That is the spooky part we can't talk about without sounding crazy. But you are visited by a voice, and it will make you unhappy until you complete the project.
Its easier to create the thing externally than to be berated by the thing internally. The story Im working on started as a joke premise, but it refused to leave me alone.
I have experienced this many times, myself. I get an unwritten song stuck on the brain loop until I complete it. Same thing happens with covers. But that has been mostly replaced with prose the past two years.
Ahh sorry I gave you the wrong impression. I was planning it for July or August. Part of it is plane tickets, part of it is then I'd hopefully be packing better stories.
I mean, it’s to the point of being cliche because of its success, but I read The Catcher in the Rye I don’t know how many times throughout high school and college. Holden’s voice and the way he depicted his isolation was just so relatable to me at that time in my life.
Do you ever feel like a brilliant piece of art -- music, movies, writing ... whatever -- can gain a negative stigma from having too much success and becoming mainstream? Take Pink Floyd or The Rolling Stones or wherever you want. Their music is so rubber-stamped in our minds now that it’s brilliance almost seems lost and dull. But it still doesn’t make the work any less amazing, maybe just perverted by too much attention. Just one guy’s random thought for the day...
Anyway... Thanks for this piece. I’ll probably re-read this. Very helpful.
Right. Like sometimes I’ll hear someone bitching about “Band X” being predictable and boring. And I take a step back and think -- wait a second... Are you saying that because you’ve heard this too many times on the radio? Because framed in the perspective of the time period it came out of, it’s anything but that. Once it gets imitated and rehashed by other people, it seems like all the sudden some perspective is lost.
Reading Catcher recently I found myself hating Holden. It wasn’t because the story is badly written it’s because it written so well I can feel his stupidity.
Yes, it’s like phases of music for me. I have bands I listened to way too much at certain times in my life and I’ll go back now and think -- hey while this is a good memory, this isn’t exactly my thing anymore. That’s how Catcher in the Rye feels to me now as an adult, but I still love it for exactly the reason you’re saying. It captures that teenage angst in such a perfect way. It’s a memory. Like music, passages from that book can take me right back to certain times in my life.
Smells tend to do that for me. The smell of nag champa incense brings back most of the 90’s. I can even recall when I first smelled it. In an old ford bronco with barbies melted to the hood, roof, bumpers and doors. The smell puts me in the back with three friends and my brother. How I found a used and tied condom under many beer cans and dorito bags and didn’t realize what it was until I popped the old spooge on my shoes. I was 11.
I’m currently reading Anthony Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour” and I can’t help but read it with the cadence of his own voice—- is that different? For example—- after I heard recordings of Kerouac and Ginsberg reading—- I was able to catch onto the flow of their writing and it helped my reading comprehension. “Where the Crawdads Sing” actually has a written voice—- good book. (Don’t come for me!!!)
My favorites: Sarah (JT Leroy), Post Office (Charles Bukowski), The Contortionist's Handbook (Craig Clevenger), The Black Dahlia (James Ellroy), The End of Alice (AM Homes), Child of God (Cormac McCarthy), Zombie (Joyce Carol Oates). I need to stop here.
A lot of Samuel R Delany novels have incredible voice driven plots. The Einstein Intersection, Babel-17 and Dhalgren. Love them all dearly, so underrated!
The best example I can think of in short order is Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.
Chuck, your mentioning Hemingway made me think of the reading list he scribbled for Arnold Samuelson. Do you have five or eight books you'd list as must-reads for an aspiring writer? In no particular order? What do you think of Hemingway's list?
Okay so, I’ve written a voice driven story that I want to start shopping around. But here’s the catch. No matter how refined it is there’s the trouble of certain parts of the story being told by my narrator about things that happened when they weren’t there. I don’t know if I can mail that part so it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the story. Question Chuck how does a first person narrative include a story about something that happened when they weren’t there?
Yes, this. In the big story I’m working on there is a whole chapter where the narrator wasn’t there and recounts a story told to him by his girlfriend. And I don’t even bother to say his girlfriend told him this. I just go into something like “That night Mary went to blah blah blah and that’s when...” proceed with event.
