Writers’ Mill Meeting Feb 17th 2019
We had a good meeting with lots of great discussion, an award-winning special guest, around 16 attendees, and plenty of announcements:
- Steve Zell just won a Feathered Quill award for his novel, Wizrd, and is one of Jean’s neighbors! He told us a little about his books (the 4th is about to be released) and we really hope he’ll stay on as a member (and speaker sometime?)
- The ever-popular Carolyn Martin will be our guest speaker in April and October – The launch of her new poetry collection, A Penchant for Masquerades (Unsolicited Press) is on March 13, 2019 at the Pond House from 6:30-8:00 p.m. https://carolynmartinpoet.com/event/the-milwaukie-poetry-series
- Blue Sky poems and pictures have an event this coming Thursday Feb 21st 6:30pm, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts https://www.blueskygallery.org/programs-events/poemsandpictures-february-2019
- The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (a national association) is holding its annual conference in Portland this year, March 27-30 at Oregon Convention Center: https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/
- AND – drumroll please – Molly Boyle has just finished writing her book!
Sheila Deeth (author of the Mathemafiction novels and the Five-Minute Bible-Story series) led a talk and discussion on “narrative voice,” pointing out that she didn’t even know that was the name for the whole “present tense/past tense, first person/second person/third person” question. So she’d learned something in preparing the talk. Hopefully we all learned something too. Notes from the talk are at the end of these minutes.
Karin brought wonderful snacks, then Matthew handed out contest awards. We run monthly contests and February’s prompt was to revisit a person or place we’d not written about in a while. The winners were
- Jean for Judy after Jimmy – she won a very cool book about James Dean
- Sheila for Memories – she won a cat-shaped kitchen timer, very appropriate to her cat and mouse story
- Jessie for Uncle Joe – she won a mug for her next cup of Joe.
Upcoming contests (deadlines end of first Sunday each month, voting deadline two Tuesday’s later, all entries to contest at portlandwritersmill dot org, all word-counts 1200 max) are:
- March – dialog (not quite the same as voice, as we’ll see in this month’s talk) – write a few lines of dialog, a story/essay/poem that’s dialog-heavy or just write about the trials of dialog/language.
- April – Description – write a description of something, or a piece where description is important
- May – Childhood Memories
Find out more at http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/march-2019-contest-page/
Lavonna led a critique of Rohan’s collection of vignettes in which we discussed:
- Storyline (for a novel), vs short story collection, vs stand-up comedy, and how the author’s voice feeds into which direction the collection will go.
- How a casual, funny, friendly voice makes the reader comfortable and provides easy reading.
- The need to be careful when the narrator becomes a speaker – don’t let him speak in his narrative voice.
- The balance between detail and interest – maintaining voice helps avoid the encyclopedia approach
- How writing introduces a different culture – a balance between presenting the different and comparing it with the known, rather than leaving the reader to do the comparing
- How stories reveal culture
- How voice can make the reader laugh and think
- How the order of stories in a collection might affect the emphasis and the way forward
- Do stories/essays need titles? How do the titles direct the readers’ thoughts?
- What sort of transition is required between separate stories, and what effect do transitions have?
Then Sheila led a writing exercise, aimed at revealing the difference between narrative voice and dialog voice. Please try it at home if you missed the meeting. Then you’ll have something cool and short to enter for the contest!
- Write six to eight lines of dialog: A says, B says, A says, B says, A says, B says.
- Now write the same dialog from the point of view of one of the characters. You’re feeling what they feel (1st or 3rd person, you choose), seeing the other character’s reaction and hearing their responses through this person’s eyes and ears, and narrating with an appropriate voice.
- And now write the same dialog from the point of view of the other character.
- Which do you prefer?
- Polish it and send it in for the next contest!!!!!
The contest deadline is the first Sunday in March.
Our next meeting is the third Sunday in March, and Zita Podany, author of Vanport, images of America, will speak about websites, blogs and the internet. Don’t miss it – especially if you have a book you want to get published and/or sold!
AND… if you’re already making plans for April, please don’t forget that April’s meeting will be on the 4th Sunday – April 28th – because the library will be closed for Easter on the 3rd Sunday.
Notes from Sheila’s Talk on Narrative Voice follow. Meanwhile
Happy Writing!
Why does Voice matter?
- There’s a significant reader commitment when they “buy” your book – 12-24 hours of reading aloud, 6-12 hours spent silently in company of this voice
- There’s a significant author commitment too – lots more hours than that writing in this voice, so you’d better enjoy it
- Reader/author contract – you will make it worth the reader’s time (they’re paying you in time and money)
- Reader expectations –
- If it’s a legal contract, should be written in legaleze, but equally…
- The tale of a sweet old lady in small-town America probably shouldn’t devolve into pages of swearing
- A hard-bitten ex-marine story shouldn’t devolve into delicately phrased romantic pillow-talk
- And what about memoir? And what about when it’s not memoir and the comments say,“So sorry this happened to you…”
- How do we avoid being identified with first person narrator, vs.
