The Importance of Voice in Writing

I never realized how important my voice was until I lost mine after my recent thyroid surgery.... We’re not talking laryngitis, either. Have you ever tried to ask for directions when you sound like a fog horn, and the mailman can’t understand you? Or, have you tried to order a fast-food take-out over the drive-through window speaker when your voice won’t go up enough decibels for the person on the other end to hear you? Or, better yet, have you ever hosted an Internet radio show where you sound horrible, and you know it, but you have to move on because this is part of your calling? Talk about frustrating.

Well, it started me to thinking about how so many African American authors, who weren’t given a chance to get published back through the years, even up through the 80s, and early 90s, (I was one of them), have now been given a voice. Many have self-published to get their words, their voice, so to speak, out to the world. I know I did. Anyhow, some have been published through traditional, mainstream publishers, but the point is, we now have a voice. The Internet has opened a lot of doors, too.

On another level, though, as an editor, I look for voice in a piece of fiction or nonfiction. Voice is an elusive thing. It’s an ingredient that’s hard to explain, but you know when it’s missing. Voice can make or break a novel or even determine a nonfiction piece of work’s success.

People tell me my first self-published novel, The Ebony Tree, sounds totally different from my second novel, No Pockets in a Shroud, but, like most people, I have a unique spin on the world. Also, I changed and grew between novels. I am a wordsmith and so are most writers. It’s just having the courage to let people know how quirky, how different, and how unique you are that makes your voice stand above the crowd.

A lot of times, avid readers are closet writers who wish they had the courage to speak out and give voice to their concerns. Personally, I believe most people have at least one book inside of them. Now, warning. If you do get the nerve to write your truth, people will sometimes attack you, but who cares? Isn’t it better to have gone through this world and left your mark, than died as the masses, to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, “leading a life of quiet desperation”?

At any rate, voice is everpresent in fiction. In third person point of view, each character has his own voice, just as well as in first person (POV). The writer can subconsciously hook the reader because of the strong voice of the character(s).

Voice is as individual as a person’s DNA, even his thumbprint. Just as no two people are alike, no two voices should sound alike. Voice determines a person’s worldview, his attitude, and his agenda. That’s why we’re so excited when we read or hear a fresh voice because people tend to go along with the crowd and everyone sounds alike.

Likewise, in your fictional world, each character should have a distinct voice and not sound alike. This is what makes your characters sound real, and sells the reader on them.

I was recently working on a manuscript where the writer’s manuscript just didn’t sound right. From her previous manuscripts, the writing was technically better in terms of the grammar, but none of the characters came alive on the page, except for one. The irony was, that in spite of the writing flaws in her earlier works, the voices were authentic and just about leaped off the page.

Suggestions I gave that helped bring the character come alive was that the writer had to use the Stanislavski method, where, like actors, she acted out the character’s part.. And the main request was that she gave her heroine courage. In the first draft, the main character didn't have any guts or backbone. Writers, you want your heroines (or heroes) to be courageous, opinionated, forceful, even outrageous. Always remember; shrinking violets don't make good protagonists.

Since the beginning of time, story has been used as a canvas to examine the human heart. Often we read to discover our own identities, our own values. What would you do if it were you in this same situation? This question is always in the back of the reader’s mind.
If you can get your story to pose many such questions throughout, such as what will we do when faced with our own mortality, our own death, you will worm your way into your reader’s heart.

Moreover, if you use a voice that your readers can connect to, you will have won a fan for life.

Dr. Maxine E. Thompson is the owner of Black Butterfly Press, Maxine Thompson’s Literary Agency and Literary Services and Thompson Literary Show, and Maxine Show. She hosts Internet radio shows on www.artisfirst.com.. She is the author of The Ebony Tree, No Pockets in a Shroud, A Place Called Home, The Hush Hush Secrets of Writing Fiction That Sells, How to Publish, Market and Promote your Book Via Ebook Publishing, The Hush Hush Secrets of Creating a Life You Love, Anthology, SECRET LOVERS, (with novella, Second Chances,) SECRET LOVERS made the Black Expression's Book Club Bestselling list on 7-8-06 (after a 6-6-06 release date.) An anthology, All in the Family, (her novella, Summer of Salvation) came out in April 2007. Another new anthology, Never Knew Love Like This Before (her novella, Katrina Blues,) was published in June 2007. It was #13 on Amazon’s top 100 bestseller’s list and has been on there as a multicultural and romance anthology. Her nonfiction book, Heal Thy Soul, 365 Days of Affirmations for Women of Color is due out in 2009. She also has an upcoming novel, Hostage of Lies, which will be out in late 2009.
You can sign up for her free newsletter at http://www.maxinethompson.com

The Truth About Urban Fiction

The Truth about Urban Fiction

Dr. Maxine Thompson
http://www.maxinethompson.com
http://www.maxineshow.com

When I first edited urban fiction, like most new endeavors, I stumbled into it. But as a former social worker, I’ve always found it interesting how women of color cope in desperate situations. As I read different manuscripts, I recognized the voices that I’d met over the years in my own life, in different foster homes or in my inner city case work.

