Voice-Part II: The Natural Speaking Voice
In my last newsletter, I talked about two aspects of the writer's artistic expression: The first involves being aware that the reader is a stranger whom you will only meet on the page. The second involves engaging the reader by never telling too much or too little.
The writer's voice would not exist, however, without the natural speaking voice. Its rhythms, natural digressions, choices of words, and patterns of speech are as important as the words. It is also the case that your natural speaking voice is the only voice you have. It may sprawl all over the page and put the reader to sleep; but it is the only material that can be trained to become a writer's voice--a voice that engages the reader and has a distinctive presence.
The term "natural voice" implies a rich supply of language as well as the permission to say whatever comes to mind. But by the time most writers start to explore voice, a great deal of natural voice has been suppressed. This begins when we're very young and start to learn that many things we say are out of place—in our family of origin, in school, in polite society. This eventually launches an inner critic that begins to suppress language. Some language is suppressed because it's considered too negative, some is suppressed because it isn't "cool", and some because it's embarrassing or threatening to other people.
For this reason, most writers begin to approach working with their natural voice like an archeologist going on a dig. You know that something valuable is there, but you won't find it until you excavate. In this case you are excavating personae at different layers of time. And each personae demands to say something about its silence. Eventually, if you stick with it, you will find a voice that says what it means and also comes from your body and your diaphragm. It is not the destructive, threatening voice that you feared. It won’t send you to Writers’ Boot Camp. It is natural, honest, comfortable, engaging and—most of all—has a distinct presence.
A Story About Voice and the Body
When I first began to teach writing, I worked with a group of college professors who were perishing because they could not publish.
I wasn’t at all sure if I could help them. One was from Oxford and a Dean of Humanities. He was an eloquent speaker--as long as you liked discourses that addressed a cerebral plane. But beyond that plane, however, his voice was choked up.
This was the late eighties in California. The somewhat frenetic spiritual movement had been replaced by the less threatening idea that spirituality was really a form of self-help. Mindfulness posters abounded. So did charts of the chakras (energy centers in the body).
In the process, I had become curious about the energetic quality of language: For example, I noticed that when I read a Zen text, my body had an energetic response that was different from the response I had when I read a scholarly treatise. In a matter-of-fact and non-mystical way, I began to see that language was the conveyor of energy as well as meaning.
Of course I didn't feel at all comfortable talking about such things with a group of academics, sitting uncomfortably on low mattresses--the Zen a la mode for student furniture. I was careful to hide pretty much everything about myself.
But one day I was reading one of Mallarme's diaries in which he wrote that he’d been strung out on coffee and no sleep and didn't think he could possibly write until he pulled his consciousness into his heart and produced a great vibration which resulted in a poem, Armed with what seemed like palatable evidence, I brought out a chart of the chakras, told the professors the story of Mallarme, suggested that they concentrate on a chakra of their choice, and write. In particular, I remember the dean from Oxford. He picked syllable Ram, which is the symbol for gut power, and went into what appeared to be a trance in my faux-Zen living room. Soon he was writing an extraordinary piece about a meadow in his childhood.
I asked him if it seemed possible to write about Rossetti from that place. He thought about it and said that he could. He even started to talk about Rossetti's famous clear window in his studio on the Thames. The piece was eventually published.
Some things to try:
1. Go back to your childhood and see if you can remember the best listener you had. If you can't find a person, pick a pet or a stuffed animal. Tell this treasured listener a story that begins with "once upon a time". (If you grew up speaking another language, use that language.)
2. Look around your workroom--even if it's a dining room table cluttered with games. Choose an inanimate object (a paper-clip holder, a pen, a dictionary, Scotch tape, etc.) and have it get angry with you for misusing it. (This can include not using it enough.) Now answer it. When you answer, don't be apologetic. Accuse it of being useless. Get angry at it for speaking up. And have the last word.
2. Allow yourself to get into the same state of reverie you get into with the writer's log. Let your mind drift to your life before you were twelve. (If it helps, repeat the words I remember, I remember.) At some point a memory will capture your attention--very much like a twig on a tree snags your sweater during a hike. Write about this without regard to grammar or spelling. (You may uncover some early expressions or grammar from childhood.)
