Posts by Katrina Kittle
Voice is one of my favorite aspects of craft to play with and talk about. Voice was the subject of my very first post here at Writer Unboxed. Today’s post will be short and sweet—a nifty, easy peasy, so-simple-it-seems-stupid trick to strengthen voice in revision.
When I’m helping someone with a manuscript, I sometimes find that unique and distinctive character voices are inconsistent—the writer will create a memorable voice for her protagonist…but will then allow that voice to disappear for long passages of the story. Usually, the voice will be strong in passages containing dialogue, but will lose its edge at other times. Contemporary writers, for the most part, tell their stories using first person or third person subjective as their chosen style of narration—and in both of those cases, the narration should be filtered through the point of view character’s voice and should remain strong and present throughout. A helpful little trick I was taught along the way can help with those inconsistent, “voiceless” passages—infuse some “character cue.”
You infuse character cue by tweaking the passage so that it contains some flavor, some vestige of voice, through character attitude and tone.
[pullquote]You never want a line of narrative that could have been delivered by just any ol’ character in your novel, right? Ideally, you want every line to be imbued with that strong voice so the reader knows exactly who spoke it.[/pullquote]
Look at it this way: you never want a line of narrative that could have been delivered by just any ol’ character in your novel, right? Ideally, you want every line to be imbued with that strong voice so the reader knows exactly who spoke it.
For example, perhaps you’ve hit a point in your story where you wish to convey to the reader that a horse trotted across a field. Your point of view character is going to tell the reader this. But if you write “The horse trotted across the field,”…well, anyone could have said that, right? There’s nothing in that line that cues up the character for us as readers. Now, I know, I know: that’s a mighty short phrase, and you might very well have a phrase like that and it would be just fine—as long as it was buried in context and in surrounding sentences that were loaded with distinctive character voice.
But if you write, “The damn horse trotted across the field like I was invisible,” well, then, that’s someone talking to us. That’s not just anybody—that’s a particular somebody with a specific tone and attitude.
And if you write, “Of course the horse trotted across the field—what else was the poor thing to do?” that’s an entirely different person, isn’t it?
Read MorePerhaps this essay is only my desperate attempt to connect to spring in spite of the seven inches of additional snow currently falling on my yard and life. I should be glad to have a reason to stay inside and stick to my writing schedule, before gardening season distracts me. But I am itchy to get my hands in dirt.
My gardening is a little obsessive…friends tease me I have a problem. I used to worry about the time spent in the garden away from my pages. I felt guilty neglecting my novel in progress. But now I understand that the gardening actually feeds the writing in many ways. The most obvious way my garden enriches my writing is that it gives me something relatively mindless to do with my hands—which is exactly when the ideas flow. If I’m trying to figure out what happens next in the story or how to resolve a problem in a scene, I can’t just sit at the desk and expect the answers to come. The ideas come when I’m driving or running or mowing or washing dishes…or gardening. I never listen to music or the news in my garden. I like my mind open and free, while my hands are engaged. Many a scene has been created in my garden.
But beyond that most crucial gift, the gardening process is, in fact, quite similar to the writing process. Every step of the process in one has a parallel in the other.
The first step is to have an idea, right? It actually makes me laugh a bit when people ask me at signings and readings, “Where do you get your ideas?” (as if they want me to name a website or secret store). I don’t mean to be flippant, but I get my ideas from keeping my eyes open as a human being on this planet. I have so many ideas queued up in my brain (kind of like a Netflix queue, complete with the “move to top” option) that I will never be able to write them all in this lifetime. That is exactly how I feel when I look at seed and garden catalogues (or worse, when I am actually in the nursery and end up buying everything I want) “I want this, and this, and ooh, look at that! I need two of these, one in every color…”
But then, you have to eventually pick an idea and focus. You have to look at your space and decide which plants will actually thrive in your zone and soil and sun/shade conditions. I don’t have room for every single plant I’d like to grow, so I have to be picky. And just like with an idea for a novel, once I choose, I have to commit. You have to serve your story, and you serve your story by focusing on character motivation and conflict, not by straying off into tangents.
Early on in the gardening season, I deal with a lot of shit. Literally. Luscious, thick, black, fragrant compost…which is nothing but worm shit and decomposed other matter, usually mixed in with some velvety, ancient horse manure (which tomatoes adore) and chicken droppings raked […]
Read MoreI know, I know—an article in early January about New Year’s resolutions? How original is that? But I happen to be a list maker junkie and New Year’s resolutions are the mother of all lists, so I can’t help it. I look forward to setting new goals, charting my progress, marking off the accomplishments on the list (yes, I’m a geek). Lots of people despise resolutions and feel they set us up for failure, disappointment, and self-loathing (and who needs any more of those?), so if it’s not your thing, no worries. They work for me, and my only hard and fast motto for this crazy business of writing is “whatever works.” If making writing resolutions sounds like something that might galvanize you, too, then here are some tips that make your resolutions more likely to stick.
