Losing My Voice by Maggie Marr
The past year I’ve spent what I think, is a gargantuan amount of time dissecting my writing. I am published which is for most and was for me the ultimate goal. But once my first two book pubbed I found that my next manuscript, my third manuscript, the one that I felt certain would be swept up by my agent, my editor and New York got merely a furtive glance on its way to metaphoric ‘box under my bed‘ on my hard drive. Well, that experience, the experience of rejection is an eye-opener. At the time I questioned my ability to write, my desire to write, and the fundamental question as to whether I would ever be published again.
Looking back, the rejection of my third manuscript, which at the time caused me to question my very identity as a writer was a blessing. I’ve come to find that this is a theme in life, at least mine, that soul-searching gut-wrenching events cause the most growth. Why is that? Couldn’t chocolate, red wine and sitting under a shady tree reading a great book cause the most growth? Not in my world.
Because of my rejection, (now known as the great opportunity) I questioned the very fundamentals of my ability. I read books on structure. I read books on dialogue, a part of writing I’d long thought to be my strongest skill. I read books on plot, pacing, characterization, setting fire to fiction and making it real! Once I finished reading I then began to apply my new found knowledge to my newly discovered characters in my new manuscript. And guess what?
The damn thing was still awful. Awful. Not just ‘kind of bad’ where a rewrite or a polish will really make the manuscript better. No. This was gripping the guard-rails because the roller coaster is coming off the tracks awful. The gut-wrenching awful that made me as an author almost say…almost say…enough.
But here is the other awful thing that you know deep within your soul when you are an author, even more awful than the most awfullest manuscript you ever write. When you are an author just because your words don’t look good on paper and just because you think or perhaps even say you will give up writing? Well the stories don’t stop. The words, the characters, the what-ifs and the plots keep banging around your brain like chimpanzees in a cage screaming to be let out, or at the very least fed. Being a writer and saying you are going to give up writing is akin to being a duck who is going to give up paddling. Just not possible.
So after my rejection, my re-edification, my writing the worlds most awfullest manuscript, and thinking I would quite writing…well after all that I figured it out. The problem. What I had lost and why it was gone.
My voice.
Somehow in the midst of my soul-searching and dare we even say self-pity party (yes we dare) and my reading and my writing I was in the grips of a paralyzing case of not exactly writer’s block but what I can only say was muteness. A writer can’t have laryngitis and perform.
I’d lost my voice as a storyteller. I’d lost that beautiful indefinable way that I, Maggie Marr, and only I can string words together. My vernacular, my culture, my education, my life creates my voice and I’d lost that. Gone from my writing was the sense of a story-teller telling the reader a story. Sure I had dialogue and characters and pacing and plot but where was I? Where was the authorial voice? Without it, without me I realized these words on the page were only words strung together in what might arguably be grammatically incorrect structure, with a number of comma splices (but really every copy-editor needs something to do) but there was no heart to the story.
A story must have heart to be a success and guess who provides that beating, feeling, glob of muscle? The author. So how to fix it? To listen. To listen to myself. To add back into the words on the page how I saw those characters. How I saw their homes, their foibles, their decisions and indecisions.
Have I done it? Am I finished with my latest manuscript? Has it sold? Heck no. But I am on my way to hearing my voice, my authorial voice loud and clear through each and every word, sentence, and paragraph on the page of this manuscript and that, well for me, that is the greatest opportunity of all.
Maggie Marr is an attorney and a former motion picture literary agent. She is now a full-time writer. Maggie is the author of Hollywood Girls Club and Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club. Maggie also wrote Mothers & Daughters, Sexology, and Hart & Stone for television. Her screenplay The Apology Expert is currently under option to Dahooma productions. Please visit her at www.maggiemarr.com.
Hi Maggie,
Interesting and fun post. What always cracks me up is when editors and agents say they want a new voice, a fresh voice. Well isn’t mine new and fresh just because it’s mine and they’ve never “heard” me before? One would think so, but obviously there’s much more to it than that. I love that you wrote about heart. Heart and voice go hand in hand!
Maggie, I love this post. I went through the same thing a couple years ago, realizing the importance of voice and letting mine sing out. I think that’s makes a huge difference in the books I love to read.
I still love a great story told with great pacing, which some people do without that great voice. And they sell and some do very well. But when they have that voice… those are the writers that get on my “favorite authors” list.
Maggie, you already know how great I think this post is, but thank you again for being a guest at MM and for such great food for thought, and such honesty!
I especially love this:
Elle
I think the tricky bit, at least for me, is making sure that my voice is clear. It is so easy to get drowned out between keeping track of pacing, plot, characters and dialogue. And yet, an author doesn’t want to become too obtrusive. That balance is so difficult to strike.
Maggie
Edie
Thank you! I am working hard to make that list of yours.
Maggie
Michelle
First, thank you for inviting me. The invitation to post is a blessing for me because although I diagnosed the problem I hadn’t really articulated it or written it down. This post really pulled all my tangential thoughts together. So thank you for helping me to gain some necessary clarity!
Maggie
Maggie,
I see this a lot as we try to make our writing stronger we feel that everyone’s opinion is right and the best way to do things. In the end we sterilize our voice to try to please everyone. And while proper commas and varying sentence structure might make the MS more readable, it isn’t the only thing that makes a story. Thank you so much for sharing your story and I hope you find the heart of your stories.
Amanda
Hey Maggie. First off, thanx for joining us here at MM. What a great blog!
Half the battle is knowing what the problem is. Discovering you’ve “lost” your voice had to be an eye opener. However, sounds like you’re on your way to fixing that little problem.
Gotta check out your books. Love the titles. Sounds like fun.
Amanda
Thank you for stopping by! Yes, it is very easy to caught up in the ‘technical’ of writing and lose the mojo. And the mojo or heart is, I think, the most necessary part.
Maggie
Liz
Thank you! I loved writing both books and I hope you enjoy them. I am hard at work re-inserting that me-ness into the latest book. Hopefully not *too* much, but just the right amount.
Maggie
Maggie, so happy to have you visit us at Magical!
Your blog was so heart-felt and valuable to many. We all have moments of revelations as writers, and I’m so happy you shined a bright light on the issue. Taking stock of where we are along the way is crucial to our stories.
Many years ago, I had such a moment when I compared my process to what was shared in writing workshops. Clearly, there was a problem and I was doing it wrong…. or so I thought. A few weeks of non-writing, after trying to reconstruct my process, and it became very clear to me. My process was and is right for me. A writer only knows what works for them. Being honest with ourselves is part of that process. So happy that you gained clarity and continued. You go, girl!
Great post!! Sometimes I feel like a writer can be too focused on writing the next big “thing”–instead of keeping in touch with her voice. A great voice always makes a story for me.
Maggie, this is a fabulous post and one all writers should read… I know we all go through periods like this where we know we can *write something,* but what we really want (and need) is to *write something meaningful to us.* Your comment about losing — and finding — your voice was right on target. Thank you.
Thank you so much LaDonna, Cynthia, and Marilyn for your kind words both about the blog post and my journey. Your comments make me happy. I’ve learned a whole lot over the past year about myself and about my writing. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my experience with you.
Maggie
Maggie, fabulous post! Voice is so important, and sometimes so elusive.