Guest Blog: Talking about voice by Bev Irwin

Award-winning author, Bev Irwin, lives in London, Ontario, with three assorted cats. One that hid in her car when she moved from the farm and two others dropped off by her daughter on two different occasions. Her three children have flown the coup, but her granddaughter, Jasmine, is a frequent visitor.

As a registered nurse, she likes to add a touch of medical to her romance and mystery novels. She writes YA, children’s, and poetry. She prefers spending time in her garden, writing, and reading to being in the kitchen.

Her debut novel, WHEN HEARTS COLLIDE, a contemporary romance, came out in December of 2011 with Soul Mate Publishing under the pen name of Kendra James. Her YA paranormal, GHOSTLY JUSTICE, will be released by Black Opal Books on April 14th, 2012. MISSING CLAYTON, a suspense novel, will also be published with Black Opal Books later this year.

Welcome, and thank you for coming to visit me here today.  And thank you, Denise for inviting me.

Are you a writer or a reader? If you are a writer, do you have a voice?

Of course you do. We all do, especially those us of who have chosen to express ourselves with the written word. Are we born with this voice or is it something we must work to develop? If we have to develop it, is that hard to do, and how do we go about doing it?

Books are written on the subject, and courses are offered. The suggestions: read, read more, write, write more. Like a watched kettle that doesn’t boil, so a watched voice doesn’t burst out with steam spewing and whistles blasting. Your voice will reveal itself so slowly and subtly that you won’t even notice.

Many say that writing fast without editing will help your voice develop. Ignore your inner critique, write quickly, don’t think about voice. Let it emerge on its own and at its own pace. One day, there it will be. You might not recognize it, but others will.

If we read a multiple of books and then write, are we in jeopardy of stealing someone else’s voice?

If you read mostly a specific author or genre, you may at first find that you are copying your favorite authors voice. Don’t dishearten, your that author would secretly be thrilled. But keep reading. Read voraciously, as most writers do, and then write and keep writing. Get entranced in your writing, and your voice will emerge. And it will be your voice.

Will your voice always the same? Or is it static and constantly changing?

I think we have a basic voice that defines us from other writers but we also alter this voice depending on which genre we are writing in. My thrillers for example are not written in the same voice as my children or youth novels.

My MISSING CLAYTON, a women’s suspense, coming out later this year with Black Opal Books, is my voice but if you asked who it might be similar to, I would say Jodi Picoult. It is written with different points of character views as Jodi is known to do. WHEN HEARTS COLLIDE,  my debut contemporary medical romance, is different again. Though my voice, this book conforms to the typical romance format.

My, IN HIS FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS, coming out on Kindle (as soon as I learn how to format it properly) is similar to Gary Paulsen’s Brian series. I like to think that my medical thrillers are in the vein of Michael Palmer. These authors, and of course, Lee Child, Cornelia Read and Harlan Coben, would be other authors I dream of being compared to. Though I might aspire to be compared to these writers, I want people to be able to pick up one of my books and be able to recognize my voice.

When I first began writing GHOSTLY JUSTICE, I was using an adult voice, which of course, didn’t work. The story was good but it didn’t flow as quickly as a youth novel should.

I have another youth novel, IN HIS FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS, but didn’t feel the same issue with the voice being off as it is an adventure story set in Northern Ontario and my main character, Jason, does very little interacting with other humans.

But in GHOSTLY JUSTICE, I had Daria interacting with the ghost, her mother, her peers , her teachers. So to get the teen talk, I had to do a lot of sentence shortening, especially with the dialogue. I sent the story to a a couple of other writers you do YA and received great comments and suggestions.

Far from being a teenager, I needed to work on my characters. Not only how they spoke, but their actions, and their reactions. Some of this was easy to accomplish, some of it had to be tweaked a few times. Hopefully in the end, I got it right. I guess time will tell when the book is released on April 14th and the reviews and come in.

He promised he’d be back by the full moon. But that was days ago and Jason Sharmon’s father hasn’t returned from his prospecting trip. Now the fourteen-year-old must battle the Ontario North and his own fears to find his father. He encounters several obstacles including a wolf encounter, a raging river, and a fall down a cliff. After finding and caring for his injured father, Jason learns to believe in himself and his own abilities. He and his father learn to accept their differences and mend a troubled relationship.

If you witnessed an accident on a lonely stretch of highway, would you stop or continue on your way? For nurse Molly Tanner the choice is clear. Risking her own life, she pulls the seriously injured driver and his young daughter from the car. When Pearce begs her to pose as his wife to keep Gracie from foster care, memories of her unhappy childhood rush back. But can Molly keep up the charade without her own secrets being discovered and her heart from being shattered?

COMING SOON!   Release date April 14, 2012

Fifteen-year-old Daria Brennan doesn’t want to hear people’s thoughts. She doesn’t want to see ghosts or talk to dead people. And she definitely doesn’t want to help Amanda solve her forty-year old murder. But Amanda wants revenge, and Daria is the first human contact she’s had since the day she died. Now the killer is after Daria and her friends. Can they solve this Amanda’s murder in time, or will they become the next victims?

Web site

www.bevirwin.com

www.blackopalbooks.com/

www.kendrajames.net

www.soulmatepublishing.com