{"id":29474,"date":"2016-06-15T07:25:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T11:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=29474"},"modified":"2016-06-15T09:08:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T13:08:16","slug":"cassandra-khaw-vexed-about-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2016\/06\/15\/cassandra-khaw-vexed-about-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Cassandra Khaw: Vexed About Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cassandra Khaw went for a bit of a tear on Twitter about voice in one’s writing — and how every writer has a different feel to a voice, but also how a lot of advice tries to sand that down so we all write the same. She’s right to be vexed by that, and so when she wrote a guest post on that very vexation, well, c’mon. It’s too good not to post. (And as you’ll see below, she’s also too good a writer to ignore…)<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

I got angry about a picture a few weeks ago. This one, to be specific<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s nothing ostensibly wrong about that advice, and it does drive its point home by being an <\/span>ugly<\/span><\/i> sentence, full of unnecessary words, and utterly devoid of music. Taken objectively, it\u2019s good advice, especially for new writers who are fresh to the fray.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, why was I so vexed?<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of how the writer\u2019s group responded to it. There\u2019s a tangible aura of scorn, I suppose, for anyone who dips into the purple territory, for anything that doesn\u2019t involve the most efficient language. Hell, I remember one guy declaring that ornate writing prevents you from being published. For anyone already in the industry, it\u2019d simply be an opinion, to be discarded or internalized as necessary. But in a community with young writers, new writers? Writers who haven\u2019t yet developed the confidence to put themselves out there? Writers who have not discovered if their prose is closer to poetry, or if a love for mathematical equations might permeate their words?<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s <\/span>dangerous.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Voice is interesting. Voice isn\u2019t just your go-to vocabulary, your understanding of grammatical structure, your knowledge of rhythm. Voice is more ambiguous, more ethereal. I\u2019ve never quite figured out how to categorize it. But it is that thing that makes you <\/span>you<\/span><\/i>, even when someone else has channeled your style. It is an echo of your soul, your thoughts, a piece of you that strings itself through your words, immortalized in the cadence of your paragraphs, the poetry of your observations.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a precious thing that can take years to cultivate, years to develop. It\u2019s something that never really quits growing either. It is unique to you, and only you, and it is the thing that makes a piece of writing sing. (Because, you know, voice and song and the collaboration between larynx and music — I\u2019ll stop now.)<\/span><\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the point I\u2019m trying to make: voices can be silenced. It\u2019s no secret that writing can be an incredibly raw act. The decision to put yourself out there for public scrutiny? That\u2019s a terrifying choice to make. Now, imagine being that afraid and being told, \u201cHey, by the way? People aren\u2019t going to like you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Now. This shouldn\u2019t be conflated with good critique. (There\u2019s an entire post to be written about bad critique, especially when it\u2019s fueled by negative emotion.) Critique can be fantastic. But it\u2019s a different thing entirely when someone else is trying to police your technique. Sure, everyone needs a foundation. Give that new writer a book to read, a piece of advice to follow, a set of guidelines to look over? But tell them also: This is what people say, but this isn\u2019t what you have to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

After that? Get out of the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because you don\u2019t need to be there when the author is developing their voice, not unless you\u2019re specifically asked to be. You don\u2019t need to influence them. They can decide who influences them. They can choose to call up a little bit of Lewis Carroll, pair it with a glimmer of Anne Leckie. They can decide if they want to be inspired by Brooklyn hip-hop, or if they want to lace it with the patois of their own history.<\/span><\/p>\n

And if they\u2019re allowed to do this, if they\u2019re given time to grow, the results can be so beautiful. <\/span>Look at this excerpt<\/a><\/strong><\/span> from Peter Watts\u2019 The Things.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was malformed and incomplete, but its essentials were clear enough. It looked like a great wrinkled tumor, like cellular competition gone wild\u2014as though the very processes that defined life had somehow turned against it instead. It was obscenely vascularised; it must have consumed oxygen and nutrients far out of proportion to its mass. I could not see how anything like that could even exist, how it could have reached that size without being outcompeted by more efficient morphologies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nor could I imagine what it did. But then I began to look with new eyes at these offshoots, these biped shapes my own cells had so scrupulously and unthinkingly copied when they reshaped me for this world. Unused to inventory\u2014why catalog body parts that only turn into other things at the slightest provocation?\u2014I really saw, for the first time, that swollen structure atop each body. So much larger than it should be: a bony hemisphere into which a million ganglionic interfaces could fit with room to spare. Every offshoot had one. Each piece of biomass carried one of these huge twisted clots of tissue.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Don\u2019t read it in a gulp. Breathe it in. It is dense. Watts\u2019 retelling of The Thing pulls from his scientific background, uses terminology that others would shy from. <\/span>Vascularised. Morphologies. Ganglionic. <\/span><\/i>Not necessarily difficult words, but words that layer into the density of his writing, which requires patience and a willing to scavenge for meaning in the jargon. But so rewarding for it. This is clearly what it is, what it should be: a scientist\u2019s voice.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now, an excerpt from Catherynne Valente\u2019s <\/span>The Lily and the Horn<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

