Literary Laryngitis

[Writers Plot]

posted by Leann Sweeney

That title sounds self-serious and ridiculous all at once, doesn't it? I guess that sums up my personality. But this is not a post about me, but rather about the other me--a new character who needs a voice. And she doesn't have one. Not yet.

I have been writing a certain series heroine for years, one who jumped onto the page immediately. Guess I'd been planning her birth for years, so that could be the reason. Her name is Abby Rose and you should visit her anywhere books are available. She's pretty cool. (You didn't plan on commercials, did you?) Anyway, I now have the challenge of writing a new protagonist. I thought I was prepared. Apparently not. This is much harder than I thought.

Voice is something special. Voice is what sells a book to an editor. Voice is also a word that appears often in rejection letters--e.g. "Your hero's voice wasn't unique enough." Oh, I used to read letters with the V word A LOT. It can also stand for Vague. No one can really define voice adequately, they just know it when they read it. (Or hear it. Did you know two of the Yellow Rose Mysteries are now out on audio from Recorded Books. Sorry couldn't help myself).

My new character has a name and a backstory and a place to live. She just won't talk to me. I put words on the page and they simply don't sound like her words. Not that they sound like me. Maybe that means I'm onto something.I know what she doesn't sound like, what she wouldn't do. Today I turned to my favorite writing book for help--Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain. There's plenty of wonderful advice on creating characters, things I hope I've done, but those apparently aren't what I need do to make her pop off the page and say hello. I suspect Dwight Swain was too smart to insert a section on voice (it's not in the index). Voice is invisible and yet obvious. Voice is what gives a reader confidence in the author, assurance that this author knows what he or she is doing. And yet voice comes from the author's subconscious--a subconscious that guides you without you even knowing what's going on. This is irony at its best and its most challenging.

What to do when faced with this dilemma--this character with laryngitis? I've been worrying about this for weeks, written and rewritten and have come to the conclusion that, as I said in last week's post, writing is about persistence and patience. Voice cannot be forced, it must be discovered. Voice doesn't show up in words and character action, it only exists between the lines. Yes. Invisible and yet obvious. And magical.

I will wait on this woman I plan to create, a character I hope comes across as believable and sympathetic and your next best friend. But one thing's for sure, she will talk to me when she's damn good and ready. This is the kind of laryngitis that must run its course.

[Pepper Smith]

Ooooh, I have one of those. I'd been trying to get a story off the ground with this character for the past couple of years, but she just wasn't talking to me. Very very frustrating. I finally tracked it down to having her with the wrong job and family connections. It was amazing how quickly her voice came into focus once I figured out she wasn't who I had been trying to write her as. We're at 24,500 words and counting now, which feels great after two years of trying to get her to tell me about herself.