Storytellersunplugged

by Janet Berliner

During one of many hungry periods of my writing life, I descended reluctantly into the relatively well-paid abyss of Porn. Not erotica. I write that with few reservations. I’m talking down and dirty. Did I enjoy writing it? No. Did I enjoy cashing the checks and buying food? Absolutely.

Did I use a pseudonym? You betcha.

As soon as I could, I stopped writing those things, not because I Have a moral objection, but because it’s boring. The publishers liked having a story but, basically, it was a question of working a tale around (ahem) tail.

So I was done with it. Or so I thought, until I registered on an Internet Poker site using “that” name. The very first night I played, Someone asked me if I was a writer. Yes, he had recognized the name.

No problem, you say. Right. Until he wrote in the chat column: “Do you write other stories under the name Janet Berliner?” Before I could stop myself, I said: “Yes, how did you know.”

His answer: “It sounded like the same person wrote them.”

So I guess I can safely say that I have a voice that is distinctively my own.

What exactly is “Voice?”

If you can define it, you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.

That’s question #1, for if, indeed, it can be defined, then it can be taught. I’ve taught writing at every level, in multi languages. I’ve read–and keep reading–every new book that purports to teach how to find your voice. In my opinion, which I guess many of you know by now is modest but not always humble, it can’t be done. It can, however, be approached.

The first thing to do is to track down all the books you can find that have to do with the writing voice and read the summaries and reviews. From doing that alone, there comes some basis of understanding the complexity of the task at hand.

The little Bible, Strunk and White’s THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, should be on everybody’s desk, not just writers’. Section Five deals with Style, a close relative of Voice. It won’t make you yell Eureka! but it does make sense, as does almost everything in that trusty book.

For training in “listening,” I recommend the paperback, The Sound on the Page : Great Writers Talk about Style and Voice in Writing by Ben Yagoda. This book, which came out in mid 2005, is also not a how-to. But it sure is fun. And for your ultimate enjoyment and edification, please–I beg of you–read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird : Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

So what have I said? Not much except to define what I see as the ultimate challenge in teaching writing.

A final anecdote to show the value of Voice.

Some years ago, the inimitable Nadine Gordimer, whose roots, like mine, are in South Africa, grew angry at the way unknown writers sans agents were being given short shrift. She had recently finished a new novel and decided to conduct an experiment to prove her point. She printed up the manuscript using a pseudonym, packaged it up, began doing the rounds of publishing houses.

She received a pile of those wonderful rejections with which we’re all familiar.

Finally, an editor at a small house wrote to her saying that he was interested in publishing her book because she sounded so much like Nadine Gordimer. She accepted his small offer, then told him who she was.

It all makes sense to me. After all, who sounds like Streisand, other than Streisand? Like Faulkner, other than Faulker?

Like you, other than you?

That’s what Voice is all about–the interpretation of a song and a melody in a way that stamps it “Unique.”