3. There are times in all of our lives when we--or someone else-- thought we said the wrong thing. See what occurs to you, when you think of the following ages: 1. Before you started kindergarten. 2. When you were in grade school. (Don't forget the etiquette of the playground, or the substitute teacher who didn't like you.) 3. High school and particularly peer groups. See what you remember and what you feel free to write about. You don't have to push yourself into abject misery. Remember as much as feels comfortable.
4. Experiment with your voice as an instrument of sound. Find a place where no one can hear you and sing what you wrote in exercise 2 and/or 3.
6. Continue to keep a writer's log. This log, in which you record what you remembered and impressed you, is the confluence between memory and imagination.
Reading
WANTS, a very short story by Grace Paley, is an example of a voice with authority and freedom. It is an informal voice. Yet she is introducing herself as one stranger to another.
I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library.
Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.
He said, What? What life? No life of mine.
I said, O.K. I don’t argue when there’s real disagreement. I got up and went into the library to see how much I owed them. The librarian said $32 even and you’ve owed it for eighteen years. I didn’t deny anything. Because I don’t understand how time passes. I have had those books. I have often thought of them. The library is only two blocks away.
My ex-husband followed me to the Books Returned desk. He interrupted the librarian, who had more to tell. In many ways, he said, as I look back, I attribute the dissolution of our marriage to the fact that you never invited the Bertrams to dinner.
That’s possible, I said. But really, if you remember: first, my father was sick that Friday, then the children were born, then I had those Tuesday-night meetings, then the war began. Then we didn’t seem to know them any more. But you’re right. I should have had them to dinner.
I gave the librarian a check for $32. Immediately she trusted me, put my past behind her, wiped the record clean, which is just what most other municipal and/or state bureaucracies will not do.
I checked out the two Edith Wharton books I had just returned because I’d read them so long ago and they are more apropos now than ever. They were The House of Mirth and The Children, which is about how life in the United States in New York changed in twenty-seven years fifty years ago.
A nice thing I do remember is breakfast, my ex-husband said. I was surprised. All we ever had was coffee. Then I remembered there was a hole in the back of the kitchen closet, which opened into the apartment next door. There, they always ate sugar-cured smoked bacon. It gave us a very grand feeling about breakfast, but we never got stuffed and sluggish.
That was when we were poor, I said.
When were we ever rich? he asked.
Oh, as time went on, as our responsibilities increased, we didn’t go in need. You took adequate financial care, I reminded him. The children went to camp four weeks a year and in decent ponchos with sleeping bags and boots, just like everyone else. They looked very nice. Our place was warm in winter, and we had nice red pillows and things.
I wanted a sailboat, he said. But you didn’t want anything.
Don’t be bitter, I said. It’s never too late.
No, he said with a great deal of bitterness. I may get a sailboat. As a matter of fact I have money down on an eighteen-foot two-rigger. I’m doing well this year and can look forward to better. But as for you, it’s too late. You’ll always want nothing.
He had had a habit throughout the twenty-seven years of making a narrow remark which, like a plumber’s snake, could work its way through the ear down the throat, half-way to my heart. He would then disappear, leaving me choking with equipment. What I mean is, I sat down on the library steps and he went away.
I looked through The House of Mirth, but lost interest. I felt extremely accused. Now, it’s true, I’m short of requests and absolute requirements. But I do want something. I want, for instance, to be a different person. I want to be the woman who brings these two books back in two weeks. I want to be the effective citizen who changes the school system and addresses the Board of Estimate on the troubles of this dear urban center.
I had promised my children to end the war before they grew up.
I wanted to have been married forever to one person, my ex-husband or my present one. Either has enough character for a whole life, which as it turns out is really not such a long time. You couldn’t exhaust either man’s qualities or get under the rock of his reasons in one short life.
Just this morning I looked out the window to watch the street for a while and saw that the little sycamores the city had dreamily planted a couple of years before the kids were born had come that day to the prime of their lives.
Well! I decided to bring those two books back to the library. Which proves that when a person or an event comes along to jolt or appraise me I can take some appropriate action, although I am better known for my hospitable remarks.
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The next newsletter will explore another way of freeing voice, and talk about the art of the story.