Re: Things I see over and over in amateur writing...
For years I've tried to figure out writer's "voice". (I know the pros will probably giggle their brains out -- because it's probably always been obvious to them.)
But I'm self-taught, a product of the idiot American public school system that never taught grammar. Essentially I fake it. I've been writing fiction since I was around six, and reading fiction, so just by brute force, I learned to put a couple of words together.
When I started messing around with screenplays, twenty years ago, I already had a "voice". (Even though I didn't know it at the time.) Then I started reading books by the paint by number gurus and lost it.
Most of these guru book writers have good ideas, but unfortunately they go from good ideas to dogmatic decrees. I think almost all these gurus dissect a screenplay from a finished product and make broad assumptions about how it was created. And then, even worse, they make the leap to include how "ALL other screenplays" were created.
One simple formula in a shoe box that also includes a shoe horn is all you need. (Maybe they should include at least two shoehorns, because to make every script fit in one formula means you're going to use that shoehorn a lot.) A one-size-fits-all formula is a brain corrosive to the creative process.
It's like deciding all screenplays should be cats. So when a perfectly good screenplay is a dog -- some of the formula spewers think you need to surgically screw with that perfectly good dog and make a Frankenstein freak that's supposed to resemble a cat. You end up with a f*cked up dog and nothing close to a cat.
Maybe specific formulas work for non-fiction, like technical writing. I don't know, I'm not a technical writer. But fiction is not a creature that's supposed to be caged, neutered, lobotomized and conformed with specific do-s and don't-s. If you're already, painfully aware of that, then congrats -- you're not infected with formula-itus.
Back to "voice". Don't ask me to give you a dictionary description of writer's voice in twenty-five words or less. I don't know if I can do it. But I know for awhile, I lost my voice and now I got it back.
Maybe the easiest way to describe it is: It's the confidence to write fiction that's not boring as hell.
I could be wrong about that, but it's a lot more fun to write when you have a voice.
For years I've tried to figure out writer's "voice". (I know the pros will probably giggle their brains out -- because it's probably always been obvious to them.)
But I'm self-taught, a product of the idiot American public school system that never taught grammar. Essentially I fake it. I've been writing fiction since I was around six, and reading fiction, so just by brute force, I learned to put a couple of words together.
When I started messing around with screenplays, twenty years ago, I already had a "voice". (Even though I didn't know it at the time.) Then I started reading books by the paint by number gurus and lost it.
Most of these guru book writers have good ideas, but unfortunately they go from good ideas to dogmatic decrees. I think almost all these gurus dissect a screenplay from a finished product and make broad assumptions about how it was created. And then, even worse, they make the leap to include how "ALL other screenplays" were created.
One simple formula in a shoe box that also includes a shoe horn is all you need. (Maybe they should include at least two shoehorns, because to make every script fit in one formula means you're going to use that shoehorn a lot.) A one-size-fits-all formula is a brain corrosive to the creative process.
It's like deciding all screenplays should be cats. So when a perfectly good screenplay is a dog -- some of the formula spewers think you need to surgically screw with that perfectly good dog and make a Frankenstein freak that's supposed to resemble a cat. You end up with a f*cked up dog and nothing close to a cat.
Maybe specific formulas work for non-fiction, like technical writing. I don't know, I'm not a technical writer. But fiction is not a creature that's supposed to be caged, neutered, lobotomized and conformed with specific do-s and don't-s. If you're already, painfully aware of that, then congrats -- you're not infected with formula-itus.
Back to "voice". Don't ask me to give you a dictionary description of writer's voice in twenty-five words or less. I don't know if I can do it. But I know for awhile, I lost my voice and now I got it back.
Maybe the easiest way to describe it is: It's the confidence to write fiction that's not boring as hell.
I could be wrong about that, but it's a lot more fun to write when you have a voice.
Comment