Writing Voice: Getting Through the Squeaky Stage

Yesterday, I was discussing voice with a writing friend. She’s just begun a new novel and was anxious because she didn’t have the voice down. I reminded her of my favorite quote about first drafts, “A first draft is a celebration of everything that can go wrong on a page.”

But then, we began to discuss voice in more depth. She mentioned that when she writes short stories, the voice is always there at the beginning. And as I thought about it, I realized that when I write shorts, I always start with a voice. But when I write a novel, I never start with a full-formed voice (although with sequels it’s easier because the voice is already established).

Then the ten thousand dollar question is “Why.” What’s the difference? I think because a short story is so focused around the narrative voice, everything (plot, character, etc.) flows from that voice.

But novels are altogether different. Even the simplest novel, is a series of “clashes” between character, plot, tone, and voice. Not only are the characters refined as they bump up against each other, but the characters are sharpened by the plot. And the plot is honed by the tone and voice, which in turn influence the characters. And not until you get all of these ingredients into the cauldron of the novel, does the magic elixir of voice finally rise to the top.

I’m not saying that there isn’t some sort of voice at the beginning. I think you do start with an immature voice—you have to. After all, the voice helps to control where the story goes. But I think when you start a novel with a “little boy’s voice.” It’s squeaky and cute, not what you want to end up with, but it communicates and sets the arc of the story.

As the novel matures through revision, the voice changes. It takes on nuance and inflection. It deepens, much like the little boy whose voice goes through puberty to become a wide ranging tenor or rumbles in a bass profundo.

What about you, writers? Is this your experience of voice? Or do voices come to you fully formed and mature? (If so, I’m really, really jealous.)

Tidying Your Manuscript's Formatting

I finished proofreading Screwing Up Babylon.* Now I have a friend giving it a once over to catch anything I missed.

In the meantime, I’ve begun formatting the manuscript for Kindle. A lot of authors don’t  consider formatting, especially if they aren’t considering self-publishing. But think about this.  Most likely, any agent considering your manuscript will probably read it on a Kindle (though a few use Nooks). And after all the work that you’ve put into the book, don’t you want them to have a great reading experience?

Now obviously, if you’re not at the point where you’re publishing to Kindle, you don’t need a linked table of contents, a copyright page, conversion to html, etc. But if you’re using “returns” instead of “page breaks” at the end of chapters to force a new page, “tabs” to indent paragraphs instead of the using the margins function, or randomly hitting too many spaces in your text, your book may look wonky on a Kindle. And, though I’m sure many agents are used to formatting wonkiness, putting your best book forward can only help.

The good news is that it’s all easy to fix. Amazon has a free e-book called Building Your Book for Kindle that can take you through the step-by-step tidying. (It’s a great “hand-holder” if you’re pubbing to Kindle, even for non-techies.)

Ironically, even though the book is great, it’s formatted very poorly. The font is miniscule, which I had to adjust by several stages because even with my reading glasses I couldn’t read it, and I have yet to find a table of contents page, though I may have missed it. I guess this is a case of “do what I say and not what I do.”

If you’re only tidying your book’s formatting, focus on using page breaks not “returns” at the end of chapters, using the ruler at the header on top of the Word file to set your indent instead of tabs or five spaces on the space bar, and make sure you don’t have random “returns” or “spaces” scattered throughout the novel. To see where they are, all you have to do is click the paragraph icon in the “paragraph” box and you’ll see all the hidden formatting. Unclick it when you’re done and the marks will hide themselves again. (This is in the 2007 version of Word—it’s there in earlier versions too, just look for it.)

Otherwise, you can Google “formatting for Kindle.” The better news is that the only formatting changes you need to do don’t force you to do anything weird with your text. And, of course, you don’t need to put your novel into html or add headings, etc., since you’re not pubbing, just tidying. So everything stays in a nice MS word document.

And for those of you who are self-pubbing, formatting your novel isn’t that hard. If you’ve learned to use a word processor, you can do this. Just bring your patience and a willingness to learn to the table. And if you don’t understand how to do something, Google it—more than likely there’s a YouTube video that you can stream where someone will show you how to format.

*In case you missed it, I posted the first chapter of Screwing Up Babylon on my book blog. Click here to read it.

Beware the Editing Nazi

Last week, a bad thing happened. Something I’ve never seen addressed in a writing blog before. I don’t know if that means it’s rare, or if it’s something no one likes to talk about. But I figure that I can’t be the only person this has happened to. So, for what’s it worth, here’s my experience with the Editing Nazi.

I was supposed to be proofreading my latest novel. Everything else was finished. My betas had approved the plot, voice, tone, etc. I’d done all the line edits. And the proofing should’ve taken only a couple of days, two weeks at the most. And I was on schedule. But then, a lot of stress hit my non-writing life. And then I found an error in my novel. It wasn’t a big mistake—it was small. Small enough that two experienced betas and four other readers and I had all missed it. Most likely, anyone who read the book would’ve missed it.

But the error freaked me out. Enough that I opened the door to the Editing Nazi. And without me even realizing it, I went from proofreading to questioning every sentence, every verb, and punctuation mark. Now there’s a place for that—and you end up with Teflon and stainless steel sentences. Perfect, when you don’t want anything to stick—when you’re writing for technical precision.  (I suspect EN stems from my days working at Harcourt in the Academic Press division and subsequently working as a technical writer.) But you have to be careful when you  become the EN with fiction because it can destroy voice. And if you lose the voice, you lose the story.

Thankfully, I have a beta who has seen me turn into the Editing Nazi once before. I had a lovely short story that I subjected to the EN. Then, I resent her the “fixed” short. She emailed me back and said, “Uh, I hope you have the original short saved somewhere because you just edited the heart and soul out of your story.” Yeah. Thankfully, I keep old versions.

So last week, when I told my betas that my proofread was turning into an edit both of them, expressed concern—both said, “Um, what are you doing? The novel doesn’t need an edit.” And the beta who’d read the short gave me a “writing intervention.” Basically, she told me “Put down the red pen, and back away from the novel.” She had a gut feeling that I’d become the EN.

I was sure I hadn’t. But I promised her that I consider it. So I decided to read passages to my family at dinner time and ask them which they liked best. So I did. After the first passage, they all liked the old version. But I wasn’t discouraged—it was a fluke. Until I read the next passage, and they liked the old version better. So, I asked why. They all agreed that the version they liked sounded like Mark, my main character. Whereas in the second version, it wasn’t bad, it just didn’t sound like Mark, more like some narrator somewhere telling the story.

After I stopped beating my internal EN with a brick, I knew I’d learned an important lesson (again). Unless I’m channeling Mark, I have no business working on the novel. If I go in without the voice, I’m no longer the author, just someone mucking about in the text.

So I enlisted Mark’s help and together we bound and gagged the EN. We’ve agreed to lock the EN in a dungeon and throw away the key. But I know just how resourceful the EN is in escaping. And I’m so thankful for betas who watch my back—my writing swat team who will shout from their megaphones, “EN, we have you surrounded. Drop the red pen and back away from the novel. No one needs to kill a text today.”

And yes, I do have old versions of the chapters I “fixed.” It shouldn’t take long to paste them where they belong. BTW, am I the only one with an evil alter ego?