Improve your writing voice by reading what you REALLY like

A few weeks ago, I heard an interview with crime author Nigel Bartlett on my favourite writing podcast: So You Want to be a Writer.

In the interview, Nigel spoke about the way the friends he was holidaying with, looked down on his reading matter when he produced a page-turning crime thriller, instead of one of the more literary books he normally forced himself to read. He has now gone on to be a very successful crime writer, so I hope he told his friends to stick that in their pipes and smoke it.

I have to say, as a new writer, I do find a lot of members of the writing fraternity guilty of the same snobbery. I have been accosted a number of times by wannabe writers who have demanded I tell them my favouirte books/ authors. When my answer doesn’t match their far superior literary tastes, the holier-than-thou sneery look they give me lets me know I am now an object of pity, right at the bottom rung of their “worthy of talking to about writing” ladder.

Well, I have news for them. I don’t give a toss about their ladder. I think most of them are phony baloney. Surely, if the number of people who allege to love literary fiction actually loved it, those books would be on best-seller lists, rather than struggling with modest sales.

I am an avid reader. I have pretty much read at least a book a week since I was a kid. During my many decades long love affair with books I have gone through a horror phase, an Austen phase, a feminist phase, a classics phase, a self-help phase, a memoir phase, a crime thriller phase, a chick lit phase, a young adult phase, and yes, of course, a “worthy literarature” phase.

Some of the genres I have read I have fallen deeply in love with, and continue to read to this day. Others have been flings that I look back on with a chuckle. Some books I have read because I felt I ought to. Other books I couldn’t put down. While I can appreciate the “important” tomes, it is the ones that get my heart racing that I really love.

We are all a unique bundle of genes and life experiences, on our own distinct journeys. Why shouldn’t our diversity extend to our reading tastes?

Reading the books you are “meant” to read because they have “literary merit” is a sure-fire way to suck the fun out of reading. The people who tell me they struggle to read a couple of paragraphs the book on their bedside table each night ARE READING THE WRONG BOOK. It’s time to take a different fork in the road.

So how does reading books you don’t love affect your writing? I have not conducted scientific experiments on this, but it seems logical to me that if you write in a way you think will make you seem impressive and “literary”, rather than the way that is true to who you are and what you REALLY like, your reader will be able to tell because your voice will sound self-conscious. And if you don’t even feel comfortable admitting to reading what you like, how are you going to be comfortable writing what you like?

Because if you aren’t comfortable it will show in your voice.

 On Grammar Girl’s, Quick and Dirty Tips (http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/understanding-voice-and-tone-in-writing) Julie Wildhaber describes it this way…

Voice is the distinct personality, style, or point of view of a piece of writing or any other creative work. Voice is what Simon Cowell is talking about when he tells "American Idol" contestants to make a song their own and not just do a note-for-note karaoke version. Many musicians have played "The Star-Spangled Banner," for instance, but there's a world of difference between the Boston Pops' performance and Jimi Hendrix's, even though the basic melody is the same.

From the reading I have done, voice is the one thing that can’t really be taught. It is the thing you as a writer need to discover for yourself, and my non-scientific theory is that it is closely connected to knowing who you really are, including being true to the types of books you really, in your heart of hearts, like to read.

Do you think being true to yourself as a reader could help unlock your writers voice?

How to keep going when you hit a hump with your writing

Illustration copyright Matt Clare at Mono Design

I have to tell you something about myself. While I probably err on the side of the half-empty glass in many areas of life, when it came to writing a book, I saw a cup not only half full, but overflowing.

I blame copywriting. After being a copywriter for a decade, I have become pretty good at a quick turnaround on my words. I figured writing a book would be like writing 1000 words multiplied by 80. Easy peasey.

But oh, ho, ho, how wrong I was. I have read that it is unseemly to complain about how hard writing a book is. But IT WAS REALLY HARD. There. I’ve done it. You are free to call me unseemly, or a whinger, or an unseemly whinger. Whatevs.

Since I am now already labelled, let me wallow a bit more. For a start, having never written a book before, I didn’t expect it to be so complicated. It might seem apparent to everyone else in the universe, but it wasn’t until I started this process that I realised a book is not just a Frankenstein collection of disparate thousand word sections – at least not the kind of book I wanted to write – it is a living, breathing beast that has to work as a whole. Before I found scrivener, I nearly drove myself RED RUM crazy trying to devise ways of keep up with the flow of the story. (If you are struggling with this, scrivener http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php is seriously awesome. And no, I am not paid to say that).

But still, scrivener wasn’t everything I needed to hold the book together. I had to understand how a book worked before I could feel like I actually knew how to write one. I read obsessively on scene and structure, plot, character development, style and voice. I listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts on writing techniques as well as author interviews. Though I also read fiction, I couldn’t switch off. While occasionally getting pulled into the world of a book, more often than not I analysed the writing, took apart the structure and tracked the character arc. (Did I mention I trained as a biochemist and am prone to obsessive, scientific analysis when I feel out of my depth?)

So, why am I telling you this and how does it help you to get over your hump? On reflection, I think my panic at not knowing what the hell I was doing was actually a good thing for keeping my inspiration going and helping me avoid writers block.

Writing a book requires a step-up of energy that can be hard to muster, especially if you are also working a day job and/ or looking after kids. To make this new energy, you have to feed your creative fire.

I am not suggesting everyone go to crazy town in  exactly the same way I did, but if you are sitting in front of an empty screen feeling defeated, it is easy to let the voices creep in, the ones that tell you you aren’t any good. Those voices drain your energy and make your creative self want to curl up in a ball. It is hard to keep your fingers on the keyboard when you are hunched over in foetal position.

Even if you don’t let those voices win, and remain diligently locked in a battle with the empty page, there is no guarantee the muse is going to turn up. Sometimes, when you feel stuck, or low on motivation, filling your head with techniques and ideas from people who have walked the path ahead of you can be a great way to keep your juices flowing and the ideas coming.

It might not work for everyone, but if you are feeling down in the dumps about your draft, why not try hunting for inspiration? Pick up a book on writing, read a publisher’s blog, find a new podcast, get lost in a book by an author you love. The worst thing that could happen is you learn something; the best might be that you  finish your book.