Voice of the Voiceless

Voice has been and is something I've always had trouble with. How can I be sure of my written voice when my own voice, my spoken voice is unknown to me?

Lost In Translation

I don't talk much. People think a variety of things about me because of it and I have a number of reasons for staying quiet in the majority of settings and situations. The result or what usually happens is that I just process whatever is going on or what I see or hear in my head. This feels stupid to type, and I'm not even sure if this is the best way to put it. Perhaps the better way is to simply say that I'm mostly up in my head.

I talk to myself more than I talk to anyone else these days, but perhaps that's just how things are in pandemic times. I believe this contributes to my issue as well. When I write, I usually dive headstrong into making whatever amazing scene that came to me into some striking semblance on the page. Like most all who write, something is always lost in translation. For me, most of the time it is the ease. It's all a pretty, seamless picture in my head, but then when I get to work, I'm roadblocked by logic and how to get from here to there. This is likely relevant to another matter as well, my skill as a writer, but I digress.

That is not the only thing that is lost. This is where it gets murky. I write whatever I write, and I either get past the roadblock or encounter none at all on my tear toward the finish line and editing, and somewhere along the way, either because of an obstacle or an odd phrase I realize wouldn't make sense to someone else, I begin to scrutinize my voice.

A good writer writes in the voice of their character, if it's that kind of story. A kind of exception to this that comes to mind is a hybrid, from George R. R. Martin. He writes from the perspective of his characters, and this is usually made unique to read because of the age and knowledge of the character. In describing settings and the control of the diction, it remains Martin's voice, it appears to me. He does this excellently, of course, and I did my head in trying to figure out how and where to draw the line in a book I tried to write earlier this summer halfway inadvertently imitating his style.

To return to the point, I come to a... point, in the work, where I wonder if I am speaking or writing in my own voice, or merely a shallow interpretation of a character. This leads back to the opening paragraph. Am I writing with a voice at all, if there is hardly a voice to imitate or transcribe onto the page? Or is my written voice my true voice all along? Is this voice the one lost and looping within my own head? Is this apparent to others in my writing?

This is further confused and muddled by my fixation and penchant for writing attempts at medieval/chivalric/old times stories. The voice and diction and style I use for those stories are certainly not my true voice; I can deduce that, despite all the books I've read slowly overwriting my vocabulary with weird old words. Is this a cop out of writing with my true voice, or merely a voice I've successfully mimicked and donned?

At the peak of this mountain of broken boomboxes is the looping question: is any of this in effect? Would I even be able to tell, or would it just make sense to me because it really is written in my own disjointed, dysfunctional voice? Or am I seeing shadows —or hearing echoes— where there are none to be seen or heard?

THE ECHOES

A way to determine this is feedback. What the reader says or how they rate the work tells me how successful I was in getting my message across, as well as if it was a good message, a message worth sharing. As can be gleaned from the opening note of a number of my tales, I am always after comments and feedback. Unfortunately, comments have been few and far between, and none have had a bad thing to say. As much as it absolutely warms my heart to hear you guys feel the love I try to imbue into my stories, I crave the whetstone. I wish I got a comment for every rating I got, but this is immaterial to the point.

This does bring me to the ratings. Most of my stories do okay. There's only a couple that I scratch my head at the low rating for. My Star Wars ones, chiefly. I feel I had a great voice picked for the scoundrel. But there creeps the doubt... More Than Magic, despite being my most read story, is sub 4.5, which is my threshold for success for each story, and I'm totally in agreement with that low rating. I can't defend much of a voice there. My most telling rating is for Love Has No Grave. My first sub 4 rating, and the first to put More Than Magic's score into perspective. I believe I see the reason for its abysmal score. It's an interesting one. It is a mix of my old timey voice, and one that is boring as shit. Standing against these points are my suspicions that I misgenred the story, and that it's just too long. But, if my voice was strong and engaging, the length would be a treasure, not a dragging anchor. I was surprised by its lack of reception, having worked on it much harder than I did Seawater... but I think that may be a contributing factor as well. I remember laboring over it everyday, for a long time, and looking at that page count over and over and endeavoring to write my longest story yet. It was all industry, with no heart. I felt that when I finished writing it, despite its clever little meta and representations.

Where most of the surprise strikes me are the ones rated highly that I don't feel as proud of. Blue Fire burns hottest in tinging my cheeks pink with embarrassment. I believe there was something there, but I just was not as careful with my idea— I believe I may be getting off topic. Maybe... this is my true voice. When I talk to myself, it's usually affirming things and answering questions I pose myself within my mind. Perhaps this will be reflected in the story I'll likely put up soon. This story is the catalyst of this essay, because I made an effort to use my own voice, or at least one of them, to tell it.

THE SHOUT OUTWARD

My next story will be another first for me. Hopefully it'll be a new norm. I feel that I've definitely learned something and have improved my writing this summer. I've never written so much before. I failed in writing two different books but what I wrote remains and the stories await. Those two non-erotic stories are a result of my regular work. I believe they exhibit some form of my improvement, though I admit the first one likely contains more of a distinct voice than the second, but I do like Starrow... There's so many stories I want to tell. I wonder if I'll be able to get to them all and possess the talent to treat them how they require.

Perhaps I'm supposed to suck right now. I'm still pretty young. Maybe this is the blissful ignorance of youth and I should enjoy thinking I've created some cool little stories before I really know what quality is, what my voice is supposed to sound like. What do you think? Am I seeing ghosts in my graveyard of words? Is there some dark secret apparent in my writing, doctor? Please, leave me a comment if you've read my work and have any kind of observation to make. I don't know if my regular readers will read this or if they're only interested in my smut, so I'm unsure if whoever frequents the reviews & essays genre will be able to help me much. I can't blame any of you. I thank you for reading this. Writing it was therapeutic enough. Stay tuned.