My daughter and I fetch knives and buckets and descend the stairs into the underworld beneath our home. Laburnum Castle is a mushroom lying only half above ground. Her lacy, lovely parts reach up toward the sun, but the better part of her dark body stretches out through the seastone caverns below, vast rooms and chambers and vaults with ceilings more lovely than any painted chapel in Mother-of-Millions, shot through with frescoes and motifs of copper and quartz and sapphire and opal. Down here, the real work of war clangs and thuds and corkscrews toward tonight. Smells as rich as brocade hang in the kitchens like banners, knives flash out of the mist and the shadows.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have chosen the menu of our war as carefully as the stones in my hair. All my art has bent upon it. I chose the wines for their color\u2014nearly black, thick and bitter and sharp. I baked the bread to be as sweet as the pudding. The vital thing, as any wife can tell you, is spice. Each dish must taste vibrant, strong, vicious with flavor. Under my eaves they will dine on curried doves, black pepper and peacock marrow soup, blancmange drunk with clove and fiery sumac, sealmeat and fennel pies swimming in garlic and apricots, roast suckling lion in a sauce of brandy, ginger, and pink chilis, and pomegranate cakes soaked in claret.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Less complex language, but no less intricate. Common wisdom suggests that you should show and not tell, that a feast can and should be quickly encapsulated in a few lines, instead of explained to a fine detail. But this story is so much richer because Valente ignores that rule, and instead allows us to taste, feel, and experience every nuance of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, you don\u2019t need to be bombastic to have beautiful writing. Seth Dickinson\u2019s writing is sharp, economical. It is poetic, certainly, but one that has been mapped out to a letter, ruthlessly clean. From his recent <\/span>Laws of Night and Silk<\/a><\/strong><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

Warlord Absu wears black beneath a mantle of red, the colors of flesh and war. For a decade she has led the defense of the highlands. For a decade before that\u2014well: Kavian was not born with sisters, but she has one. This loyalty is burnt into her. Absu is the pole where Kavian\u2019s needle points.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLord of hosts,\u201d Kavian murmurs. She\u2019s nervous tonight, so she bows deep. The warlord considers her in brief, silent reserve.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTonight we will bind you to a terrible duty. The two mature abnarchs are our only hope.\u201d Her eyes! Kavian remembers their ferocity, but never remembers it. She is so intent: \u201cYou\u2019re our finest. But one error could destroy us.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Malon Edwards\u2019 writing? <\/span>The Half Dark Promise<\/a><\/strong><\/span> is an absolute triumph, one that does not rewrite its core to fit everyone. It uses words and sentence structures that are uniquely its own. It doesn\u2019t pause to explain every word, like what we\u2019re often told to do, to provide English translations for foreign words. And that decision makes this story all the more powerful.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was surprised on the first day of school when Bobby took my hand on our walk home. He was nervous. He flushed rose-red down to his neck. But he didn\u2019t let go. He\u2019d signed the half dark promise just like every other timoun in Chicago. Even lek\u00f2l segond\u00e8 el\u00e8v yo with their teenage swagger and their foul mouths held hands on the walk home. Bobby\u2019s hand was sweaty. Large. Callused. The hands of a smith\u2019s son. But I didn\u2019t mind. Vr\u00e8man vre\u2014truth be told\u2014I was just pleased Bobby wasn\u2019t calling me names while speaking to me. That didn\u2019t happen at my old school. Actually, that didn\u2019t happen at my new school, either.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I could give you a thousand examples, point you to a hundred more writers, each completely different from the next. My own work is influenced by my native tongues, my national background. Hokkien is tonal and I look to find a kind of music in words. I think also in smells, tastes, regardless of whether they\u2019re foul or delicious. <\/span>Here\u2019s an excerpt<\/a><\/strong><\/span> from my upcoming novella Hammers on Bone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah?\u201d I champ at my cigarette, bouncing it from one corner of my mouth to the other. There\u2019s a pervasive smell in the hallway. Not quite a stench, but something unpleasant. Like the remnants of a molly party, or old sex left to crust on skin. \u201cWhat about his old man? He working the kid? That why your son isn\u2019t showing up at school?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The broad twitches, shoulders scissoring back, spine contracting. It\u2019s a tiny motion, one of those blink-and-you-lose-it tells but oh, do I catch it. \u201cMy fiance doesn\u2019t involve our sons in hard labor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUh huh.\u201d I rap ash from my cigarette and grin like the devil come to dine on Georgia. \u201cMind if I look around?\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2018Old sex left to crust on skin.\u2019 I\u2019ve had beta readers tell me that the description turned their stomachs, concise as it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

And honestly, when you get right down to it, There is no one shape for writing to take, no singular form that is better than any other. Voice is unique, and voices need room to exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let them grow.<\/span><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t want to miss seeing what they could be.<\/span><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Cassandra Khaw is a London-based writer who still has her roots buried deep in Southeast Asia where there are sometimes more ghosts than people. Her work tends to revolve around intersectional cultures, mythological mash-ups, and bizarre urban architecture. When not embroiled in fiction, she writes about technology and video games for a variety of places including RockPaperShotgun and Ars Technica UK.<\/p>\n

Offerings of fluffy things are always welcomed.<\/p>\n

Cassandra Khaw:\u00a0Website<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Twitter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cassandra Khaw went for a bit of a tear on Twitter about voice in one’s writing — and how every writer has a different feel to a voice, but also how a lot of advice tries to sand that down so we all write the same. She’s right to be vexed by that, and so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-7Fo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29474"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29478,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29474\/revisions\/29478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}