Is your writing like Julie Andrews, Etta James or Lady Gaga?

by +AneMulligan  @AneMulligan

Blending Southern and Native American fiction, Lisa Carter writes “Sweet Tea with a Slice of Murder”. Her latest release is Under a Turquoise Sky. She is the author of two previous romantic suspense novels, Carolina Reckoning and Beneath A Navajo Moon; and Aloha Rose, a contemporary romance in the Quilts of Love series. She and her family make their home in North Carolina. When she isn't writing, Lisa enjoys traveling to romantic locales, teaching writing workshops, and researching her next exotic adventure. She has strong opinions on barbecue and ACC basketball. Connect with Lisa on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. 

Learning to maximize your voice

Each story has a flow of sound like music. A unique beat, rhythm, tone. Writers, too, have a voice, recognizable throughout their entire body of work. Some singers have a crystal clear quality of tonality like Julie Andrews. I think of it as a bubbling, high arching fountain. Others, a deep, full sound like Etta James with a rich, Mississippi River quality.

Editors and agents look for authors with a strong or unique “voice.” Your writing voice is already part of you, the sum total of your personality and experiences. The indefinable essence of who you are—

Your voice is defined by what you have to say and how you choose to say it.

Writing voice will be determined by—

•Gender—Tom Clancy will never be mistaken for Barbara Cartland

•Time period—Herman Melville vs. Ernest Hemingway

•Culture—Charles Frazier vs. Maya Angelou

•Target audience—J.K. Rowling vs. Nicholas Sparks

•Area of expertise—John Grisham vs. Kathy Reichs

•Worldview—F. Scott Fitzgerald vs. Francine Rivers

Writers reveal a great deal about themselves—more so than they realize—in the stories they feel compelled to tell, in their empathy for characters they create, in their passion for particular story themes, and the insight with which they develop character actions/reactions.

Your natural writing voice will flow—and overflow—out of the abundance of your individual life journey. It is only out of this—what you know plus a good dose of an innate ability to imagine—that will enable you to write with honesty, conviction and courage.

The story itself also impacts the rhythm or beat of the music. Some novels will start out fast, hard-hitting, leaving you breathless on the edge of your seat as you turn each page. Other books begin at a slower pace with a tease, a promise, building a crescendo of tension or romance.

How to Enhance Your Natural Writing Voice

.   1.    Read—Writers are readers first. Your choice of reading material is often a good indicator of a writing style that resonates with you and what you write. Reading can develop your natural gift and quicken the cadence of your writing “ear.”
2.     Write—Your writing voice is like a muscle. You must exercise this muscle to fine tune and develop the gift that lies within. Write what you see and think and know. Hone your observation skills.
3.     Listen—When people speak, tune your ear to the subtlety of what they’re really saying. Find what’s authentic and transfer that authenticity to your words.
4.     Discover—What is your passion? What do you love? What draws you? More than just writing what you know—write about what makes you want to get out of bed every morning.
5.     Embrace—Find other authors who “get” you and the stories your heart longs to tell. Sometimes it requires a friend/outsider to help you to identify your true voice. Most of us, consciously or not, find ourselves writing book after book that reflect a central life theme/truism for us as individuals. Probably arising out of the broken home of my childhood, the stories my heart wants to tell revolve around creating family, restoration and hope.
6.     Release—Let go of the fear that holds you back from expressing your truest self. Learn to trust your voice. Authority, power and confidence come with the repeated practice of expression. Continue to grow your voice with new experiences; beware of complacence and stagnation.

Strengthen the natural range of your voice—vocalists always begin with arpeggio exercise runs just as athletes develop their own muscle warm up routines. Deepen your characters. Dig down deep to their—and your—emotional heart.

Writing is not for the timid. As one author once lamented, “Every morning I sit down, figuratively slit my emotional veins, and bleed out all over the screen.” Don’t be afraid to confront your personal barriers to truth in voice.

Because if you are unwilling to go to that heart place, you may not have any true song to sing.

Under a Turquoise Sky

When federal agent Aaron Yazzie is assigned to protect the only witness to a drug cartel execution, he hides Kailyn Eudailey in the safest place he knows . . . the vast, untamed wilderness of the Navajo Reservation.

Transporting Kailyn to New Mexico may not be as easy as Aaron would like. Kailyn is a high-maintenance Southern belle who is determined to
assert her independence at every step. Although Aaron's job is to protect her from the dangers that could get them both killed, Kailyn is getting to him. As an undercover agent, Aaron has grown adept at
playing many roles. But will he be able to embrace his true identity and God’s plan for his life in order to keep Kailyn alive?

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An Author’s Voice . . . Innate or Developed? by guest blogger JoAnn Durgin

JoAnn Durgin is the author of the popular contemporary romantic adventures, Awakening, and its follow-up, Second Time Around, published by Torn Veil Books. Her third book in the series, Twin Hearts, releases next month. JoAnn, her husband, Jim, and their three children live in her native southern Indiana after living in TX, CA, PA and MA. She likes to say she’s “been around in the nicest sense of the word.” She’s a full-time wealth administration paralegal in a Louisville, Kentucky, law firm, and is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers and Romance Writers of America. Her books are available at every major online book retailer such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, both in paperback and electronic versions. Please visit her at www.joanndurgin.com or on Facebook.

