You, page 5
Of course, Vern never arrived.
While Dad worked late nights at the design studio, Mom had me crank call her sisters, the neighbors, and even one of my teachers using “the voice.” No one suspected it might be me.
Mom loved the sheer silliness of it. Her infectious laughter spurred me on.
When I was thirteen, it was determined that my voice could perhaps be used for singing instead of satanic incantation or swindling.
Mom scanned the ads in the county newspaper for a vocal coach. “Studies have shown that the human voice is fragile and should be handled with care,” she announced.
I was game. Yes! Teach me! I wanted to sing songs I heard on the radio.
Enter Ms. Jan. The vocal coach.
My dear mother wanted to nurture my voice, but the only vocal coach she could find in our area was a prizewinner with the Detroit Metropolitan Opera.
Suddenly, my devil voice transformed into an operatic voice.
Let’s return to the concepts of voice, failure vs. exploration, and imitation. Then step further back to our discussion of character development. Although I had thrown my voice for years, Jan the vocal teacher entered the scene when I was thirteen, during the brown chapter.
Here I was, a thirteen-year-old living in a poop cocoon, and along comes a shawled opera coach with an armload of librettos.
Opera is story. Very dramatic story.
And I was a very dramatic teenager. Imagine the worlds of emotion and melody colliding. My poor family.
Characters in operas were falling desperately in love, murdering each other, betraying each other, and rising from the dead. And they were doing it in jeweled slippers and puffy dresses. Marvelous!
Jan initially tolerated my vocal imitations but quickly pushed to identify my own range—the vocal register of my natural, most powerful voice.
We argued about it.
I preferred alto; it was easier to move in a lower register. The songs I liked to sing on the radio were in a lower range, mostly sung by men. Jan pointed out that my lower register was my imitation voice, not my own voice. But I had been imitating others for so long that I actually thought it was my own voice. Without realizing it, I had become an impersonator.
“You’re much more than an entertaining party trick, my dear.”
Jan’s words stung my adolescent ego. But my mother agreed wholeheartedly. And Mom knew exactly which teenage buttons to push. Derivation was the easy way out. Originality was complex and deep. It required a unique element that most did not possess: grit.
Grit?
I was lacking grit?
My father, an immigrant, lost his country and spent nine years in refugee camps.
My mother, a survivor, lost her family compass and spent decades suffering.
Grit. Grit was passed down through DNA, wasn’t it? And hey, did Mom no longer value the hilarity of our crank calls? Why were originality and voice suddenly so important? I pouted, convinced I was a failure. I cloistered myself in the poop cocoon, blasting my stereo with warbling opera LPs.
Jan had a residency, singing in the bar at an Italian restaurant. I begged my parents to take me. Chianti and cigarettes all around. But it was in that smoky bar at thirteen years old that I realized: originality was important.
Jan was entirely original. She was a coloratura soprano and sang like the most beautiful bird I’d ever heard. She referred to herself as Ms., a neutral, feminist title at the time. A single mother in the 1970s, Jan was fierce and immune to disapproval. She had emotional grit. Lush lyricism. And she delivered each aria as if standing on the bow of a sinking ship.
And this was not a stage persona. Jan carried a black lace fan, daily. She was the same person onstage that she was at the cheap piano in our house. Same rhinestone clips nested in her quivering pile of black hair. Same red lipstick, black stockings, and open-toed slingbacks. She was so passionate during our lessons that she’d sweat and her ample backside would literally stick to our piano bench. She was so passionate during her performances that I’d sweat and cry while listening. She was entirely original, a unique voice. And she wanted me to find my own voice, too.
Jan coached me through middle school, through high school, and on to a college music scholarship. She attended my performances, fan fluttering like a lace butterfly. I was never good enough to perform commercially in the US but once sang the Canadian national anthem over the border in Windsor for a bankrupt liquor distributor.
All this to emphasize—voice is a journey.
Ann Patchett once said, “Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?”
Such is the case with voice. It requires exploration, failure, success, hard work, grit, and, most of all, emotional experience. Early on, a writer’s voice is sometimes derivative or emulative. And that is the highest compliment to those you imitate. But your true voice is layered deep within your life experience and your memories. It’s the voice of your old diary, the voice of your desperation, and sometimes the voice you hope no one else will hear. With voice, age is an asset.
As you’ll learn through this book on story and memory, I am a voice of glorious, celebrated fiasco. I am a music scholarship student morphed into a business major who went broke in Paris, bottomed out in Hollywood, made horrible decisions, and eventually found her way. And through it all, I’ve learned that things I once perceived as failure were actually sacred instruction on the path to authentic voice.
