VoiceOctober 3rd, 2011

Voice The writer’s style

It makes the writer’s work unique from all other works.

Voice one of the most important elements of a piece of writing.

Determines the reader's experience of a work of literature

In order for a text to have voice, it must contain:

StyleConsistencyTransportationAuthorityAuthenticity

Style Carefully chosen vocabulary

A Sense of a flow or rhythm to the sentences

Slang specific to the culture/geographical location on the author

Consistency The author must choose a style and stick with it

A good voice is never lost when the plot shifts

The voice of the author may shift slightly depending on the story, but its roots always remain the same

Transportation

A story must be able to completely consume us in its world

It puts us in a certain frame of mind, allows us to see the world from someone else’s perspective

Provides the character of the world, not just details

Authority The writer is in complete control of the story

If the author is taking a stand on a situation, their opinion is made clear

Authenticity

The writer’s voice represents THEM, and no one else

It expresses their emotions, character traits

It should leave the reader feeling like it could only be their work

DirectionsRead the Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Reflect:Does JK Rowling exhibit a strong voice in her work? Why or why not? Cite examples from the notes we took today on qualities of Voice.

VoiceOctober 4th, 2011

Narrative Voice The mode from which

the author chooses to tell the story

Five Types of Narrative Voice

Stream-of-consciousness voice

Character Voice

Unreliable Voice

Epistolary Voice

Third-Person Voice

Stream-of-Consciousness Gives the narrator’s

perspective by attempting to replicate the thought process of the narrator.

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

When I reach the top he has quit sawing. Standing in a litter of chips, he is fitting two of the boards together. Between the shadow spaces they are yellow as gold, like soft gold, bearing on their flanks in smooth undulations the marks of the adze blade: a good carpenter, Cash is. He holds the two planks on the trestle, fitted along the edges in a quarter of the finished box. He kneels and squints along the edge of them, then he lowers them and takes up the adze. A good carpenter.Addie Bundren could not want a better one, a better box to lie in. it will give her confidence and comfort. I go on to the house, followed by the

Character Voice

A realistic, relatable character within the story

May or may not be involved in the events in the story

May not be the main character of the story

Nick from The Great Gatsby

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

"How do you get to West Egg Village?" he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees -- just as things grow in fast movies -- I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

Unreliable Voice

The narrator is untrustworthy

Used by the author to reveal that the narrator (often a character in the story) is:

UnstableBiasedImmature

Holden, Catcher in the Rye

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Epistolary Voice

Uses a series of letters to convey the plot of the story

Dear America: The Voyage on the Great Titanic

Monday, 15 April 1912

My hands are shaking, I feel hot tears struggling against my eyes, and I have no idea where to begin. I120feel a driving need to tell everything properly, exactly as it happened, but my mind is cluttered with con- fusion, and exhaustion, and despair. And grief; I am overcome by grief.

The Boat Deck. I will go back to the Boat Deck, and follow the evening through from there. Or — no, the story begins earlier, so that is where I will start.