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Finding your voice
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My method, Jim, is to get inside the headspace of the character. How would they say the words, based on their upbringing and idiosyncrasies. How would they react to situations and others based on their world view. I start this by building a kind of mini autobiography for the character and really try and get to know them before starting to write.Don't know if that helps much, but that's how I do it.
As you know Jim, I write in 3 genres, and have a different voice in each genre. I don't find it too hard to voice each one differently. It comes with the piece.Either that, or I'm borderline schitzophrenic.
Will, if you got your characters wrong they would beat you up!
Fear and merlot.That sounds like a book title - your autobiography maybe?
Fear and Merlot in the Valleys. Do we have a second Hunter S Thompson in our mist?
What has socialism got to do with merlot?
Even though my Socko books are set in the same universe (and with some of the same characters) as the Flick Carter ones, they're kind of a different sub-genre, since they're more Police Procedurals, just set PostApoc. Anyhow, I write Flick 3rd Person Limited, and Socko 1st Person. Which seems to differentiate them in my head.But FC3 opens with Socko as the POV character, and I keep wanting to write him 1st person even though he should be 3rd, cos it's a FC book, and there's stuff leaking out of my ears!
I guess I'm saying "Beware the crossover my son; the characters that bite, the plots that catch..."
I can follow that.I have a character in mind and he'd fit beautifully into 'The land of the three seas' but I'm not so sure how well he'd take to Cumbria.
'Write about what you know' they said.
You try writing a thriller about cattle ID fraud :-(
It's fascinating reading people's comments
I remember Dick Francis (or his wife, allegedly)wrote a thriller about horse ID fraud.It's a similar principle,Jim
Nonsense! There's the thrill of showing cows in the exhibition ring... the satorial excitement of the white coats, the bowler hatted besuited judges... the suspense! The excitement! The thrills as the winner eats the rosette by mistake...
Will, you need to get out more. And not to cow shows...
Jim has found his voice, and it says 'Mooooooooooooo'
As long as it's not proceeded by 'Silly old...' I'm in with a chance of sneaking past the politically correct censors
Jim wrote: "About as exciting as cow lotto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WshdTy..."
I'm gonna wait for the Michael Bay version - there'll be explosions, smashing through plate glass windows, and a big fan for the...
This is really interesting... to answer the original question, sorry about that, I'll join the banter in a minute I promise but... I write the way I speak. So, whatever story I'm trying to tell I will do it the same way... as myself. On the other hand, the characters will be different so I will be voicing them differently. In the series I've just finished we have one lot who are big on honour and talk a little like characters from a Georgette Heyer novel. On the other you've got a bunch talking like Ray Winstone. I've two sci-fi novels on the way. One is DEFINITELY going to be very similar in tone and style to the K'Barthan Trilogy, the other may be darker and grittier, a more pulp fiction kind of vibe. But however it's done, it'll be done they way it's described by me, talking...
As you know I am able to talk the hind legs off many donkeys. Some of you have even met me and verified this.
Cheers
MTM
Yes, and you go vrooooooooooooooooommmmm!
Mwah ha haahargh! Yeh at every moment I can.Cheers
MTM
I have written in three different genres: fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction. Perhaps it's because I have grown up as I've moved between the genres, but my voice has been dramatically different each time.
In my phase of writing fantasy, I slavishly copied Tolkein (in my defence, I haven't written fantasy since the age of seventeen!) When I wrote science fiction set in the early 1980s my voice was very different - quite terse and cynical, I suppose I might say now. Again, I haven't written science fiction for many years.
My voice in the historical fiction I write today comes naturally from the characters, and from my source material. It's carefully constructed to convey an impression of the time I write about, but it has also grown organically and will continue to grow.
I really think "voice" is one of those elusive things that you only have limited direct control over. The rest of it comes from the same mysterious place good characters and good stories come from.
In my phase of writing fantasy, I slavishly copied Tolkein (in my defence, I haven't written fantasy since the age of seventeen!) When I wrote science fiction set in the early 1980s my voice was very different - quite terse and cynical, I suppose I might say now. Again, I haven't written science fiction for many years.
My voice in the historical fiction I write today comes naturally from the characters, and from my source material. It's carefully constructed to convey an impression of the time I write about, but it has also grown organically and will continue to grow.
I really think "voice" is one of those elusive things that you only have limited direct control over. The rest of it comes from the same mysterious place good characters and good stories come from.
I've got to the stage with Fantasy that all I need is time and the stories just come, the characters are firm in my mind, and perhaps more importantly, I've got a 'voice' or a style that works.
With SF I'm getting there. The second book is waiting to be published and my gut feeling is that it's a better book than the first.
I think in SF I've got my 'voice'
But I fancied writing a 'thriller' set in the modern day. I've got a plot (or as much as I normally start with) and some characters, and yet I sit at the keyboard scratching my head wondering 'how' to say things. It's simple things like, can the genre stand my usual gentle humour?
I regard myself as professional. I've even had a romance short story published! So I feel I should be able to tackle a thriller.
I've love to know how others who've flitted between genres manage