Your voice…
Note from Steve: Missing my political posts? This blog now only has articles about reading, writing, and book publishing. You will find the missing political posts at http://pubprogressive.com; they’re still commentaries on social issues, politics, and other topics of concern that have more to do with my concerns as a US citizen and not my writing life. Please take a look.
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Your voice (or style) might be influenced by other authors’. How can you not be influenced if you’re an avid reader? (If you’re not, you should be!) Still, whether you’re influenced or not, if your voice isn’t more unique than not, why bother writing?
Many things contribute to that voice! The themes and plots they wrap around that you choose as an author are two where you not only stake out your territory but also can use them to appeal to different audiences. Same for narrative, dialogue, and settings. All your chosen story elements can be individualized. I wouldn’t worry too much about genres, though, because you can leave those keywords and others who insist on classifying your oeuvre. In fact, every time you think they’ve pigeon-holed you, break out and do something different! It’s best to keep readers guessing about the next book. That goes even for a series.
Consider Canadian mystery writer Louise Penny. I stopped reading her Inspector Gamache series because, like many traditionally published authors’ series, those books were becoming formulaic. Now a surprise! She teamed up with Hillary Clinton to write a thriller. (I can guess who did most of the writing.) I guess old Hillary didn’t want to be outdone by her philandering husband Bill, who teamed up with formulaic James Patterson, but I didn’t much care for either politician, so I won’t read their fiction. (A tell-all where Hillary relates why she didn’t kick Bill out on his butt would be more interesting than fiction.)
In my case, I bet some readers thought that after Rembrandt’s Angel, Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden would just continue solving crimes involving art. Son of Thunder, however, is entirely different as three parallel stories unfold and then coalesce, with religion playing a major role. (My only previous novel where the latter occurred was Soldiers of God, but religion is treated in an entirely different way in that story.) Then Death on the Danube had Esther and Bastiann on their honeymoon cruise and something like Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express occurs.
Did you think that would end the series? No, I continued to write about those two sleuths, having them solving crimes involving art, only art was trafficked in Palettes, Patriots, and Prats. Finally (for now!), having written Son of Thunder, the book Dan Brown should have written instead of The Da Vinci Code, I wrote about a Da Vinci code! Leonardo and the Quantum Code has a mathematical physicist developing new algorithms for quantum computers that are based on ideas found in a recently discovered Da Vinci notebook.
Say what you want about the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, you can’t claim it’s formulaic. Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t use my own books as examples, but I know them best! And this series illustrates what I mean by keeping readers (and critics?) guessing about your author’s voice.
Maybe some readers don’t like my changing voice, or Penny’s, for that matter. I don’t give a damn. I like to surprise readers! And sometimes the way a novel turns out surprises even me! I’m not the same writer I was when my first novel, Full Medical, was published in 2006. As my skills developed, my voice changed…and I’m proud of how it has changed, no matter what readers think.
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Comments are always welcome.
Rogue Planet. I often taut this as a hard sci-fi and not just another fantasy version of Game of Thrones. Now there’s a lot of hype about Dune, as the third movie based on the famous Herbert fantasy epic is about to come out. While it’s much better than Thrones, it’s a bit long-in-the-tooth…and long! Rogue Planet is a more compact story—similar swash-buckling battles between armies and a similar flawed and royal hero, but everything is set in my usual sci-fi universe that I began in The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. Of course, you can read it independently of that trilogy. (All my novels have that feature.) So if it’s epic fun you want, try my hard sci-fi, not fantasy! Rogue Planet is available in ebook or paper format wherever quality books are sold.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
