Voice is a distinguishing part of a writer's toolkit. It not only allows someone to write in a manner that is distinctly their own, but to take part in the overall landscape that makes up the genre (or literary) space.
Though this post comes after I've completed Intro to the MFA Program on August 17th, I did want to highlight an assignment we were tasked to do as a discussion, which introduced and further detailed the important of voice.
In this discussion, we were assigned to rewrite the opening of Herman Meville's Moby Dick, the classic of the man hunting the great white whale, which famously begins with "Call me Ishmael." This assignment was meant to test our individual voice, in a style that was our own within a genre of our choosing. Given I write young adult fiction almost exclusively now, I decided to rewrite the opening of Moby Dick in my voice.
The discusssion took place in week 4 of Intro to the MFA, and the assignment was meant to be roughly 250 words. This is what I came up with for the reimagined opening of Moby Dick in my own voice:
Most men would cherish the ocean. I would rather be free of it.
Of course, this is no longer possible, given my circumstance, the things that have happened to me. I am but a girl whose father was lost to sea, and whose place I have taken aboard the vessel.
We were meant to chase the whale. Now, however, I wonder if we will ever find him.
The cruel wind tosses the waves and the boat in earnest. Bobbing up, then down in feverish motions, it causes the men aboard to scramble to hold themselves steady. Many are practiced sailors, some more green than others. I, however, have grown up on these waters–and have witnessed the water’s cruel beauty, just as I have its wicked tenacity. As a result, it is not surprising to see some men fall.
A wicked wave rushes forward, striking the boat with enough force to cause the frame to shudder, its people to shake. I think of my father’s final moments upon a boat like this, of his terrible desperation to make our lives better for the two of us. I remember him slipping, then falling, only to be lost to the terrible sea.
I think of his final words as he’d drowned along these barbarous coasts. The one name he’d called–not God’s, but mine.
Ishmae.
The feedback I received highlighted the craft elements that made it distinctly YA, in which I changed Ishmael from a man to a young girl, and reinterpreted the opening in a voice that was disctintly first-person present-tense.
If you're interested in seeing a (unfortunately lengthy) video about my process with this assignment, you can click or tap on the YouTube thumbnail below to see what I did during the writing of the assignment, and my thoughts while reviewing it.
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