Please. Do not ignore the failure in your story.
FAILURE is a compass.
FAILURE is self-realization.
FAILURE is a prerequisite to success.
FAILURE will lead you—to your true voice.
VOICE • RECAP
Voice is the tangible personality of your writing. It’s the unique style and tone that will identify and differentiate you from others.
Whose style is so distinctive that you could recognize it instantly? What are the factors that contribute to that uniqueness?
Who in your life has (or had) a signature voice or style? What do you remember about it?
Voice can be established with punctuation, lack of punctuation, point of view, diction, and syntax. Or even by the way you use white space on the page.
When you’re getting started, it’s natural to explore voice through imitation. But as you continue, read your work aloud. Is the rhythm and flow your own or someone else’s?
With voice, age is an asset. Voice is layered deep within your life experience.
Failure is a prerequisite to success. The best route to defining voice is to write often and again.
VOICE • WRITING PROMPTS
Write out the lyrics to “Happy Birthday” (or another well-known song) in an original, stylistic voice, using varied punctuation and white space on the page.
A character drops a fishbowl. It shatters and the goldfish goes flying. Write three sentences about it from the following perspectives, using a different voice style for each:
A pet store employee.
A neighbor who is feeding the fish while the family is away.
A goldfish serial killer.
Below are just two sentences from The Color Purple by Alice Walker. How do these lines establish voice, and what might you expect from the novel?
My mama dead. She die screaming and cussing.
Revisit my description of Jan, the vocal coach. Write a few lines of narrative voice, how you imagine Jan would sound if she was the narrator of a story.
Below is the title and subhead of an essay by David Sedaris. How do these lines establish voice and what might you expect in the essay?
Old Lady Down the Hall
Her name was Rocky. She was my neighbor. I hated her guts. She was my best friend.
Stories to Uncover and Discover
Atoni Gaudí
Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí is celebrated for his inventive, free-flowing style. An early interest in nature influenced his choice of materials, unique approach, and architectural voice. Some describe his work as mind-bending and Surrealist.
Q: Where are most of Gaudí’s works located?
Roald Dahl
British novelist Roald Dahl created beloved and eccentric characters. From Charlie Bucket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, Dahl’s creative voice continues to delight readers worldwide, ringing up book sales of more than 250 million copies.
Q: True or false? Roald Dahl was buried with his snooker cues, a bottle of red wine, chocolates, pencils, and a power saw.
Toni Morrison
“Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.”
Toni Morrison’s exquisite voice as a writer and human being touches upon themes that stir the soul and speak to the power of the human spirit. She was a novelist, a professor, an editor of fiction, and the winner of countless awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Nobel Prize.
Q: What sort of voice did Toni Morrison’s family use when the landlord set fire to their house?
Coloratura Soprano
Agile trills, vocal leaps, and beautiful melodic runs are the ornamentation that define the coloratura vocal register. Coloratura can be sung by singers of all genders, but the most common coloratura is the soprano. A lyric coloratura showcases a light, bright upper range, while a dramatic coloratura sings with intensity and lingering sustain.
Q: Can a human voice really shatter glass?
PERSPECTIVE
Vision
JUST AS VOICE IS AN ELEMENT of writing, so is vision. I could even argue that vision is more important. How we choose to see often frames our life. It also frames the story. Whether intentional or not, the writer’s spirit, worldview, and life experience appear on the page. And every writer has a different perspective.
Difference in perspective is natural and human. As William Blake so beautifully expressed, “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.”
How are you framing your memories and your personal stories? From what perspective? Is failure a fascinating forest of exploration or a suckhole of soul death? What kind of narrative are you creating and assigning to your past and the world you live in? That vision and perspective will drive the voice of your writing. The perspective and voice of a cynic, for example, reads much differently than the perspective and voice of a dreamer. Which best suits the story and feels most natural to you?
Expressive writers are often reflective, self-examiners. They comb their emotions and consider alternate angles for their work. And keep in mind, creating an alternate angle can produce a plot point or a unique character trait.
Get in the habit of considering alternate angles. When looking at photographs from your past, ask yourself: What lies outside the frame? What am I not seeing? How could I see this differently? Apply the What if question we touched upon in an earlier chapter.
What if you chose to view your life and experience differently?
List three mistakes you’ve made—and why they were mistakes.
Now list a benefit that came as a result of each mistake.
As you’re listing the benefits, you’re reframing the event and attaching a positive outcome. You’re viewing the event from a different point of view. Suddenly, it’s a different story.