NR: JoAnn will give away one copy of Awakening (Book #1 in The Lewis Legacy Series), one copy of Second Time Around (Book #2), and one copy of Twin Hearts (it won't be available in paperback form to ship until on or after April 1, 2012, but can be sent electronically to the winner). Leave a comment for her to be entered in the drawing. Continental U.S. residents only, please.

An Author’s Voice . . . Innate or Developed?

One of the most challenging hurdles for a beginning writer is finding his or her “voice.” What does “voice” mean, why is it so important and how is it different from point-of-view? A well-developed “voice” is a technique used by writers to help a reader “see” the unfolding events in a story through the eyes of one or more characters. Since an author creates those characters, he or she knows their family dynamic, background, environment, accomplishments, hopes, dreams, loves, failures, vulnerabilities and fears. The better the author knows a character, the more real they will become. An effective voice is a crucial element to keep the reader turning the pages, and it’s manifested with active (as opposed to passive) phrasing, dialogue and narrative as it draws them deeper into the fictional world.

Is an author’s voice like a fingerprint, unique to that one person? Some suggest it’s innate and writers are “born” with it. Some believe voice is learned or developed after much practice, trial and error. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but it could be a combination of both. Just as some recording artists are easily identifiable (think Adele, Willie Nelson, Barbara Streisand), other vocalists’ voices are more generic. Authors should never be content to simply “blend in” with the crowd; they want to rise above the rest and shine! But how?

Showing is the best way to illustrate my point, so below are two examples from my March 2012 release, Twin Hearts (third in The Lewis Legacy Series, but it can stand on its own):

Example #1: Weaving his way through the room of a hundred or so women in red hats of all sizes and shapes—pretty much a reflection of their owners—Josh was a wonder to behold. A number of the ladies looked at the guys as if they were dessert, but they smiled and laughed as they went about their task, ignoring the middle-aged hormones in overdrive. It was as close to swooning as anything she’d ever seen. Based on all the fanning going on, there were enough hot flashes in the room to bake a cake.

Example #2: She didn’t want to feel such a strong attraction for Josh, but her heart and pulse weren’t listening. Don’t look at the eyes. If she repeated it to herself enough times, would it keep her from succumbing to his charms? Those eyes had been her undoing before and would be again if she didn’t watch herself. So much for the self-pep talk. A whole lot of good it did. Why he felt the need to dress in one of his fancy power suits was beyond her, but then again, here she sat in a dress costing the equivalent of a monthly car payment for Ladybug. Hypocrisy was highly overrated sometimes.

Both of the above examples are in the point-of-view of my heroine. Do you see where her “voice” comes into play? Even without knowing anything about this character, you get a good sense of who she is, her sense of humor, her powers of observation, and understand she has a history with Josh. Look at the last two sentences of each paragraph. Those are my zingers, but they’re not always at the end of the paragraph. However, writers should always try to end chapters with a word or a sentence that will hook the reader into turning the page in order to find out what happens next. One of the best compliments I ever received is when a reader said, “I’ve learned to stop reading your books in the middle of the chapter. Once I read the end of a chapter, I have to keep going.”

As authors, we love reviews describing our books with adjectives like fresh, innovative, effortless and engaging. More often than not, those words are referring to the writer’s voice. It’s that element of a novel differentiating it from the rest of the crowd which makes the writing shine, stand out and worthy of attention. Finding one’s writing voice can sometimes be elusive, and it can become a source of great frustration. Persevere and don’t allow it to deter you from writing your best. Perhaps it’s hidden, but I firmly believe a unique voice is within every author, waiting to be discovered and revealed. I’d like to suggest the following five ways to help discover your voice:

#1: Know your characters from the inside out.

#2: Keep the voice true to the character’s point-of-view. 

#3: Be an observer of people and events, but also the ironies, humor, tragedies and triumphs of life. It makes you a better writer overall, but it also helps infuse your characters with personality so they almost leap off the page—and into the hearts and minds of readers.

#4: Write what you know and write passionately from your soul.

#5: Approach every character and story as if it were your first or your last. Make them count.

Remember this: even the most innovative plot can be dead-in-the-water without that well-developed voice. Conversely, even the dullest, plodding plot can be enthralling if told with a masterful voice.

Thank you for the opportunity to visit with you today, and I wish all of you God’s best as you read and write. Blessings, my friends. Matthew 5:16

Twin Hearts

Josh Grant is a man seeking redemption. He’s not looking for love, but finds it in a most unexpected and tender way. His twin sister, Rebekah, is torn between two very different men: one a dashing British aristocrat offering her the world, and the other a humble, quiet, faithful Louisiana lumberman. When family tragedy strikes, the twins lean on Sam and Lexa Lewis and their fellow TeamWork Missions volunteers for encouragement. Together they learn lessons in faith and family and what's most important in life as they discover it’s time to stake their claim on love, which means a road trip from Louisiana to . . . the peace to be found in seeking and finding the sweetest desires of the heart. Available from Torn Veil Books in March 2012 in both paperback and e-book versions at all major online book retailers.

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