Voice in Motion
What does “voice” mean?
Back when I was with Calstate LA’s EEP program, a philosophy professor asked me an interesting question.
A rabbit is white, fluffy, soft. Imagine you strip away the white, the fluffy, the soft — every other quality of the rabbit.
Would there be nothing? Or would there still be something? And if there is still something, what is this rabbitness?
It would be an essence beyond qualities.
Let’s take this rabbit and jump down its rabbit hole.
Many writers ask, “How do I have a voice?”
I don’t think it’s possible not to have a voice. It’s possible to not have well-developed writing skills.
Voice is beyond writing. Voice emanates from the author himself or herself. Voice is an essence of person. Writing is just an artistic medium it’s expressed through.
Looking at the paintings of a painter, can one notice his or her voice?
The same object, painted by two painters, comes out differently. This difference is voice.
I remember reading about errors in transcription work.
When transcribing for a disabled person, the transcriber always produces something slightly different from what the client intends.
It may not be different for all intents and purposes.
But some essence of the transcriber always makes its way in, one way or another. The transcriber can’t help it.
Objective as transcription is, this still happens. What more is there to say the non-objective creation of a piece?
Objectivity is seemingly a constraint on voice.
Let’s take the subject of a piece. Could a comedy be written in a grim tone of voice? Could a polemic be written in a peaceful tone of voice?
No, it wouldn’t really work. Those expressions would be contrary to the intentions of those pieces.
We’d have to stretch our imaginations. Maybe the comedy is a satire. Maybe the polemic is a civil discourse.
As another example, informational writing has less leeway for the expression of emotion.
Piece subjects are among qualities writers contend with.
Does this mean those voices cannot be expressed in those pieces? That’s true only if we think voice is external, that it emanates from some outside product such as writing.
It doesn’t make sense to say that because a writer is writing a certain subject, he or she doesn’t have a voice. Rather, voice is the essence the bleeds through despite subject.
Even if the exact same line were written by two different authors, hopefully by coincidence rather than plagiarism, that wouldn’t be the same voice.
Backing out of this artistic medium and juxtaposing the two as people would be a way we could tell.
Mood is another of these qualities.
Writers are people too. People of all personalities have moods.
Just like in real life conversation, the mood of both parties inevitably influences how the conversation goes. It’s independent of subject.
This is like the dialogue between writer and reader, the mood of the writer at the time of writing the piece, the mood of the reader at the time of reading the piece.
It’s an ever-shifting context, a moving frame of reference.
When writers ask that enigmatic question, it’s to pin this whole interplay to “the one voice”; it’s to ignore what already remains consistent.
The peaceful person who feels angry is different from the peaceful person who doesn’t feel angry.
This difference can’t help presenting itself. Yet, the persona of the peaceful person is still there. The anger isn’t the same as if a different person carried it.
Does it make sense to say the peaceful person no longer has a voice?
Imagine a ball on a flat, un-tilted ramp. The ball is at rest. No matter how much weight is added to the ball, it doesn’t move. If anything, it becomes more recalcitrant.
The object at rest is different from the object in motion. An object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion. An activation energy must overcome an inertia for states to shift. Once going, momentum keeps it going.
The writer, with his or her voice, moves the reader.
The reader has a voice too. The writer’s voice inclines the reader’s voice.
But the writer isn’t the ball. The writer is the ramp.
The ramp, at many different angles, can move the ball. The ball isn’t forced to move. This movement comes about naturally; the ramp inclines the ball to move.
These are like the different angles a piece can take.
The writer draws out this angle from an inchoate place, a space of infinite possibilities.
What solidifies is the writer’s pick. It’s a statement of the writer’s voice.
There’s a reason the writer picks the angle he or she picks. Another writer of the same topic wouldn’t have picked it.
For there to be a speaker, there is a listener.
Thinking is like the speaker also being the listener.
We can’t stop our thoughts by thinking about stopping.
If thought is like a sixth sense, we can notice its absence listening to the other five senses.
In this noticing, there is a space of awareness behind thoughts. ¹ This is the space from which voice originates.
We can hear the sound of silence.
It’s when we stop moving that we can start moving.
In absence, we can ask about the thoughts that were — were they truly as valuable as we thought?
Good writing comes about from asking this question. It homes in on the valuable.
Good writing is concise. The words that are there are the words that need to be there.
What isn’t said is just as important as what is. ²
The writer who masters what not to write does magic with the symbolic and suggestive.
Like a fulcrum point to leverage, there’s so much more that isn’t written than what is.
Not writing is easier than writing. So why not use what’s already not written?
The teacher doesn’t say “Raise your hand if you’re absent.” But the kid who’s absent makes a statement.
Voice is everywhere. It’s everything we listen to and everything we don’t.
The incessant chatter of mind we may associate with speaker.
We are not the speakers of those voices in our heads. We are the listeners.
When we understand this, then we can truly bring out voice.
References
- Mingyur, Y. (2007). The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of Happiness. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.
- Faulkner, G. (2023). The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.