- how do we prove we have the right to tell the tale? (Try, “I have some experiences in common with this character, but she isn’t me…”?)
What are our Voice options?
| Point of view | Tense | Assumptions or examples | Advantages | Disadvantages | getarounds |
| First person single hero | Present | YA dystopia? | Immediate.
Full access to the character’s thoughts and experiences. Action experienced alongside character Identify emotionally with hero SYMPATHY for hero |
Claustrophobic.
Might question why the character’s telling us this. Can’t see at a distance. Can’t know other people’s emotions. Might be whiny, introspective, boring? NOT NATURAL! |
Make sure it’s a real narrative voice.
Maybe add a 2nd pov character? |
| past | Memoir?
Raymond Chandler. Jane Eyre. Huckleberry Finn. |
Double consciousness – future looking over past character’s shoulder.
Assume the protagonist survived |
Is it real? | Disclaimer (not about me)?
Make protagonist obviously different from self (name them?) |
|
| First Person multiple heroes | Get to see multiple points of view, maybe of same events
Get to be in multiple places at once |
Need separate narrative voice for each (NOT SAME as dialog voice) | Use 3rd person multiple povs instead – only requires one narrative voice | ||
| First person observer | Great Gatsby | Comment on events.
Don’t have to identify with or like the hero Hear about events from other people so don’t have to be present |
Don’t know what makes the hero tick, but can speculate | You can describe the protagonist. | |
| Third person single hero | Can spend more time describing internal (even subconscious) thoughts without getting whiney, but maybe can’t “say” them.
EMPATHY for hero |
Not as intimate or immediate.
Less likely pathos. Can’t see at a distance
|
Put 1st person thoughts in italics?
Use more than one point of view (pov) |
||
| Third person multiple heroes | J.R.R. Martin
Brian Doyle |
Don’t need separate narrative voices for separate viewpoints.
Can give all sides of epic events |
POV character can’t keep secrets from the reader.
Be careful how you switch – one pov per chapter, one per scene, one per paragraph… |
Don’t break the reader’s neck, don’t make readers dizzy or confuse them.
Use hiatus (blsnk lines) to separate views |
|
| Third person observer | Mystery
Agatha Christie
|
Fly on the wall.
Movie-like. Sees all, knows all the characters’ actions. Gets to keep secrets and make comments |
Have to keep it interesting. Can’t get inside anybody’s heads. | Need a good plot!
Maybe more for plot driven than character driven stories. |
|
| Third person omniscient | Dorothy Sayers | Sees all, knows all, does get inside their heads, so no secrets
“Little did he know…” |
So… if there are no secrets… | Need a really good plot | |
| Second person | Often combined with omniscient. “If you had seen… wouldn’t you have…?” | Difficult to sustain over a short story or novel. |
Examples
Tense change
Princess Stella was walking in the forest. Her thoughts drifted back to the corridors and chambers of the castle. Her feet trod lightly on the loamy ground. Her breath drifted in front of her face in gentle puffs of air. Then a wolf leapt out at her.
She falls back in horror. As the wolf’s red eyes stare into hers, as drool drips from the ends of its fangs, her body trembles and she knows she’s going to die.
Why did the writer change to present tense – identifying with the character while writing an exciting scene. Fix it just by changing the tense. Maybe use italics…
She fell back in horror. I’m going to die. The wolf’s red eyes…
Person change
Princess Stella was walking in the forest. Her thoughts drifted back to the corridors and chambers of the castle. Her feet trod lightly on the loamy ground. Her breath drifted in front of her face in gentle puffs of air. Then a wolf leapt out at her.
I fall back, terrified. The wolf’s red eyes stare into mine, and drool drips on my face from the ends of its fangs. I’m going to die.
Again, identifying with the character. If we change it all to “I,” we might lose sympathy for the character whose head’s stuck in a castle while she walks in a forest, so have to decide what we’re aiming for.
Tense change 1st person
I was walking through the forest, not a trouble in my mind. Okay it wasn’t the castle of my youth, but it was beautiful. Then a wolf leapt out at me.
I fall back, till I land with a thump on the ground. The wolf’s red eyes stare into mine, and drool drips on my face from the ends of its fangs. I’m going to die.
Present tense is more immediate, and, just like switching to italics for internal thoughts, we’re allowed to switch tense sometimes. Just need to make sure it fits the voice.
I was walking through the forest, not a care on my mind, when suddenly this bloomin’ great wolf leaps out at me!
Point of view change
Princess Stella walked hand in hand with Prince Jim, dreaming of the future they might share. Then a wolf leapt out at them.
As Jim released her hand, Stella fell, and the wolf seemed set to pounce. She turned around, sure Jim would rescue her, already imagining how she would fall into his arms afterward. But when she caught sight of him, he was already halfway across the clearing, fleeing in terror and wondering where on earth the wolf had come from.
Maybe “fleeing as if in terror, or as if he were trying to guess where the wolf had come from.”