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So, you want to write?
Good on you!
So why do you feel this drive to write?
Maybe you want to write because there's a story that you really must tell, as it's almost bursting out of you?
Perhaps you wish to write to correct a social wrong, a burning injustice?
Or you want to because it's a cathartic experience and it will help heal you?
Maybe it's for money, fame, or to carve yourself out a little piece of immortality?
No matter what the reason or need to write, each reason is as valid as the next—and don't let anyone tell you anything different!
Anyway, it's not the reason to write that really counts, it's the actual writing that matters. It's the writing that's King! The words that you organise and conjure onto the page.
The best advice that I ever received as an aspiring author was simple...just write!
Get those words out of your cranium and onto paper, or a screen...in the most accurate and honest way that you can.
The second most important advice that I ever received felt a little bit counter intuitive...it was to read and read and read some more.
It was only after I had written my debut novel that won the European Crime and Mystery Award that I fully realised the true importance of that second splinter of advice.
I was on a series of European book tours with the high and mighty of crime fiction writing...Kathy Reichs, Stieg Larsson, Mark Billingham, to name just a few.
Between copious plates of questionable looking Tapas dishes, they spoke of nothing else but books, writers, fictional characters, writing methods and techniques. I realised for the very first time, and it was a bit of a shock, how well read these top writers were.
They were book worms, each and every one of them. Students of their genre.
Fans of the written word.
It was later demonstrated in the television, radio and, press interviews that they gave. It was echoed in the book readings and talks that they gave with such eloquence.
Their wonderful writings were built upon the foundations that other great writers, who had come before them, had carefully put down. Their techniques developed while teething on these works that they then devoured. It was a harsh lesson, as up to that point I was not well read in the genre that I chose to write in, the genre that chose me...Political Crime Thrillers.
That gap was soon to change so that I could also talk and debate with these fanboy and girl great writers...instead of pretending to be highly engrossed in the questionable Tapas dishes that I was in silence, stuffing my mouth with.
So, as a writer...Why read?
Like a vast and powerful magnet hovering above a scrap heap of metal, if you read on your genre and beyond it, you will pick up things. Many valuable things. They will stick to you like metal to that magnet.
Plot development, character arcs, descriptive writing, pace and rhythm, how to build tension, manipulation your readers psychology and physiology...and a plethora of other skills to become the writer that you want to be.
So read. Know your genre.
Learn the lessons that are their to be learnt. That are there in the words and underlying the words written by terrific writers.
One of the many great things about VOCATALES is that it's so easy to put down your thoughts in an organised fashion.
No more 'post it' notes. No more scraps of paper or the reliance on an already heavily burdened memory! So, note down what exactly it was about developing characterizations that you learned from reading Vonnegut.
What dialogue techniques did you unearth from devouring Salinger and Sally Rooney?
How you can build tension in your novel like Stephen King or Harlan Coben?
But reading is not purely an academic exercise.
It's not a staid and fact heavy lesson.
It's a joy. It's a subtle influencer. As you read, bits will stick to you that you don't even realise have stuck. Splinters of it will pierce you that you hadn't realised had bled you. Sections of it will educate you without announcing it's intrusion.
And all of these subtle invasions will inevitably help to create your very own, 'Unique Writer's Voice.' In any genre, having a 'UWV' is critical.
It's the writing equivalent of hearing a Bowie, Queen, or Rolling Stones number on the radio. Within just a few seconds, you know exactly who it is that's playing.
That tone, that style, that guitar riff gives it away...as unique as a fingerprint.
Yes, writers, or at least the very best of them...have that as well.
A unique and instantly recognizable voice and style.
A single line from Dickens...and you'll recognise the author.
A fragment of Orwell, a smattering of Hemingway, a tad of Plath...
and you can name their creators.
Take it from me, as a rather idiosyncratic writer with a style that is considered to be unique—that there is nothing more exciting than developing your own 'UWV.'
And, never forget—
Dickens was once a doubting and haunted starter writer.
Hemingway, an unpublished novelist.
Orwell, a writer who was rejected by publishers many times.
Plath, a poet plagued by doubts about her writings.
So, there is no reason why you also, cannot develop a 'Unique Writers Voice' that is cherished by readers around the world.
Believe... it happens!
At VocaTales, we believe.
We believe in aiming high.
We believe in storytellers and their ability to change the world that we live in.
At VocaTales, we believe in you and your capacity to become a fantastic writer and create wonderful stories.
In the coming months, my blogs will explore and unearth the techniques and strategies that will support you in putting together stories that engage their readers.
How to craft your ideas so that they thrill those who are reading them—and take them on a fully immersed experience.
See you next month right here, the home of storytellers.