START WITH THE REVERSE OF RESOLUTIONS
While it is important to challenge ourselves, it’s just as important to acknowledge the things we already accomplished. I know, I know, we are taught not to “toot our own horn,” but really, it’s good to take a look at all you’ve done in the course of a year—good for the soul, good for the ego, just plain good any way you look at it. Take an indulgent, congratulatory look at all the cool stuff you did between this year and last. It will make you feel proud, it will make you feel kinder towards yourself, and it’s a nice affirmation.
Some years, your list might include more “biggies” than others, for example “I landed an agent,” or “I published my fifth novel,” or, for me, 2014 included “I finally started teaching online writing classes after people have been bugging me to for years” (I have brand new ones beginning January 15 if you’re interested…) and “finished a draft of a new novel.”
But be sure to include accomplishments no one else might recognize or know about, such as: “Never got lost a single time while renting a car on book tour” or “Stopped going to writing group with X because it was toxic and not giving me anything.”
You get the idea. Nothing that comes to mind is too small to include. Sometimes, on discouraging days, it helps to go back and read your list—especially on days you feel you aren’t living up to your resolutions. You’ll go over your list and think, “Look at me. Look at all I did. Okay, tomorrow is another day. I’m inspired to do better.”
Start making your list. Look at you! Look at how strong, kickass and interesting you are!
Don’t you feel better already?
MAKE SURE THE OUTCOME IS IN YOUR OWN HANDS
As you make a list of resolutions for your writing life in 2015, don’t allow anyone else to control your success or failure. It’s not a good idea to resolve “I will be published in 2015” or “I will become a bestseller in 2015” because that outcome is not something you can actually control.
Read MoreLouis L’Amour has a quote I love: “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” I use this quote often in my classes. I even have this quote posted on the bulletin board in my office.
Why, then, why why why do I need to re-learn this at least once a year?
This fall has been an overwhelming, but exciting time for me. I combined households with the love of my life, not only moving but putting my old house up for sale and the relentless cross-one-thing-off-the-list-then-add-three-more insanity of that process, all while also starting a new venture in teaching online fiction courses…and attempting to finish the draft of my new novel.
What does this have to do with turning the faucet on, you might ask? Well, I do this thing, when life gets too frenetic, where I begin thinking things like, “Let me just go finish spackling and then I’ll come back to write,” or “I’ll be able to focus on the writing better if I just go ahead and unpack my office boxes,” and “I have to get everything ready for class tonight before I sink into the writing.”
Blah blah blah. I’ve been here before. I know better! But I fell into the trap again. Please tell me that some of you do the same thing and I’m not alone in this? And here’s what happens: with each passing day, it gets easier not to write. After a week, self-doubt creeps in and you begin to wonder if the project is even worth your time anyway. Two weeks out and you lose sight of what you were trying to do with the story at all. You begin to believe your stupid lie: “I’ll write again when I figure out where the book is going.”
What shamed me out of it was the “Inspiration & Motivation” class I was teaching. In that class, we spent half the time on prompts and exercises to help writers start (or finally finish) a project, and the other half on some aspect of the writing life…such as creating and defending a writing schedule (see where this is going?).
Read MorePlease welcome Katrina Kittle to Writer Unboxed as a regular contributor. Katrina is the author of four novels for adults—Traveling Light, Two Truths and a Lie, The Kindness of Strangers, and The Blessings of the Animals— and one novel for tweens, Reasons to Be Happy. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and is an experienced teacher of creative writing as well as a manuscript consultant. You can learn more about Katrina in her bio box at the end of this post.
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No matter if you’re writing in first person or third, it’s vital for our characters to have distinctive voices. Your characters should sound like individual people. I know that in my own first drafts, my characters all end up sounding like each other, which essentially means they sound like me.
Let’s talk about what creates a voice, then look at published samples of distinctive voices, then, finally, go through some simple exercises that will help us create these individual voices in our own stories.
What Creates a Voice?
Vocabulary is the most obvious ingredient, as are expressions, idioms, and favorite curse words. Voice is also shaped by the character’s gender, age, education, occupation, geography (Where do they live? What country? Urban or rural?), time period, class, attitude, vocal patterns, their use of figurative language, and essentially every single thing they’ve ever experienced in their life! I’m not kidding—everything that makes up your character’s real life informs the way she sees the world, and therefore informs the way she speaks.
As you can see, voice, then, is deeply connected to characterization. It’s so difficult to isolate one aspect of our craft from the others because they’re all so braided together. Clear voice is aided by knowing your character inside and out.
Samples
I know for me, it helps to see concrete examples, rather than talking about it in the abstract. In the following short excerpts, note how unique each voice is from the others. You would never mistake any of these characters for each other. Oh, and I want to point out that I adored all three of these novels and encourage you to read them!
The first is from Things We Didn’t Say by Kristina Riggle (William Morrow, 2011):
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