Although I’d recently completed my nonfiction book, Heal thy Soul, 365 Days of Healing for Women of Color, to be published by Urban Books in November 2008, I want to address urban fiction.

As a story editor of some of the best selling urban fiction writers out there today, I've learned a lot along the way about urban fiction.

I can speak from both sides of the fence-both as a writer and as an editor.

As urban writers, sometimes we get bad press. I'd like to clarify something.

All urban writers are not street fiction writers. This genre is sometimes referred to as ghetto lit or street lit, or hip hop fiction.

Some people say there's too much drama, even in the women's line of Urban fiction, and not enough literary literature.

Well, as an editor, that depends on how you look at it.

What is drama?

I once read that drama is danger mixed with opportunity.

To write about people of color who live in urban settings is going to be replete with danger.

Just to think of some of the dangers these urban characters face, it starts the minute the characters get out of bed. Any day your could wind up homeless, a victim of violence, or foreclosed upon.

So how do we create these elements in our stories?

By showing the (limited or missed) opportunities we have to obtain the American Dream and the danger that is involved in trying to pursue it.

For some people, they take the nine-to-five route. For others they go the route of crime. But all characters, in the pursuit of the American Dream of happiness, will go on a journey.

This journey involves subtext.

My definition of subtext is what is going on beneath the story.

The dictionary's definition is this:

1. The implicit meaning or theme of a literary text.

2. The underlying personality of a dramatic character as implied or indicated by a script or text and interpreted by an actor in performance.

My story "Katrina Blues," a novella, in anthology, Never Knew Love Like This Before, (published by Urban Books-Urban Soul in June 2007) deals with a cross section of society.

The protagonist, Deni Richards, is a thirty-something Los Angeles attorney who winds up facing discrimination at a restaurant, racial profiling by the police department, and disparity of treatment on her job.

Although she thinks she has achieved the American dream because she drives a Mercedes, is the most successful child in her family and owns her own condo in Santa Monica, California, by the end of the story, she learns some harsh truths about being an African American citizen in this country.

She winds up getting an up-close and personal taste of reality when she opens her home to a displaced saxophonist, Coleman Blue and his family, after Hurricane Katrina.

I find a lot of meaning about the American Dream when I read urban literature and it's not always found on the surface of the story.

Dr. Maxine Thompson is a literary agent, author, Internet radio show host, and editor. She is the author of The Ebony Tree, No Pockets in a Shroud, A Place Called Home, Never Knew Love Like This Before, Anthology, (Novella Katrina Blues), Secret Lovers, Anthology,(Novella, Second Chances), All in the Family, Anthology, (Novella, Summer of Salvation.) Non-fiction, The Hush Hush Secrets of Writing Fiction That Sells. Sign up for a free newsletter at http://www.maxinethompson.com
Dr. Maxine E. Thompson is the owner of Black Butterfly Press, Maxine Thompson’s Literary Services, Thompson Literary Agency and www.maxineshow.com. She hosts Internet radio shows on www.artisfirst.com and on www.maxineshow.com. She hosted on Voiceamerica.com from 3/02 to 12/06. She is the author of nine titles, The Ebony Tree, No Pockets in a Shroud, A Place Called Home, The Hush Hush Secrets of Writing Fiction That Sells, How to Publish, Market and Promote your Book Via Ebook Publishing, The Hush Hush Secrets of Creating a Life You Love, Anthology, SECRET LOVERS, (with novella, Second Chances,) and Summer of Salvation. SECRET LOVERS made the Black Expression's Book Club Bestselling list on 7-8-06 (after a 6-6-06 release date.)A new anthology, All in the Family, (Summer of Salvation) was published in April 2007l Another new anthology, Never Knew Love Like This Before,(her novella, Katrina Blues,) was published in June 2007. Never Knew Love has been a bestseller on Black Expression's Book Club and on Amazon.com many times. In November 2008, her book, Heal Thy Soul: 365 Days of Healing for Women of Color.
On March 1, 2005 she launched her own radio show at www.maxineshow.com. You can sign up for her free newsletter at http://www.maxinethompson.com Get a free report on how to write your book at http://www.WriteABookNow.com/cmd.php?af=677480
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A Writer's Thoughts on Mortality

A Writer’s Thoughts on Mortality

Dr. Maxine Thompson

On 8-22-07, I was just returning from Detroit’s Writers’ Legacy conference,
where I had conducted a workshop. I started out the last leg of my train trip, from
New Orleans to Los Angeles, feeling elated. (For those who don’t know me, I love a cross country train trip every couple of years or so to take time to reflect, to regroup, and to regenerate.) But why shouldn’t I have been?

