{"id":278,"date":"2006-06-23T16:59:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-23T15:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/index.php\/2006\/06\/23\/the-writers-voice\/"},"modified":"2006-06-23T17:24:42","modified_gmt":"2006-06-23T16:24:42","slug":"the-writers-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/2006\/06\/23\/the-writers-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Writer’s Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al Alvarez\u2019s slim volume The Writer’s Voice<\/a> is a book I\u2019d highly recommend to anyone who\u2019s ever spent any time thinking about writing as a craft. In it he considers the nature of an artistic \u201cvoice??? which he distinguishes, correctly in my view, from \u201cstyle???. Style is often artificial and brittle, and can easily degenerate into mannerism. Too much wit gets tedious and cloying, like (and I don\u2019t know who I\u2019m quoting here, but I know the line isn\u2019t one of my own) drinking Cr\u00e8me De Menthe by the pint. Voice on the other hand is something more substantial and lasting. One could almost say that voice is what remains when false style has been shrugged off. I think voice is what I look for in art above all else. The artist\u2019s voice can express a lot of things, but ultimately it expresses the artist\u2019s self. That self may not be the same as the artist\u2019s personality, in fact it may be radically different, but the voice nonetheless has it\u2019s own truth. It is the voice that allows you to say not nearly, but exactly what you want to say. The thrill that comes with finding that voice is as deep as it is elusive. In a page of writing there may be only one or two sentences that find the right tone, when suddenly your voice rings like a bell, and you can clearly say, “this<\/em> is how it was”. Then it\u2019s gone again. Getting to that spot requires a mixture of tightness and looseness, trying as hard as you can while also not trying at all. A musician would understand this perfectly, hence the metaphor of voice, but so I think would a sportsman. Who can deny that a great footballer (Ronaldinho let\u2019s say, or Thierry Henry) does not sometimes slip, unbidden, into a moment of greatness, one that does more than simply create a shot at goal, but somehow speaks of who he is as a player? That\u2019s why people sometimes attribute genius to great sportsmen, and the label is deserved even where the player may be unimpressive in all other areas of life.<\/p>\n

Interesting voices abound on blogs, tending to be found more often amongst those who like to write long posts. An accumulation of short posts will give a good idea to the reader of who the blogger is, and what world-view they have, but the voice emerges at length, often in ways the author might only subliminally have noticed. A long post by Copernicus<\/a> on book shops is about his voice as profoundly as it is about books. I disagree with auds<\/a> on almost everything, but what keeps me coming back to her blog is a voice which I find deeply sympathetic, regardless of subject matter. Maybe it has something to do with our shared taste in music.<\/p>\n

I am not a man with a strong view of the world which I wish to push down the throats of others. Nor do I burst, Ancient Mariner-like, with a tale that must be told. I write, mostly, because I can. (Or in truth, I write because I can\u2019t sing). I use my voice in an effort to get it closer to that perfect pitch. Success I suppose, will be when I can get my voice to do what I want it to do for more than an occasional fragmentary moment. In the meantime, you people have to put up with my attempts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Al Alvarez\u2019s slim volume The Writer’s Voice is a book I\u2019d highly recommend to anyone who\u2019s ever spent any time thinking about writing as a craft. In it he considers the nature of an artistic \u201cvoice??? which he distinguishes, correctly in my view, from \u201cstyle???. Style is often artificial and brittle, and can easily degenerate into mannerism. Too much wit gets tedious and cloying, like (and I don\u2019t know who I\u2019m quoting here, but I know the line isn\u2019t one of my own) drinking Cr\u00e8me De Menthe by the pint. Voice on the other hand is something more substantial and lasting. One could almost say that voice is what remains when false style has been shrugged off. I think voice is what I look for in art above all else. The artist\u2019s voice can express a lot of things, but ultimately it expresses the artist\u2019s self. That self may not be the same as the artist\u2019s personality, in fact it may be radically different, but the voice nonetheless has it\u2019s own truth. It is the voice that allows you to say not nearly, but exactly what you want to say. The thrill that comes with finding that voice is as deep as it is elusive. In a page of writing there may be only one or two sentences that find the right tone, when suddenly your voice rings like a bell, and you can clearly say, “this is how it was”. Then it\u2019s gone again. Getting to that spot requires a mixture of tightness and looseness, trying as hard as you can while also not trying at all. A musician would understand this perfectly, hence the metaphor of voice, but so I think would a sportsman. Who can deny that a great footballer (Ronaldinho let\u2019s say, or Thierry Henry) does not sometimes slip, unbidden, into a moment of greatness, one that does more than simply create a shot at goal, but somehow speaks of who he is as a player? That\u2019s why people sometimes attribute genius to great sportsmen, and the label is deserved even where the player may be unimpressive in all other areas of life. Interesting voices abound on blogs, tending to be found more often amongst those who like to write long posts. An accumulation of short posts will give a good idea to the reader of who the blogger is, and what world-view they have, but […]","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[174,135,222,221],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-auds","tag-books","tag-copernicus","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}