Authors Craft Voice and Personification Craft Authors CRAFT

Author’s Craft Voice and Personification

Craft

Author’s CRAFT � Just as a woodworker uses many tools and techniques to craft a piece of furniture, a skilled author uses tools and techniques of language and storytelling to craft a piece of writing. � Author's craft has two categories, Narrative Elements and Literary Devices. � The term Narrative Elements describes aspects of storytelling. Plot, Theme, Point of View, Conflict. � The term Literary Devices refers to specific tools of language that can appear in any genre of writing. Personification, Simile, Hyperbole, etc.

Personification �A figure of speech (generally considered a type of metaphor) in which an inanimate object or abstraction is given human qualities or abilities.

Examples �My computer hates me. �The camera loves me. �Art is a jealous mistress. �Wind yells while blowing. �Opportunity knocked on the door. �The sun greeted me this morning. �Snow had wrapped a white blanket over the city. �Time never waits for anyone. �Trees were dancing with the wind. �The radio stopped singing and continued to stare at me.

Personify!!

Personify!!

Personify!!

Personify!!

Voice �The set of all the different choices a writer's makes determines, and the collective effect they have on the reader, is what is often called the “voice” in a piece of writing. �Voice, sometimes referred to as “tone” or “mood" or even “style, ” tells the reader about the writer’s personality in the piece.

Tone =Attitude �A writer’s attitude towards the subject of audience which is revealed in his/her writing. �Tone is the attitude a writer takes towards a subject or character: serious, humorous, sarcastic, ironic, satirical, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective. �Tone typically refers to the emotional atmosphere the writer establishes and maintains through the entire novel.

Mood=FEELING �How a piece of writing makes you feel. �Mood is the emotional attitude the author takes towards his/her subject. �Remember Mood Rings?

Voice isn't merely style, tone, or mood. �Putting yourself on your page. �Style is watching your use of adjectives and doing a few flashy things with alliteration. �Style without voice is hollow. �Voice is style, plus theme, plus personal observations, plus passion, plus belief, plus desire. �Voice is bleeding onto the page, and it can be a powerful, frightening, naked experience.

10 Steps to Develop MY Voice: 1. Read everything. �You cannot be a successful writer if you don't read. That isn't opinion; that's fact. �Reading is magic. It's your bread and butter. Don't neglect it.

2. Write everything. �Try your hand at non-fiction. Write romantic scenes. Put together a western character and run him through a fight scenario. Try fantasy, try SF, try romance, try mainstream. �Write a sonnet, and some haiku, and a few limericks. Remember the first rule of writing: �Nothing you write is wasted.

3. Mentor the best �Do short exercises where you sit down and not only mentor the style of your favorite writers, but also mimic some of their themes and passions. Get as much into their heads as you can.

4. Play games �Make endless lists -- one-word lists of the things that excite you, the things that scare you, the things that you dream and fantasize about and hope for, the things you dread and fight to avoid.

5. Challenge your preconceptions. �You don't know everything about yourself. You only think you do. The more you trust yourself to write without correction, the more you'll discover that you're a lot deeper and more interesting and more complex than you imagined. �You'll find out a lot about yourself by pushing some of your own buttons.

6. Write from passion �If you don't care about the things you're writing about, you will never discover your true voice. �Your voice does not exist in the thin and cheap places of your heart or the shallow end of your soul. � Voice lives in the deep waters and the dark places of your soul, and it will only venture out when you make sure you've given it space to move and room to breathe.

7. Dare to be dreadful �When you're finding your voice, you're going to be doing a lot of experimenting. Some of what you write, frankly, is going to be lousy. Some of it will shock you with how good you really are. But the only way you'll get any of the good stuff is if you allow yourself to put whatever comes into your head down on the page without demanding salable prose of yourself.

8. Remember fear is your BFF �If your heart is beating fast and your palms are sweating and your mouth is dry, you're writing from the part of yourself that has something to say that will be worth hearing. Persevere. �At the heart of everything that you've ever read that moved you, touched you, changed your life, there was a writer's fear. And a writer's determination to say what he had to say in spite of that fear. �So be afraid. Be very afraid. And then thank your fear for telling you that what you're doing, you're doing right.

9. Remember that complacency is your worst enemy. �If you're comfortable, if you're rolling along without having to really think, if you haven't had to challenge yourself, if you know that everyone is going to approve of what you've done -- you're wasting your time. �Writing done from a position of comfort will never say anything worthwhile.

10 Take risks!!!!! �Choose to write about themes that your internal editor insists are too dangerous, too controversial, too embarrassing to be put on the paper. Imagine that your mom (or your other toughest critic) is looking over your shoulder with a raised eyebrow and a prudish expression on her face. Now shock her.

Voice Games: Write �Childhood memories. �Dreams and nightmares. �Ten gifts I'd give myself with magic. �If I could spend a million dollars, I'd buy. . . �What I want most in the world. �What I'd do anything to avoid. �Things that are creepy. �Things that are sexy. �Best foods. �Best times.

“Abandoned Farmhouse” Predictions?

Voice: “Save the Last Word for me” �http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Kt. Om. C 76 3 FJ 4 �Pick a line(s) in Ted Kooser’s poem “Abandoned Farmhouse” and write a response