Its been over 10 years of writing this blog and in that time I have developed my own ‘voice’ in writing. I sit down to ‘blog’ and it comes easily and naturally – its like I’m sitting in my lounge room with a friend and I enjoy it each time I open the keyboard.
But as I started writing some fiction this year I have found myself feeling quite awkward at times, a bit like ‘its not my voice’ coming thru. I don’t think I’ve been trying to imitate anyone, but I do notice I find it more difficult to write a story than I do a blog. I am also a bit of a snob when it comes to writing so I sometimes read it and think ‘oh dear… this is excrement’ and that can be a little discouraging!
I guess this form of writing comes easily because there is no obligation or intention to say anything creatively. If it flows out well then good – if not then so be it – and its only a short post. If you don’t like it there will be another to read some time soon. But because I’ve ‘found my voice’ here chances are most posts will read ok.
However the process of telling a story, of developing character and trying to draw people in is a more focused task and in that I am feeling like I have been labouring because it hasn’t started to come naturally yet. Some mornings I sit down to write and feel like I am writing boring ‘wooden’ information and then other days I sit to write and I like what I’m writing – I’d read it myself!
Not having much experience in fiction writing I’m guessing it takes a while to find your stride and to develop your own style/voice. On that note one of the things I had to get past was that my characters use pretty bad language at times. Such is real life…
If you’ve read this blog for long enough then you’d know I’m not easily offended by naughty words, but I do try to limit my use of expletives (no really…) so to liberally splash ‘f’ words throughout was a challenge because it isn’t a part of my own vocabulary. But not to use the ‘f’ word would have been really odd too… because its how people talk… Its a part of life and it would sound jolly strange to use words like ‘jolly’ instead.
If my book ever gets finished and is good enough to publish I doubt Koorong will want to stock it…
Hi Hammo…
If it’s of any help, check out this interview with Tim Winton on the ‘writing process’:
https://publicchristianity.org/library/tim-winton-the-writing-process#.U0npgVyG5g0
Cheers,
In my experience, it’s a developing process. Part of it is learning to find each character’s voice, and then writing ‘as’ that character consistently. Some of it probably depends on how you write – whether you’re a ‘pantser’ or a ‘planner.’
And then of course, discovering whether the story you’re telling is the one that you thought you were telling. Sometimes I go back and reread what I’ve previously written, and then go “Really? What on earth was I thinking?” Followed shortly thereafter by “HOW could I have possibly written that?”
What I’ve learnt is that sometimes you just have to write it all down, and then later, you read it and figure out whether it was any good – and once you’ve done that, you need honest, straight forward test readers to tell you precisely whether you’ve written something decent. (Note: They don’t necessarily have to like it to tell you whether it’s any good, they just have to be honest, which sometimes means friends aren’t very good at doing this, because they don’t want to hurt your feelings!)
Thanks Leonie 🙂 Definitely a new experience!