Friday Feedback with Selene Castrovilla: Voice - The Heart of Your Story

Me, in my other true element. 

Ah, dear campers,

Somehow, too quickly, this is the last "official" Friday Feedback of our 2105 Teachers Write! summer. 

How ridiculously unfair!

I will post an unofficial wrap up with gifts, advice, links and giveaways next Friday, and welcome as many of you who still have time and stamina to show up there! I also remind you to read through the comments on our "So You Want to Join a Critique Group" post and chime in if you want to make connections there.

Now, without further ado, today's pretty amazing guest author, Selene Castrovilla* author of several picture books including the award-winning REVOLUTIONARY FRIENDS, as well as several young adult novels, is here to talk about that ever elusive and ever important, "VOICE" in story. How to find it and what it means.

Selene's most recent YA novel, MELT, "a brutal love story," has sure got a strong one going throughout! I know because I've read it. More particularly, I tore through it, heart-racing, and you will too. 

MELT has garnered SIX honors and awards, and none other than Jacqueline Woodson (BROWN GIRL DREAMING) has said about Selene & MELT that Selene is ". . . a writer worth watching." 


Jacqueline Woodson, so, I mean, it doesn't get much better than that.

p.s. the original post on voice sent to me by Selene was over 14 pages long! Um, FOURTEEN PAGES!! Too long for a blog post, but, gosh, don't you just love our guest authors?!? If you would like to read the entire post, with its many incredible examples, feel free to email me (g.polisner@gmail.com) and I will forward it to you for your reading pleasure! 

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If you like and have used this post, please check out my books HERE. 

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Now, here's Selene:

We often refer to voice in this most mystical sounding way: “You found your voice!” And while there is an ethereal aspect to writing which cannot be taught, voice is in fact something stemming from craft. Voice is not inspiration. Voice is the result of the writer transitioning inspiration into story using specific tools and techniques. Voice is the result of damn hard work and determination.

Patti Lee Gauch, one of the greatest children’s book editors, asks this question of writers: “Did you go far enough?”

Voice is what happens when you go far enough.

"Voice is the heart of your story. Literally: it is the mighty muscle though which our story’s life’s blood circulates and flows. Figuratively: It is the core, it is the essence. It is the truth."

Voice is the heart of your story. Literally: it is the mighty muscle though which our story’s life’s blood circulates and flows. Figuratively: It is the core, it is the essence. It is the truth.

Voice separates mediocre and even good writing from great. Voice is what makes you root for the hero, and even feel for the anti-hero. Voice leads to total immersion; comprehensive investment by the reader. If you put a book down without finishing, its voice did not compel you.

Voice is the way your story is told, in every aspect. It requires meticulous attention to details.

Everything we include in our story must circulate through voice.

Here’s how:

Character

Character is, of course, where we start. Plot stems from character. Because it is your character’s personality that determines where they will head, and how they will react to their circumstances. If Harry Potter had been a little jerk, things would’ve gone done differently at Hogwarts.

If you love a book you love the character’s journey (even if they are anti-heroes, you can can still enjoy their ride to either redemption or ruination.) Your character is your voice, because your story stems through his perceptions and experiences and choices. But we must develop this voice carefully and completely.

How do we present our character’s voice effectively? We must know it intimately. We must become this character.

Examples:

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger:

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

What if it had been written like this: 

“I don’t feel like talking about my childhood. Especially not my parents.”

It boils down to the same information, but it lacks the voice. See the difference!?

Setting

It’s not enough to describe a powerful setting. This setting must be seen through the voice: the eyes and mood of your character. And if there’s more than one point of view, you must accomplish this multiple times. This is the most commonly ignored element I see. Your setting is not just a description of a place because no two people see a place the same way. 

Examples:

Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“Somebody put a calendar on the bulletin board in my room. I guess they wanted to make sure I knew what day it was. I think I heard a voice say, ‘You can make the days.’ That’s a funny thing to do with days. Mark them. Put an X on them. Cross them out.”

What if it had been written like this:

“There was a calendar in my room. They said I could mark off the days.”

America by E.R. Frank

        “You have to watch what you say around here because everything you say means something and somebody's always telling you what you mean.

         ‘Step off,’ I tell this nurse when she tries to get me to eat.

         ‘You mean, thank you for caring,’ she says. ‘You’re welcome.’

         ‘I need a lighter,’ I tell her, and she goes, ‘You mean you want a lighter. Dream on, sweetheart.’

         So I take their medicine and walk around in socks the ay they make you, and stay real quiet.”

What if it had been written like this:

“I’m stuck in this hospital where everything is misconstrued. So I comply with their rules and stay quiet.”

Sensory Details

The sensory details our character observes are totally dependent on that character’s state of mind, which lends to voice.

Examples:

The Catcher in the Rye

“Then she introduced me to this Navy guy.  His name was Commander Blop or something.  He was one of those guys that think they’re being a pansy if they don’t break around forty of your fingers when they shake hands with you.  God, I hate that stuff.”