I had made all my connections with no problems from L.A., to Detroit, then off the
beaten path, to Memphis, then on to Atlanta in order to see my oldest son, (whom I hadn’t seen in close to two years,) then back to New Orleans to catch the standard noon train back to L.A. All was right with the world, as the song goes.

Ten hours later, though, jaw hanging open, I looked on in dismay and shock.
Against a backdrop of a Texas sky, a triangle of red, green and yellow flashing
lights, resembling a Christmas tree, had interrupted our train ride. However, this wasn’t a happy, joyous occasion. I knew it was a tragedy.

Talk about a bipolar experience. I had zipped from happy and contented to upset
and discombobulated within a matter of seconds. It all began around 10:30 p.m., after I’d shut down my lap top and prepared to settle down to sleep.

Bam! I jumped with a start at what sounded like a sonic boom. What was that? Next
thing I know, I heard the most blood-curdling sounds that I never-ever hope to hear again in this life—that of the train wheels’ screeching and braking. This crashing noise pierced the air and seemed to go on forever. The stench of burning metal filled the train. All types of thoughts raced through my mind.

What was going on? Suddenly attendants, staff, and conductors, terse expressions on their faces, were running up the aisle to the front of the train. They wouldn’t tell us what had happened for the first hour. I’m not sure if they knew. I was near the back of the train and in the curve, I realized we had skidded almost a mile from the guard rail.

Following the ruckus, I went up to the observatory where I watched police car,
after police car, fire trucks, tow trucks, and coroner’s cars hurl through the night like asteroids to the scene of the accident. The sounds of sirens wailed through the night. The train had struck a car. Unlike the dead deer, which we struck on the way from Los Angeles, these were human beings. What would happen? Would the people live?

I didn’t know if they would change our train or what? I stayed awoke the whole time.
Later, a police came in our coach at 3:30 a.m. and being as I was the only one awake, he asked if I saw anything. I told him what I heard, what I smelt. That’s all I could vouch for.

By then, I had learned that apparently, three young people, who drove around the barrier, were killed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/23/national/main3198118.shtml

We didn’t move on until 3:30 a.m. the next morning. We were running six hours late, (of
what would become an eight hour late arrival time,) at that point. We never changed trains. Later, I learned that we were 10 miles east of Houston when the accident took place.

The next day as I watched the scenery of sage, brush, cactus, desert, yucca
plants, acacia trees, telephone wires, and windmills reel by my window, all I heard
was the whistle of death. The blood train is what I called this train. The wheels just kept
moving on in spite of death, which is how life moves on. I just wished someone would
come and process this with us, the way they do at schools when tragedies take place. Is
this post traumatic disorder?

To process my feelings, I talked to different passengers. There had definitely been three fatalities. One passenger postulated that in order for the conductor to have missed the car, he would have had to jump the tracks, endangering the lives of the passengers on board. The driver of the doomed car had made the choice to go around the rail. The passengers on the train didn’t make that choice and
shouldn’t have to suffer those consequences of someone else’s erroneous choice. This
didn’t appease my disturbed thoughts, but it made me think.

Perhaps this is one of the dilemmas of life: making a choice between the lesser of
two evils. I wondered, in a case like this, do they change conductors? Or does the same conductor continue on that tour of duty?

How do you live with taking a life—even if it’s an accident? How do you find
redemption?

I’m trying to make sense of this whole tragedy. Is this survivor guilt? Why them and not
me? Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to be here.

When we stopped, later that afternoon, I took a picture of the front of the train and saw
that it was burned on the right side. Obviously, the car that tried to beat the train was
hit on the right side.

The way that train kept rolling along, I thought of the metaphor
of life. It just keeps going on after you die. I just have to keep going.

That next day, it occurred to me.

Somewhere some parents were mourning. Perhaps college enrollments had already taken
place, and lives ended abruptly, dangled in the gap like an unfinished map.

So what can we do as writers? We write down the joys, the pains, the sorrows, the
triumphs. For the next generation, we leave a map that we were here. In this way we live on long after our deaths, sort of like Anne Frank, who only lived about sixteen years, did from her diary. It is how Shakespeare captured human behavior four hundred years ago, which is just as true today. It is how Frederick Douglass’ The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass’: A Slave’s Life, and Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery: An Autobiography, showed us our African American history in America