Hope you don't mind my chiming in here Atticus: is it possible to cut those parts your main character wouldn't know about? If yes, then maybe it might make sense to do so. If need be, create new parts that would work. Not to sound obvious, but it is your story. So kill your darlings if ya' hafta'. Hope this is useful.
Also, just read This Is US, Excellent last night. Not gonna lie, I had trouble fully understanding the speech and visualizing the story at times. I feel like it must be more important to keep the sanctity of the character, but do we concede ever for the readers' sake?
If you can find a copy, look for Nami Mun's collection "Miles from Nowhere." The language is deceptively simple, but voice driven, and all the similes are spot-on.
I ain’t scared of re-reading. I bet you appreciated the older brother telling time by iterations of the pizza shop. Or maybe this is where you learned it from?
And the ailing brother is a clock. As is nature, moving from summer into autumn, from apples to the closure of the amusement part. Plus, this story has the best flash-forward of all time. Once more folks have read it I'll dive in to discuss it.
Exactly. Neo-noir. If you want to sex-up a story, tell it in Raymond Chandler-speak. Dashiell Hammett-speak. My story "Torcher" set a murder mystery at Burning Man so that jaded, world-weary detective talk was perfect.
That would make for a good assignment: Write the opening chapter to a Neo-noir novel.
Hey Chuck, the eye of Cheops arrived this morning along with its “baggage”. Thanks for making my morning, man. I mean, cursed jewellery and plush doughnuts -- need I say more?
Voice-driven fiction kicks ass. Can I name any examples? I’m gonna go with Irvine Welsh’s “Filth” and Bret Easton Ellis’ “American Psycho” because they seem like good examples, I guess.
I enjoyed this article on craft a lot. I'm feeling that the book I'm currently working on feels stagnant about half way through it. I think a rewrite with voice driven fiction will give it the Frankenstein spark it needs. thanks.
Congrats to Krissy and Andrew last night at Hindsight Story Night. Hopefully, we can all read their work when it gets published someday.
It was fascinating to see the crowd's reaction to my story last night compared to the last one I read at Hindsight. Not just the laughs. But the visible level of engagement. Really cemented the importance of character over plot to me. Thanks again for putting on an amazing evening, Chuck! And for yet another lesson learned.
Correction. The difference between the first and second stories was Voice. As soon as you lapsed into the accent and the burnt tongue you had people hooked. The unique, specialized language of that family. The mispronunciations that allowed the audience to be smarter than the narrator. All of that allowed you to get to the nuclear blast of your plot. It was your breakout story to date.
Hi Andrew, love that you got the amazing experience. Been looking forward to making a trip to Portland for this. Just wanted to confirm with someone who's been to the event that it is every 3rd Monday night of the month? (I believe I read that somewhere on this substack but can't find it again for the life of me.) Looking to book the tickets soon, but want to make sure the 18th is the right date for July. Hopefully I will get to meet you at the Hindsight Taproom?
Chuck, If you ever read my stuff, please do me the favour of telling me if I cross the voice-driven threshold. But please, more importantly, tell me if I haven’t so that I may break my jaw and then reset it in the hope that the resulting voice may sound better.
George Saunders does a bunch of voice-driven short fiction. See quote below from his story, “Jon”
“And then nightfall would fall and our facility would fill with the sounds of quiet fast breathing from inside our Privacy Tarps as we all experimented per the techniques taught us in "It's Yours to Do With What You Like!" and what do you suspect, you had better make sure that that little gap between the main wall and the sliding wall that slides out to make your Gender Areas is like really really small. Which guess what, it wasn't.”
And that’s before the narrator’s scifi brain implant thing is removed and he can only speak in broken advertising copy.
Love this, Chuck. It’s finding that voice that can be the difficult part 😊
Yeah, but once you get a voice down, the book is half done.
That is the spooky part we can't talk about without sounding crazy. But you are visited by a voice, and it will make you unhappy until you complete the project.
That sounds normal to me.
Its easier to create the thing externally than to be berated by the thing internally. The story Im working on started as a joke premise, but it refused to leave me alone.
