Deciding
whether or not the “voice” in a text is really the same persona as the author’s
isn’t exactly an easy task when you think about it. I didn’t know H.P. Lovecraft personally, so I
can’t automatically assume that he was the same person as the voice he projected
in his writing. I’m not as well read as
I’d like to be, so this is my first encounter with Lovecraft’s writing. Who is to say his other stories don’t have a
vastly different voice? They could be
drastically different, but then I think of my own writing. Thaisa and Wall say that voice is “simply the
way you, the writer, project yourself artistically. It’s the way you draw on yourself as you
write—your sense of humor, irony, and the way you see the people and events,
use language, and entertain” (xv). This
makes sense to me because, even when I try to adapt for a certain character who
may be nothing like me, I still find that my own sense of humor and outlook on
life affects my writing. It is pretty
much unavoidable. Maybe my character isn’t
afraid of spiders like me but is instead afraid of snakes; regardless, the way
I describe fear comes from my own experience with it. Because of this, I have reason to believe
that Lovecraft the man and Lovecraft the voice are probably one in the
same. Had Lovecraft attempted to
distance himself entirely from his writing, the voice would have been what Thaisa
and Wall describe as “false” voices. The
story wouldn’t have worked without Lovecraft’s spirit; it would have fallen
flat or felt meaningless. I don’t think
you can completely disassociate your writing from yourself. Your knowledge of life comes from the way you
experience it, so how could you completely abandon that experience and still be
able to write about life? It is easy to
believe, then, that the fear and awe the narrator of Lovecraft’s story feels
could have some origin in Lovecraft himself.
Frank, Thaisa, and Dorothy Wall.
Introduction. Finding Your Writer's Voice: A
Guide to Creative Fiction. New York: St. Martin's, 1994. N. pag. Print.
I agree with your idea that an author writes from what they know. I don’t have a lot of experience in writing fiction, so it was hard for me to access that. But what about when a writer writes about something that they’ve never personally experienced like the death of a close family member for example. How do they come up with the emotional reactions needed for that kind of a tragedy? I think that they also have to be able to write outside themselves in order to deal with situations like this.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. I would probably consider it to be a bit like acting... you draw from experiences you have. Like, if you have to be really happy about something in a scene, you might focus on a really happy memory you have to be able to achieve the feeling. Still, it's something new, so it's not entirely you. However, I'm neither an actor nor an experienced writer so this is some gray space for me right now, I think!
DeleteI completely agree that its hard to decide whether the authors voice is really like the authors persona. I also agree that you can't disassociate yourself from your writing. I feel that when I write I always find myself in atleast one of the characters. I liked what you had and could agree with most of it. Good Job!
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