I\u2019m never going to claim that I\u2019m a good writer but I have been writing for a long time and there is something I\u2019ve seen. Actually, I see it quite often and in fact this time I saw it seven weeks ago. To the day. I\u2019ve waited this long to talk to you about it so that there\u2019s no chance the person involved can figure out it\u2019s got anything to do with them. <\/p>\n
Clearly, I\u2019m chicken. <\/p>\n
But also while they are the one who prompted the thought this time, they\u2019re far from the first and this is hardly a new issue. It\u2019s the voice. The writers\u2019 voice.<\/p>\n
I think now that if you\u2019re new to writing, you ignore voice because you just don\u2019t get what it is. And that if you\u2019re not new to it, if you have found your writers\u2019 voice, you ignore it because you can\u2019t write any other way and, besides, it\u2019s not something that takes any thought.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s new to me is this: I think now that voice is the divider between a writer who is good or experienced, and one who is not. And even more specifically and precisely, I now think you can see the division because the inexperienced writer puts voice in quote marks.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I saw on Twitter on Friday 29 September. A writer I vaguely know made a sarcastic comment about \u2018voice\u2019 and reading it, I knew she didn\u2019t know what it is.<\/p>\n
Voice is the undefinable something that makes my writing different to yours. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s how I walked into my kitchen while Fi Glover was on the radio and I recognised her immediately because I\u2019d just read one of her books<\/a>. <\/p>\n It is the choice of words, yes. It is the patterns and the rhythms, yes. It\u2019s just somehow more than that. Which is fitting because voice is not something you can define very well and it\u2019s not something you can learn.<\/p>\n I mean, even if you didn\u2019t happen to know what voice was until a minute ago, you get it now yet that\u2019s not the same thing as having your own voice in your own writing. You can be taught what the term means, you can\u2019t be taught how to do it.<\/p>\n You only get there through writing more and more. It\u2019s not as if you get your voice when you\u2019ve passed a thousand or a million words, either. It happens eventually or it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Which is in truth why I was so keen to talk to you about this and why I felt I had to wait seven weeks. To the day. Because the real reason this one tweet stood out to me was that a day or two before, this same writer happened to come up in conversation and I had been saying that there is something missing in her work. <\/p>\n I was in a car driving a colleague who thinks she\u2019s taking a long time to write her novel and who is worrying about it as we all do. I\u2019ve read an early draft of her piece and I was trying to convey why I like it and in fact like it so much more than she does. I like it because it has life and verve, because there is something more behind the choice of words and the choice of rhythm and pace. I think her novel is alive.<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s because I was driving, but for some reason it wasn\u2019t until I read the tweet that I made the connection. My car colleague\u2019s unfinished novel has voice. And this tweeter\u2019s published ones don\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m never going to claim that I\u2019m a good writer but I have been writing for a long time and … Continue reading