Xandra Gregory

Random pages on Wikipedia are dangerous things.  My latest random visit took me to the entry on the Vox Humana (I was actually trying to remember the latin quote “Vox populi, vox Dei” – the voice of the people is the voice of God, but I digress).  Turns out the Vox Humana is actually a piece of a pipe organ used to simulate the human voice.

As authors, we simulate the human voice in our writing–each of our characters has their own “voice” – their own sound and rhythm of speech yes, but also their own outlook on life, their own values and their own worldviews.

But as authors, we also need our own voice–our particular, peculiar ways of telling stories that make those stories unique to us.  There are, at best, three dozen or so plots in the whole world so far–there is nothing new under the sun, and it’s the way we as individuals tell those stories that make them mediocre, or make them great.  Voice is that elusive quality that editors and agents look for that makes a book stand out, and sadly enough, it isn’t something that can be taught.

The only way to find your voice is to use it.  The amazing experience that is listening to a pipe organ is made or broken by the acoustics in its cathedral.  Same with your writer’s voice.  Find your cathedral and then let your Vox Humana echo from the rafters.

Tags: writer's voice, Writing Process

This entry was posted by Xandra on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 8:35 am and is filed under Deep Thoughts, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.