Your Voice

Posted byChantelle GriffinPosted inWriting TipsTags:,

DSCF1414cYour voice, or more importantly your writing voice because at some stage the draft you are working on will need to be read aloud to find all those awkward sentences. I have to admit this is where I had quite a shock after having written poetry for so long and reading it aloud. I was so used to my poetry voice in fact I knew it inside and out, strong and vibrant with a good dose of emotion thrown in. All the way through the first draft of my novel I had incorrectly assumed that my writing voice would be the same.

Ah no, much to my amazement it definitely was not what I was expecting. For this reason it took me a while to get the hang of the rhythm. It also led me to another revelation I did not sound the same as some of the authors I love to read.

Anyway once I familiarised myself with it I used my voice to get through that all important stage of editing as I pretended to read aloud with an imaginary audience. Yes, I even had stage fright I am a little embarrassed to admit since there was no one else in the room.

While I write my third novel it is something I certainly keep in mind particularly since it is a series. Of all the things I have discovered along the way it has been one of those moments that will forever be imprinted in my mind. Like the conversation I had with a friend when I began writing my first novel, those moments are hard to forget.

One thing I can say now I know my voice I have it there at the front of my mind every time I write. Like my poetry voice, I hope to refine and improve it with every step of the journey now that I know it exists even if it was not what I expected.

Published by Chantelle Griffin

Chantelle’s mother remains one of the most famous witnesses in Australian legal history. The first large screen movie the author saw, at the age of nine, had an actress playing her as an infant when she was at Uluru on 17 August 1980 at the same campsite as the Chamberlains. She began publishing poetry later in life with the first release coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of the disappearance of Azaria. While most poems have been released in the volumes for the anthology, more than a thousand were written throughout a twelve year period. Chantelle has a Master of Environmental Planning and enjoys life at half pace with two cats. Her first fantasy book was released too soon, after a near death experience and a second edition was published four years later. She resides in Tasmania and continues to write as a past time in the evening.