Finding Your Voice through the Slush (and Slush Monsters)

“I will wade through dim and perilous fens of slush for voice.”
Editorial Anonymous

You’ve been there, sitting in the third row on the left. The conference organizer introduces the next speaker- a Very Important Editor from a Major Publishing House. After the editor’s wise words on “Latest Trends in Publishing” or “Why Picture Books Are Really Truly Going to Bounce Back, Pretty Soon” she gets to the part everyone in the room wants to hear-

“This is what I want to acquire…”

And year after year, editor after editor, she says the exact same thing.

“I am looking for a manuscript with a fresh, strong voice.”

Wait. Stop.

We’re writers. We know all about voice, right?

Miriam-Webster defines it as “a musical sound produced by the vocal folds…”

?

When it comes to writing what exactly is “voice”?

Maybe voice isn’t so easy to define with “mere words,” but like Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said of obscenity, we “know it when we see it.” Sarah Aronson says “When I first started writing, I thought that voice was some mystical element I either had or I didn’t. Now I know that just like everything else, voice can be taught. It can be acquired. Through hard work, intention, and knowing all your characters, every writer can find an authentic voice for their book.” If voice is the thing that causes editors to wade- nay snorkel- through the slush we need to learn to spot it—but more than that we need to discover our own unique voices and begin to capture them in words on the page.

Join Sarah, me and Sarah Sullivan at our one day Writer's Center workshop “Writing for Young Readers: Finding Your Voice.” I’ll kick off the morning with an introductory talk- I HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR- Learning to open our hearts, minds, and ears. Sarah Sullivan will follow with KEEPING IT REAL- IS THAT MY VOICE OR IS IT MY EVIL TWIN. Sarah’s lectures and exercises have inspired writers to create award-winning work in voices they never suspected they had (REALLY! It’s true!). Sarah Aronson will round things out with DEVELOPING VOICE THROUGH DIALOGUE: How secondary characters can help you find your voice. Sarah is an expert teacher and her classes and workshops have yielded many debut novels and newly discovered talent. All day long we’ll have “talk breaks” and writing workouts. Plus there will be plenty of opportunity for informal questions on any topic from character development to publishing and marketing.

Sarah, Sarah and I look forward to seeing you there, loud, proud and ready to raise your voices!

Tami Lewis Brown, along with Sarah Sullivan and Sarah Aronson, will be leading the one-day workshop Writing for Young Readers: Finding Your Voice on Sunday 11/6. You can sign up for their workshop here.

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Experienced lecturers and teachers, within the last five years Sarah Aronson (above), Sarah Sullivan (center) and Tami Lewis Brown (left) have published nearly a dozen picture books and middle grade and YA novels with major publishing houses. They hold M.F.A.s in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Brontes Reborn in Twilight

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Those of you who're planning on avoiding watching football and heading off to see a movie after your big dinner may want to check out the vampire flick Twilight.

After posting last week, Carollyne Hutter suggested writing about the just-released film. Because I've heard so much about the book that the film is based on--and pretty much ALL of it was negative--I was curious to see what Carollyne had to say about the film. Since she's also writing YA fiction, this seems pretty apt. Here's Carollyne.
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Last week I joined the throngs of teenagers and read the wildly popular, young adult novel—Twilight, which was just released as a motion picture. As I wandered into Bella’s story of love to a vampire, I kept getting interrupted by a nagging feeling, like an itch that won’t go away—this book reminds of something else. Then it hit me. Twilight is like a Bronte novel, especially Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.

Take Edward, the love interest of Twilight. In many ways he’s another Heathcliff—the perfect hero and anti-hero. Edward keeps saving Bella in the novel (ah, the hero), yet his inherent desire is to suck her blood (the anti-hero). Both Edward and Heathcliff epitomize the Byronic hero—they’re moody, mysterious, magnetic men with a streak of danger to them. It’s interesting that Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward in the movie, is British. And what is also telling is at the end of Wuthering Heights, Nelly wonders if Heathcliff is a ghoul or vampire.

The setting for Twilight is very Bronte-like, very Gothic. The dark, constantly wet, verdant Olympic Peninsula of Washington state evokes an image similar to the moors of England. Both are precarious places where you can easily lose your way.

Twilight in general has a very anti-modern, antiquated feel to it. Even though the novel is supposed to be set in current time, little modern technology exists in it. In reality, technology is a lifeline for most middle-class American teenagers: their lives are full of text messaging, IMs, Facebook, and Youtube. All these are absent in the novel.

Twilight’s strong connection with the Brontes reminds me as a writer not to forget the classics. The classics can help a modern writer in so many ways. Jane Austin’s delight, insightful novels have spawned a whole industry of current novels that use her plots, including my favorite: Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary.

So I think it’s time for me to re-visit the classics, many of which I read when I was in my teens or an undergraduate in college. This time when I read the novels I am going to look at them not with the eyes of a reader or student, but as a writer. My questions for these works of art are: Why did they become classics, why have they lived on? And why is modern, popular culture drawing from them?

To help me with my journey, I discovered two great resources, although there are many more out there. One is Nancy Lemann’s Inspired by Literature class at The Writer’s Center. The other is Francine Prose’s book: Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Like One.

I wonder as I begin this journey, or shall I say quest, what other old, but forgotten friends, like Heathcliff, I will meet along the way. And what illustrious places we will revisit together.

About Carollyne Hutter: For over a decade, she has been a freelance writer/editor in the Washington, DC area, specializing in international and environmental topics. Her website— http://www.hutterwriter.com/—will be up soon. Please visit the site to read Carollyne’s stories (including the opening chapters of Homesick), quirky essays, and nonfiction pieces. You can contact her at sayhi@hutterwriter.com.