A Little about Voice, Character, and the Plucking of a Bright Beginning from the Sea of Nothingness

And to Think, that Came Out of Me

"Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I supect it is when you can write most entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page." __ Eudora Welty


Here's a blog about nothing. And everything. And how to -- hopefully -- start with the former and end up with the latter. It's all about beginnings, and voice, and creating that perfect character, and staying true to that voice and that character throughout the body of work, and ... .

But let's move forward, shall we?

I'm going to start by talking about beginnings. Again. Forgive me, but I love a great beginning. A good writer makes them seem so easy. And yet writing one is so very, very hard. A strong beginning is so important. It anchors the book, and ultimately sells it. First to an editor, then to the readers.

So let's take a look at the process. I'll use my own trial and error struggles as examples. Besides trying to nail voice and character, I am also trying to decide between first and third person, past or present tense for my WIP. Please bear with me.

Here's the first stab in the dark:

A strange foreboding of homesickness washes over me as I juggle to pull the front door of my apartment closed. I ignore the feeling. It makes no sense -- I'll be back home in a couple hours.

Let me introduce myself. My name's Dianne Harris and I'm twenty four. Since my husband died in a car crash 16 months ago, and I became a single mother, I'm juggling more than just what I'm carrying ... .

Yawn. No voice here to speak of. Dry and booorrring.

Let's try again:

From the moment my pregnancy test stick turned blue, my goal was to give my baby something I didn't have growing up -- parents. Real parents -- a biological mother and father living under the same roof. I thought that's what I was giving her when I married Matt. But the accident snatched away my dream before it got started. Matt didn't even get a chance to lay a hand on my stomach and feel Megan kick and roll inside. He lived and drove too fast, and died behind the wheel of his beefed up 1970 Chevelle when I was only two months pregnant.

Better. A little more voice. But no hint of the supernatural elements yet to come, and sort of whiny. Still not what I'm hoping for.

Okay, take a deep breath, relax, and give 'er another shot:

Dianne Harris woke on a drizzly Saturday morning in November, not knowing her life was soon to change forever. She greeted the day with smiles for her three-month-old baby girl, and adjusted to the grieving acceptance settling like lava rock in the pit of her stomach. Neither her inner discomfort, nor the gray pallor of the Oregon coastal sky felt like a premonition of things to come. Dianne didn't believe in supernatural feelings. She was well-grounded in reality and firmly rooted in her life as a young, widowed mother, so she casually shoved the blunt edges of sleep and uneasiness to the dark recesses of her subconscious and went about her day.

This is okay. But a little too slow for the story I want to tell. And in third person, past tense, feels too stiff and formal -- too literary-ish. (Not that there's anything wrong with writing literary-ish. It's just not my intention with this story).

Can you say try again?

This time I want something new, different, exciting. I'll turn my own voice off, and write from some chasm deep within. Uh-huh, yeah. That's just what I'll do:

When I open my eyes it's drizzling outside. Little tip taps of raindrops hit my roof, like they do every November. But this morning, something don't seem right about it. Like something big and changing about to happen, something I can't do nothin' to stop. I feels my body. Runs my hands all over myself. I'm jus' the same. A little too big through the hips, a little poochie in the tummy area. Woman's always got a poochie tummy after she give birf though. You'd be poochie too, girl, you gots a baby only three months old.

Okay. Wow. Where did that come from? It does have a little Eudora Welty flavor going on there. (Lord, please forgive me for being so egotistical as to compare my writing-- even a single paragraph -- to Eudora Welty's).

Now this voice I like. It's unique, interesting. I don't know for sure how I got it, though, and I'm afraid I couldn't sustain it for a whole book. But it's a snippet I'll transfer to another file, and play with another day -- a fun short story voice, full of southern possibilities.

I'm getting closer.

You go, girl! Hit it again:

The only supernatural thing about Roseland, Oregon, is the crazy lady on Center Street who claims she can predict the future. So, when I whip into a parking space at the convenience store, almost hit a black dog roughly the size of Idaho, and its eyes glow red as it looks at me, I say to myself, "Ridiculous, Dianne. You must be seeing things." When the huge dog disappears into the mist, I say, "Good riddance," unload Megan from her car seat, try to forget about the dog, and go on inside the Coast Town Speedy Mart. I need a Diet Coke to lubricate my courage; my next stop is the newspaper office to drop off Grandma Austin's obituary. Facing her death, in black and white print, scares me more than I'd like to admit. So, basically, I'm procrastinating.

Inside the market, in front of the soda machine, I'm jiggling baby Megan up and down to keep her happy when I smell Kevin -- that same clean, fresh aftershave he's always worn. The scent of spice and forest and gentle breezes rustling through clothes hung on a line floods my memory, whisking me back to simpler days. Which, at the time, didn't seem simple at all.

This I can live with. Sentences tend to run on the long side, but I kind of like it anyway. Sets up the story, tone, place, supernatural elements, and the romance. Even gives a scene goal.

Of course, who knows how many more tweaks this will get before I'm done ... .


How many times do you rewrite your beginnings? Do you ever write something, look at it later and think, "Wow! That came out of me? Cool." How do you get yourself into the zone to do that? I can only write really inspired things in the morning. Afternoons I can edit and dink here and there, but my real creativity is shot by then. How about you?