It's kinda the same with song writing. The song plays in my head until i record it, After that, it dissapears, until a new one pops in.
I have experienced this many times, myself. I get an unwritten song stuck on the brain loop until I complete it. Same thing happens with covers. But that has been mostly replaced with prose the past two years.
It's just got translated in french, i was about to buy it.
Can you name examples of voice-driven fiction?
Definitely Knockemstiff.
Piano Player? Guessing. I think Vonnegut is more character driven. It all sounds like Kurt to me.
Deadpool?
You were supposed to be there last night, No?
Ahh sorry I gave you the wrong impression. I was planning it for July or August. Part of it is plane tickets, part of it is then I'd hopefully be packing better stories.
It would be the 18th for July and the 15th for August right?
I mean, it’s to the point of being cliche because of its success, but I read The Catcher in the Rye I don’t know how many times throughout high school and college. Holden’s voice and the way he depicted his isolation was just so relatable to me at that time in my life.
Do you ever feel like a brilliant piece of art -- music, movies, writing ... whatever -- can gain a negative stigma from having too much success and becoming mainstream? Take Pink Floyd or The Rolling Stones or wherever you want. Their music is so rubber-stamped in our minds now that it’s brilliance almost seems lost and dull. But it still doesn’t make the work any less amazing, maybe just perverted by too much attention. Just one guy’s random thought for the day...
Anyway... Thanks for this piece. I’ll probably re-read this. Very helpful.
Right. Like sometimes I’ll hear someone bitching about “Band X” being predictable and boring. And I take a step back and think -- wait a second... Are you saying that because you’ve heard this too many times on the radio? Because framed in the perspective of the time period it came out of, it’s anything but that. Once it gets imitated and rehashed by other people, it seems like all the sudden some perspective is lost.
I couldn’t agree with you more about those first 2 albums. Well said!
Reading Catcher recently I found myself hating Holden. It wasn’t because the story is badly written it’s because it written so well I can feel his stupidity.
Yes, it’s like phases of music for me. I have bands I listened to way too much at certain times in my life and I’ll go back now and think -- hey while this is a good memory, this isn’t exactly my thing anymore. That’s how Catcher in the Rye feels to me now as an adult, but I still love it for exactly the reason you’re saying. It captures that teenage angst in such a perfect way. It’s a memory. Like music, passages from that book can take me right back to certain times in my life.
Yes! Tom Petty has a tendency to do that for me. It unlocks a great time in my life. Careless and reckless and having a blast.
Smells tend to do that for me. The smell of nag champa incense brings back most of the 90’s. I can even recall when I first smelled it. In an old ford bronco with barbies melted to the hood, roof, bumpers and doors. The smell puts me in the back with three friends and my brother. How I found a used and tied condom under many beer cans and dorito bags and didn’t realize what it was until I popped the old spooge on my shoes. I was 11.
Oh yeah for sure!! That’s sooooo true!!!!
That is how I felt as well.
I had the same thing happen when watching Taxi Driver recently, for the first time since my twenties (I'm now almost 39).
Probably watched the film fifteen times or more in my younger years, always saw Travis as a total hero.
Watching him now, I'm like "What the fuck? This guy's a total wrong'un!!"
Dora: A Headcase by Lidia Yuknavitch has such a strong great voice. Having grown up in the Seattle area I think it speaks well to me too
I’m currently reading Anthony Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour” and I can’t help but read it with the cadence of his own voice—- is that different? For example—- after I heard recordings of Kerouac and Ginsberg reading—- I was able to catch onto the flow of their writing and it helped my reading comprehension. “Where the Crawdads Sing” actually has a written voice—- good book. (Don’t come for me!!!)
Yes!!!!! Agreed!!!
Exactly. I am Jack's Gallbladder echoes in my brain all the time.
'Don't come for me' - haha.
It’s not easy to mention guilty pleasure reading in here…😞
It’s never easy to mention that book .....(Ok-ok, I’ll stop!).
Rules of Civility. In fact, any of Amor Towles’ stuff.
