{"id":1914,"date":"2017-09-06T19:10:49","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T19:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arielsheen.com\/?p=1914"},"modified":"2017-11-02T22:52:45","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T22:52:45","slug":"review-of-finding-your-voice-how-to-put-personality-in-your-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/06\/review-of-finding-your-voice-how-to-put-personality-in-your-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of “Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing<\/a> by Les Edgerton reminded me how to be\u00a0attentive to the variety of creative decisions that\u00a0determine the voice of a work. How they can be interpreted, improved and evolved from different experiential exercises. The book contains focus on various\u00a0voices \u2013 pulpy, sardonic, confessional, etc. \u2013 along with \u201cbefore and after\u201d\u00a0 changes. Theres\u00a0illustrate how a few different decisions can radically alter the ease and enjoyment level of the reading. Some of the various traps to watch out for that Edgerton cites are the \u201cbeige voice\u201d as well as talking up or down to the reader. As all of the fictive dream \u2013 the neurological firings in\u00a0your brain that are activated during the process of readings words on page or screen- occur as the results of words, best get them right. Right?!<\/p>\n

There are, additionally, exercises contained within for identifying the ways in which honing in on voice in specific passages can radically improve the experience of the reader and how some choices can lead to it \u201cgoing wrong\u201d in one\u2019s writing. For instance, say one wanted to get the reader to slow down. Not to scan the text; as so many are apt now to do. Well, the solution is simple. Place a number of shorter sentences back to back. This is a particularly effective practice following longer expository passages. Explaining difficult things, after all, requires the combination of lots of pieces. Much as in the same way that sentence variation forces the reader out of the simplistic subject verb object constructions.<\/p>\n

The book is for both writers of fiction and non-fiction and addresses something that is very important as it relates to today\u2019s media landscape \u2013 talking up, down and beigley to the reader. Explaining every and all thing can cause passages to drag on and o n. If they are known by the reader, it’s a bore, and leads to mental lagging. A good writer, Hemingway and others have stated, leaves something for the reader to want to discover. Writing in too high of a voice is the struggle that I\u2019ve had, having an advanced academic background I can sometimes lapse into uncommon terms that are, nevertheless, quite useful for understanding today\u2019s world. But this isn’t all about me. This is not purple prose, either, which I\u2019ve only found in contemporary Latin American literature<\/a>, is not gone in to but that\u2019s just because it\u2019s so rare in American fictional and non-fictional works that get published.<\/p>\n

Edgerton\u2019s colloquialisms, and the linguistic playfulness of the text was, I thought, a little corny at first. However it did grow on me. Plus, I recognized what he was doing with it. Not only was he describing insights into what makes a well crafted\u00a0writers voice; but he was also demonstrating it! By sharing this, as well as the hat of instructor, he\u2019s helping to show one of the Walt Whitman quotes about\u00a0–\u00a0I\u2019m stacatato-cattically summarizing\u00a0her :\u00a0“there being multitudes that exist within each of us”. It’s true. There are!<\/p>\n

Les\u2019 lessons are follower by exercises to either read, write or re-write. The book is an attempt at a comprehensive attempt to teach the craft of good writing, plot, etc. but just focus on narrative voice and the voice of characters. He lists a large number of books that go into these other areas, and it\u2019s clear with his familiar with them that a lot of experience and time went into the formation of this book.<\/p>\n

I finished the book not only informed but also interested in seeing the dynamic that exists in his writing workshops. Having attended several writing workshops as an undergraduate at Florida Atlantic University and in Prauge, Czech republic as part of a University of Michigan program \u2013 not to mention other informal gatherings \u2013 I\u2019ve always found workshops a productive place where people provide new eyes to help you see things you may not be aware of because you\u2019re too close to the work, or wasn’t aware of some insight or whatever other reason that shows up when people gather with strategic and\u00a0creative\u00a0intentions.<\/p>\n

I like how following this book one can apply like dissection tools onto the writings of your favorite writers in order to better place their style in history rather than a burden. Stealing can always be great art, but only if it\u2019s great art does it get called great art \u2013 not just because it\u2019s just an iteration of the same efforts. That last quote, ya, that’s me. Put that on a goddamn site so i can get me da stats higher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing by Les Edgerton reminded me how to be\u00a0attentive to the variety of creative decisions that\u00a0determine the voice of a work. How they can be interpreted, improved and evolved from different experiential exercises. The book contains focus on various\u00a0voices \u2013 pulpy, sardonic, confessional, etc. \u2013 … Continue reading “Review of “Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,87,86,8,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-creative","category-creative-process","category-creative-writing","category-eclectic-intellect"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8e7kf-uS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1914"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2296,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914\/revisions\/2296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}