The Clarence and Susan Island photo by Matthew Linger (the-name-was-taken Flickr)
This is one of the most beautiful photos I have ever found of the Clarence River and Susan Island near Grafton. It draws me back to the places of my childhood. You can access this photo at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tessnmatt/5893167781/in/photolist
This beautiful photograph of the Clarence river and Susan Island across the water, brought me back to long-forgotten memories of childhood evenings underneath a balmy star-spangled sky in South Grafton next to the water’s edge.
I wonder now if this is the source of my writer’s voice: the places and storytellers from childhood that I carry within till this day? Is it this that gives birth to the special voice within all of us that reappears when narrating stories in written form?
What is the relation of voice to person, character and narrator, and how does it touch vicariously on an assumed reader and an assumed listener?
***
We were an unruly composite of uncles, aunts, siblings and neighbours, as a dark-skinned man that we kids knew as “Uncle Sammy” kept us spell-bound with tales from the Arabian Nights. His deep voice wove magic on us, retouching millenia-old yarns with an Aussie flavour that pulled us into the caves of Ancient Syria, whilst sitting on a manicured lawn on the banks of the Clarence River.
Other story-tellers from childhood were on the Irish side of my family: my mother and her mother, Grandma Walker; the Walker uncles, especially Uncle Bargy (pronounced /bah-ghee/), who was a stutterer. When Bargy told a story, his stutter magically disappeared during the telling of the tale.
And of course there were my teachers, many of whom were expert or naturals when it came to telling a good story. I remember the fairy stories that filled me with dread or longing in kindergarten, “Hansel and Gretel” and “Cinderella”, and later on, the stories of explorers, such as Burke and wills, who perished in the desert. Then there was the teacher who recited “The Forsaken Merman”, reducing me to tears for the family of mer people abandoned forever by the human wife and mother. Even in Year Nine or Ten in high school, there was an occasion when I was reduced to a weeping mess as the teacher read out a long narrative poem about two friends on opposite sides who fought in battle, the one killing the other.
And so I realise now that it is to these story-tellers, the flesh-and-blood ones, that I owe a debt of gratitude for opening me up to the power of narrative. With a short story, it is important to know who is telling the story—the narrator behind the words— in mastering the concept of voice. Within a novel it can be more complex, as several “voices” might be used in retelling. However, many agree that each author has a particular “voice”, which distinguishes her from others.
Voice and person are closely connected. The choice of a certain person—first versus third—will greatly affect voice, just as the choice of a certain character will assume a certain voice distinct from other characters in the story. This is what writers mean, when the say that the characters took over and pulled the narrative along.
I find voice the most difficult concept to write and to talk about. Can anyone add anything to this? What is voice to you?
The post Revisiting Voice appeared first on anne skyvington.