#atozchallenge: Voice

"Voice is the je ne sais quoi of spirited writing. It separates brochures and brilliance, memo and memoir, a ship's log and The Old Man and the Sea."
~ Constance Hale, Sin and Syntax

Voice. The je ne sais quoi of spirited writing. I love that. (This book, by the way, is the core of a writer's joie de vivre. If you haven't read it, get it now. Nothing will ever be the same.)

But what is voice? What is that je ne sais quoi? Is it just language and syntax, how a writer chooses to put sentences together? Does it have to do with subject matter? With characters? With the writer's vision of the world?

All of it? None of it?

Undefinable as it is, voice is the most visible quality in writing. And nowhere is that more apparent than in an anthology of short fiction.

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

He thinks it's time now to find a cab or a hotel but the crush of bodies around him becomes greater, another throng of people swept up in religious fervor. This is what he wants: ecstasy and spectacle, animal sacrifice and widow-burning and fire-walking. This is why he has come to India, after all. Isn't it? 

~ Azure, by John Wentworth Chapin (2014 March Vol. 3)

BTW I was thinking, maybe you might want some assistance, just to speed the editing up a little, because it's taking a little longer than it would normally, probably because summer has hit you early and that red pen can get a little slippy and slidey all over the page.

~ Schöne Grüße aus Tirol, Sally-Anne Macomber (2014 March Vol. 3)

Jump out of bed. Shower. Blow-dry hair. Apply makeup. Put on mom costume. Walk down hall to kids' rooms. Wake them for school. Same thing, Monday through Friday, August through May. Rinse and repeat. This is your life on motherhood.  

~ Rinse and Repeat, by h. l. nelson (2014 March Vol. 3)

As Stevie reaches into his backpack he weighs what he dislikes about Rick, starting with the fact that he knows it was Rick--Rickie back then--who stole his Star Wars lunchbox in the seventh grade. It was not from the new series either; it was vintage, from the original ancient series from his parents' wonder years.

~ No. 2 Pencil, by Michelle Elvy (2014 April Vol. 4)

It isn't baseball weather. Grey and forbidding, with a misting rain falling out of low, angry clouds, it's soup and blanket weather for most, but just another early season day in another city for us. Nobody wants to play--not the sparse group of diehard fans huddled under cover; not the umpires, huddled inside until the last possible moment; not the ground crew warming their hands over the hot dog steam; and certainly not the players, conscious of the fragile bodies they are compensated so well for using. 

~ Fourth Inning, by Michael Webb (2014 April Vol. 4)

Do you have a favorite author? Could you recognize their work among others'? What do you think makes a writer's voice unique? Is it only writers who have it? What constitutes style? Is it something we're born with, like blue eyes or brown? Or is it something we can cultivate?

~ * ~ 

Yes, I realize V day was yesterday for the rest of the A-to-Z world. Seeing as I haven't behaved this week, I'm giving up my day off tomorrow and posting W then. Sorry :(

Thanks for the visit!

#atozchallenge: Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, or Union Square?

Uganda

Exotic (to a Westerner like me), alien, hard to get to. A challenge.

Ukraine 

The seat of current conflict, a long and bloody history; the sort of place a wanna-be journalist might dream of visiting.

Uruguay

New Zealand in South America. A quasi-mythical place or a tax haven (depending on how you found out of its existence). 

Union Square

Familiar and safe, even to those who've never been to San Francisco (or even the U.S.).

So. Which of these places would your 2014 character most likely be found?

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Uruguay! Because it is the hardest to say. Trudy would probably end up on a cattle farm that's going broke so she has to supplement her income with rodeo shows--but in pidgin Spanish.

Or something like that.

Sally-Anne Macomber

Union Square.
Mandy Nicol

Luis Villalobos thinks he'd choose Uganda. In truth, and given his career in international tax, chances are small he'd be anywhere but Union Square. Or Uruguay. But highly unlikely he'd cross paths with Trudy in her failing farm; he'd stick to the financial center in Montevideo.

Guilie Castillo

Under fences, bushes, shrubs--wherever Pedersen can watch but not be seen.
Susan Tepper

Sally-Anne, Mandy, and Guilie: Eww!
Susan: Yes, well. He's a creep.

And you? Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, or Union Square? 

~ * ~ 

Thanks for the visit, and happy last full week of A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Love The Way You Lie

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth's superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind. 

Emily Dickinson (Poemhunter)

Do you believe that ? That truth must dazzle gradually?

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Truths, especially the hard ones, can be difficult to hear. By easing "with explanation kind", by mitigating and diluting, you're being considerate. Benign. Or so you tell yourself.

Where is the line, though? Where does a "slant" truth end and a lie begin? And the lies--the slanted truths--that we tell, that we feel we must tell... What does that say about us?

Mark Hamilton is caught in a lie by his wife. He alibis for another baseball player, telling the man's wife that Mark was out to dinner with her husband the previous night when he was not. When his wife Angela catches him in this lie, he tries to justify himself by claiming that his teammate's loyalty will result in improved performance and thus income, while telling the truth would brand him as disloyal, a label that could result in struggles to find future employment. She is not impressed. As the child of an alcoholic, she detests lying in all its forms, and she wonders if the same code applies to Mark. Have his teammates lied to her as well?MICHAEL WEBB

Trudy Polaris's husband lied to her to get her to stay in the Tyrol ... and then she becomes a tax hostage. But Trudy is a big liar anyway, so who knows where the truth sits! I don't think Trudy does!SALLY-ANNE MACOMBER

Motivations for lying are many and varied. In "Compassion" Stephen lies about his writing progress because he doesn't want Anne to catch him out. By why is that? On one level, there's the knowledge that he will be letting her down again and he wants to save her from that pain. There's also the knowledge that if she catches him, she will become verbally aggressive--this is a pattern between them--and he wants to protect himself. Perhaps the most important consideration is that by being caught, he is in fact confirming Anne's opinion that he does not apply himself, that he cannot be trusted, that he is a failure and imposter at his craft. This impulse doesn't even rise to the level of consciousness, yet it is likely the fundamental driving force of his reaction in the moment. The other considerations are mere shadow play.STEPHEN V. RAMEY

What lies do you tell? To what purpose?

Thanks for visiting, and happy A-to-Z-ing!