What if it had been written like this:

“She introduced me to her date, a Navy fellow. He had a strong handshake.”

Precision of Language

 We have a rich language. So many words mean basically the same thing, but they possess different moods and shades. The texture of the words we choice weaves voice.

If you want your character to appear depressed or downtrodden, have them plod across the floor. If they are playful, have them scamper. When I wanted my character to be disdainful to the legal process (and in general), I gave him the line: “The assistant DA rolls in.” I could’ve used “strolls,” but “rolls” says so much more. That sentence has voice.

Sensory words

I also like to use words that have a sensory feeling to them, in conjunction with the voice:

glints - shiny, but it feels sharp

stammers - struggles to get words out, but with a brutal, stamping feel

Gustave Flaubert famously coined the term “le mot juste:” the right word. He labored to find the precise word which would reveal the truth on the page. I, too,believe that we must search for le mot juste. In fact, I find great satisfaction in this thrill of the word chase. One of my great joys is using  my Flip Dictionary (by Barbara Ann Kipfer, published by Writer’s Digest books.) It’s a thesaurus on steroids. Meant for writers, it will provide you with inspiration and aha! moments to enrich not only your story, but also you.

Here’s an example of both precision of language & sensory words:

As I lay Dying by William Faulkner

“It’s because he stays out there, right under the window, hammering and sawing on that goddamn box. Where she’s got to see him. Where every breath she draws is full of his knocking and sawing where she can see him saying See. See what a good one I am making for you. I told him to go somewhere else. I said Good God do you want to see her in it. It’s like when he was a little boy and she says if she had some fertilizer she would try to raise some flowers and he taken the bread pan and brought it back from the barn full of dung.

And now them others sitting there, like buzzards. Waiting, fanning themselves. Because I said If you wouldn’t keep on sawing and nailing at it until a man cant sleep even and her hands laying on the quilt like two of them roots dug up and tried to wash and you couldn’t get them clean.”

What if it was written like this:

“Cash is building my mother’s coffin right under her window. And the rest of the family sits in her room waiting for her to die.”

Pacing

Never underestimate the power of pacing to influence your voice. Pacing runs side by side with word choice, because the words you use determine your pacing. Short, staccato word chains create a different pace that long, weightier words.

Play with words as you build your sentences!

stumbles vs. trips

collapses vs. falls

wounded vs. hurt

Shift in voice

Voice can also do a shift. It can be dark to darkest, as in Macbeth by William Shakespeare

In the beginning Macbeth says:

“Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the darkest day.”

In the end he says:

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

It can be hopeless to hopeful, as in You Don’t Know Me by David Klass:

In the beginning John says:

“You don’t know me.

Just for example, you think I’m upstairs in my room doing my homework. Wrong…And I am not in this house at all. I am in the middle of a hurricane. Thunder is cymbal-crashing above and beneath me. Lightening makes my hair stand up. Winds are spinning me like a top…You don’t know me at all.”

In the end he realizes:

“I look up into your eyes and I see the truth there, and I admit that I was mistaken all along.

So you do know me, Mom.

So you do know who I am after all.”

But this shift must be a consequence of the character’s journey. It can't appear out of nowhere. If that happens, the reader is at the least dissatisfied, and at the most disgusted. An unjustified shift of voice at the end is what makes us “hate that book” even if we enjoyed it to that point.

I hope this has helped you. (Oh, it has, Selene!! It has! It's a pretty extraordinary post!) 

And, now, since it's Friday Feedback, let's share bits of our work that reflect a strong moment of voice. Here's a moment from SIGNS OF LIFE, the sequel to MELT, due out January 2016! And if you're new to Friday Feedback, don't forget to scroll to the bottom of this link to read THE RULES. 

xox Selene (& gae)

Joey –Now

            I ain’t talked with her for almost a year.

            Scratch that. Shit. Grammar is a biatch. Do I get points for substituting ‘biatch’ in for the word I’d normally use? Doubtful. Mrs. Baker’s not cutting any breaks for stuff like that. She would say it would be better for me to avoid all such terms. She would go, “Grammar is unpleasant, Joseph. I believe that is what you meant to convey.”

            Not go. Say. “People ‘say,’ Joseph.” That's what Mrs. Baker would say. “They speak.”

            Right, Mrs. Baker. You're absolutely right. People speak.

            Except when they don’t.

            Except when they can’t.

            Sometimes they ‘go,’ but it has nothing to do with speaking. Or leaving for that matter. Sometimes they go even when they’re here, and that sucks.

            Oh, sorry Mrs. Baker. I mean, that is unpleasant.

            But really, it sucks.

            I promised her I’d graduate, and go to community college. Not Mrs. Baker. Doll. I promised Doll. I didn’t think I’d get in to the college, but she said “Try, just try,” and so I applied, and they took me. Go figure.