Finding Your Writer's Voice

by Frank, Thaisa; Wall, Dorothy

• ISBN13: 9780312151287
• ISBN10: 0312151284
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-01-01
• Publisher: Griffin

Summary

An illuminating guide to finding one's most powerful writing tool,Finding Your Writer's Voicehelps writers learn to hear the voices that are uniquely their own. Mixing creative inspiration with practical advice about craft, the book includes chapters on: Accessing raw voice Listening to voices of childhood, public and private voices, and colloquial voices Working in first and third person: discovering a narrative persona Using voice to create characters Shaping one's voice into the form of a story Reigniting the energy of voice during revision

Author Biography

Thaisa Frank, author of three books of short fiction and a forthcoming novel, is a two-time PEN award winner, and contributing editor to The San Francisco Review. She has taught at San Francisco State, University of California at Berkeley, and currently teaches at the University of San Francisco.

Dorothy Wall, poet and writing consultant, is also the author of numerous reviews and articles. She gives writing workshops and seminars, and has taught at San Francisco State University, Napa Valley College, and University of California at Berkeley, Extension. They both live in Oakland, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Telling Begins in an Atmosphere of Urgency	p. 3
Voice: Your Most Powerful Tool	p. 5
The Writer as Singer	p. 8
The Importance of Raw Voice	p. 10
The Voice as an Instrument	p. 15
Inner Listening	p. 20
Distilling Voice	p. 24
Inviting Accidents	p. 26
Listening to the Voice of Childhood	p. 28
Public and Private Voices	p. 32
The Sound of Colloquial Voice	p. 35
The Chorus of Voice	p. 38
Who's Speaking?: Voice and Character	p. 41
Capturing the Inner Critic	p. 46
Learning to Spot the Imposter	p. 49
The Writer as Presence	p. 54
Becoming a Prose Thief	p. 58
Using the Journal Dangerously	p. 61
Writing in the Pressure Cooker: Leading Raw Voice into the Story	p. 65
If	p. 68
Craft and the Voice of the Story	p. 73
Going Deeper into the Story: Voice as Composer and Instrumentalist	p. 77
From Anecdotes to Stories	p. 80
Catalysts for the Story: Character-, Plot-, and Vision-Driven Stories	p. 85
Working with Short Forms to Discover Your Story	p. 90
Point of View	p. 97
Meeting the First-Person Narrator	p. 103
Working with Third Person: Discovering a Narrative Persona	p. 111
Secrets as a Key to Character	p. 117
Finding Dialogue through Impersonation	p. 122
Voice and Tone	p. 127
To Plot or Not to Plot	p. 133
Gender Bending, Race Switching, and Beyond	p. 139
Unity: Discovering a Story's Design	p. 145
Returning to the Pressure Cooker	p. 152
Revision: Exploding the Myth	p. 159
The Art of Reading Your Own Fiction	p. 164
Should Dick Have a Beard?: Meeting Your Editors	p. 169
Listening for the Story Editor	p. 173
Listening for the Sentence Editor	p. 179
The Timing of Revision	p. 184
How to Surprise Yourself in the Middle of Your Story	p. 187
Filtering Feedback	p. 191
When to Rewrite from Scratch	p. 196
Talking to the Stranger: Another Angle on Revision	p. 200
Returning to Raw Voice	p. 205
Voice over the Long Haul	p. 208
Audacity and Ruthlessness: (De)Constructing a Writer's Life	p. 213
The Writer as Character	p. 217
Writing during Hard Times	p. 221
Some Truths about Truth-Telling	p. 226
The Importance of Lying	p. 233
Becoming Your Own Sovereign	p. 237
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