Stubborn Voice

If you’re a regular to my blog, you know that I’m experimenting with a web serial called Dawn, the link of which can be found on the Serials page in the sidebar. If you’re new or didn’t know that, now you do.

Well, it seems that I’ve run into a bit of a snag. I think the voice in this story is a bit stilted, a little too hoity toity for what I want to say. I tried working on this last night. Had a false start on a later chapter and tried to rewrite it to suit the mood as opposed to the voice that keeps coming out. In other words, I tried to force it to do something it didn’t want to do. Bad idea.

It forced back, essentially telling me this is the voice for this story and to cut the shit and just write it. The thing is I’m not really happy with the voice but at the same time when I force it, I get half-assed writing that I don’t like either. I have a very strong feeling that once I start writing the vampire parts, the voice is going to change dramatically but I’m thinking along the lines of readers. Will they stick around long enough to read it change?

I’m not a literary writer. I don’t write with the intention to prove how good of a writer I am. I write to tell a story and, if you’ve read a good sample of my work (some of which can be found here), you know that I tailor the voice to the needs of the story. In other words, I don’t normally write like this. But this story . . . it just doesn’t want to write any other way and who am I to force it? The author, yes, but any writer will tell you you’ll end up Shit’s Creek if you force the story to do something it doesn’t want to do.

The other reason I’m starting to switch into panic mode is because when I actually get my own domain and fashion my writing site, Dawn is going to be attached to it and should any agents or other people in the business see this work, I don’t want them to think that this is representative of the voice I write in, because it’s definitely not. It’s only one of very many.

Has anyone else come across this problem? Have you ever written a story where you didn’t like the voice but it worked out in the end? Where it didn’t work out in the end and you scrapped it? Please tell me I’m not alone in this.

I want to believe that my voice is a chameleon and I think, considering the topics I’ve written in, the stories prove that. My two WIPs are vastly different. I’ve written short stories ranging from stick-on tits to child abuse to a psycho plastic surgeon with a doll fixation (those I do need to get up on the site) and all have their own voices. But this one I’m just not digging. Maybe it’s the historical thing. Maybe it’s all those HBO series influences where we think people in the past spoke more properly, with a British accent (regardless of region) and thus all historical stories model themselves after that. Or maybe it is just this story. I was afraid my Diamond Crier piece would head down this track but it’s nowhere near it, especially considering the POV is that of a ten year old girl at this point.

The thing is, it seems to be just Kemnebi’s voice. I don’t mind Ebe’s. In fact, I like it, much more than his. It just feels more natural, more comfortable. But at the same time Kemnebi’s voice, the more I think on it, fits his situation. He’s trapped, forced by a set of preconceived obligations to carry on traditions that he doesn’t really want to carry on but convinces himself it’s what he has to do nonetheless. He does it, essentially, out of a sense of propriety, as something that he must do as opposed to what he wanted to do. Outwardly he’s rather stiff because of it, he’s not as relaxed as Ebe because he’s not comfortable in his position, he’s only pretending to be. But I’m afraid, instead of portraying that, it reads like a piece of literary masturbation.

Or I’m panicking because it’s going to be attached to my professional website and I fear what the professionals might think about it and, in turn, think about me because of it and it’s making me freak out and pick it apart. If anyone wants to read the first two chapters that are up and let me know what you think, I’d love you for it. The link is in the Serials section.

I’m not this panicked over my WIPs. What the hell?

~ by Donna on May 9, 2008.