploring those “little voices” inside the heads of your
main characters. Are they mostly happy chatter, fuming rants, or basically “Bacon,
bacon, bacon”? Hmmm… what if one’s a vegetarian… or has political differences…
or wants OUT?
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