Life is full of compelling stories and experiences. And remember, what you might consider mundane, others will find fascinating. Familiarity has a way of stealing the sheen from our everyday existence. But when captured and recounted by a descriptive writer, a childhood in Paris, Tennessee, is richer and more interesting than the tale of a suburban girl who goes to Paris, France.
Harry Crews didn’t have a writing room or a computer. He had a makeshift desk created with an old door propped on cinder blocks. Yet his tales of rural Georgia in A Childhood: The Biography of a Place are visceral and transporting:
He had one of those good country voices: part drunk, part hound dog, part angel.
I can imagine the character that Crews is describing. I can hear him, smell him, and understand the layered aspects of his personality. I want more.
All from one sentence.
Country life, cosmopolitan life, quiet life—all can be equally fascinating based on the writer’s perspective and the details chosen.
Adventures like those of Jack Kerouac intimidate some. They feel that because they haven’t experienced far-flung destinations or drama, they have nothing to write about. But that’s not true at all. It could be argued that the sensitivity and heart of Kerouac’s writing charms readers just as much as his beatnik adventures.
Remember, it’s not what you’re writing about, it’s how you’re writing about it.
How do you choose to see? Are you interested in soul-seeking adventure or are you more drawn to details of the human condition? Kerouac sipped scotch from a pill bottle and died of alcoholism at forty-seven with a Kennedy half-dollar taped to his navel. Grand quest or tragic demise? How do you see it and how could you describe it in a way that captivates readers and allows them to see and feel it, too?
Sift through your memories and examine your perspective.
Is your perspective that of a have or a have-not? Was there something your friends had that you didn’t? Vice versa? What do you remember desperately wanting as a child or a teenager? What is your perspective now on those wants? How would the story have unfolded if you had received what you wanted? In hindsight, how could you see the situation differently?
I wanted white high-heeled boots and a Big Wheel Racer. I also wanted an allowance. Didn’t get any of it. But if I revisit my memories, I can still feel that want—the aching potential of it.
An allowance—the textured crispness of dollar bills in one hand and a Scholastic book fair catalog in the other. I can imagine the gritty sound and sensation of gravel flying, spinning out on that Big Wheel. And ooh, the fabulous strain on my chicken-leg ankles as I totter to the bus stop in my pole dancer boots.
In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing that I was denied the glory of my wants. I can see a few perspectives:
Me: If I had those boots, I’d no longer be invisible. Boys would notice me. Boys with names like Lance. Yes, Lance is sixteen, but remember, I’m a very mature twelve. That’s what it said on my report card. If only I had those boots . . .
The bus driver: And through the snow here comes this four-foot nothin’, wobbling ike a drunk in some sort of stripper boots. Didn’t take but a few steps and she went down. Hard. Foot danglin’, cracked off at the ankle. I heard the parents are some sort of Eastern European types.
The EMT: I’m sorry, miss, there’s no way around it. We’ll have to cut the boots off to save your ankle. Excuse me? What do you mean you’ll roll the dice?
The mother: Hi, love, it’s me. Remember the time you broke your ankle and the bloody bone poked straight through your boot? That sweet EMT was hit by a car today. Buh-bye!
Perhaps at this point you’re thinking, Vision and perspective, yes, but where do I start? With plot, character, or setting? It’s entirely up to you. If ten writers are given the same writing prompt, they’ll start in different places and produce ten entirely different stories. And that’s because every human being has their own unique perspective. Some things to consider:
Whose story are you telling?
What is the story about?
Describe the plot in one sentence.
Describe the essence of the story in just one word.
What gives the story its power?
Review your answers to the questions above. Do you notice a particular focus within your replies? How are you seeing your story? Do your replies lean toward character, plot, or setting? If you feel a pull toward one, you might use that as your starting point.
Also important to consider: How do you feel about the elements you’re writing about? What is your personal perspective and viewpoint? Are you seeing the elements from the inside out, or from a distance—from the outside in? Is the perspective from your current self or childhood self?
And in terms of focus, are you a person who notices detail? Rhinestone hair clips and black stockings? The humid scent of Jimbo’s football chili? The cracking knees of the brittle ballerina on a field of pink shag? What details dwell in your memory?
In revisiting your memories, give thought to how you might apply a different point of view or reverse the angle. How you choose to frame things makes all the difference in your story and, sometimes, in your life.
And what about that dark forest of exploration—mistakes? Was there ever a time you thought you understood the perspective but were wrong entirely?
That lapse in framing, perspective, or discernment? It’s happened to me.
Some label it humiliation. Others illumination.
I’ll share an example and let you decide.
Let’s Run a 5K
I ONCE KNEW A GIRL WHO was born on October 10.