My favorites: Sarah (JT Leroy), Post Office (Charles Bukowski), The Contortionist's Handbook (Craig Clevenger), The Black Dahlia (James Ellroy), The End of Alice (AM Homes), Child of God (Cormac McCarthy), Zombie (Joyce Carol Oates). I need to stop here.
A lot of Samuel R Delany novels have incredible voice driven plots. The Einstein Intersection, Babel-17 and Dhalgren. Love them all dearly, so underrated!
William S. Burroughs: Junky. Jack Black: You Can't Win.
These were two titles I wanted to include!
The Catcher in the Rye and Miles From Nowhere
Population 1280 and The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. "Now, I ain't sayin' you're wrong, but I ain't sayin' you're right neither".
Folksy, law and order psychopaths.
Many of his books are written this way.
Also American Psycho. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas also feels voice driven, even if somewhat autobiographical.
Oooh yes. Both. Especially American Psycho. Patrick Bateman is such a perfect freak. As is Hunter and all his crazy shit.
A Scanner Darkly and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
A scanner darkly is voices driven i guess.
The best example I can think of in short order is Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.
Chuck, your mentioning Hemingway made me think of the reading list he scribbled for Arnold Samuelson. Do you have five or eight books you'd list as must-reads for an aspiring writer? In no particular order? What do you think of Hemingway's list?
For anyone interested, here is an article about it: https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/ernest_hemingways_reading_list_for_a_young_writer_1934.html
Philip Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler.
Now that's "see ring" fiction. Thanks!
How to depict a voiceover driven story? Oh, thats the narrator. I thought I was onto something.
Okay so, I’ve written a voice driven story that I want to start shopping around. But here’s the catch. No matter how refined it is there’s the trouble of certain parts of the story being told by my narrator about things that happened when they weren’t there. I don’t know if I can mail that part so it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the story. Question Chuck how does a first person narrative include a story about something that happened when they weren’t there?
Like a rumor? I kinda like that.
Maybe more of a legend. But rumor works too. Conspiracy even.
Or text chain that circles back to your narrator inadvertently. Or maliciously. Likewise social media post.
Yes, this. In the big story I’m working on there is a whole chapter where the narrator wasn’t there and recounts a story told to him by his girlfriend. And I don’t even bother to say his girlfriend told him this. I just go into something like “That night Mary went to blah blah blah and that’s when...” proceed with event.
*nail that part
Hope you don't mind my chiming in here Atticus: is it possible to cut those parts your main character wouldn't know about? If yes, then maybe it might make sense to do so. If need be, create new parts that would work. Not to sound obvious, but it is your story. So kill your darlings if ya' hafta'. Hope this is useful.
How much is a voice a distinctive speech pattern/style? And how much is it an exclusive perspective that few people share?
Both.
What about A Clockwork Orange?
Yes, because Burgess was foremost a linguist.
I was wondering about that, too! Good question!
Also, just read This Is US, Excellent last night. Not gonna lie, I had trouble fully understanding the speech and visualizing the story at times. I feel like it must be more important to keep the sanctity of the character, but do we concede ever for the readers' sake?
Now read it twenty more times. It's a masterpiece.
So we never concede, and he who understands not is a fool. Got it
Hey, I had to read and reread it to appreciate it. Your experience is mine, but like 'Jesus' Son' it's worth going back to endlessly.
The malapropism in This Is Us, Excellent also reminds me of that short story with the Christmas tree in Make Something Up
If you can find a copy, look for Nami Mun's collection "Miles from Nowhere." The language is deceptively simple, but voice driven, and all the similes are spot-on.
Purchased, along with Jesus' Son.
Hindsight in July is on the 18th right?
It's more bitter than sweet, but I also just found out Nami is a professor at my alma mater. I didn't study English :(
Jesus' son is a drug
I ain’t scared of re-reading. I bet you appreciated the older brother telling time by iterations of the pizza shop. Or maybe this is where you learned it from?
And the ailing brother is a clock. As is nature, moving from summer into autumn, from apples to the closure of the amusement part. Plus, this story has the best flash-forward of all time. Once more folks have read it I'll dive in to discuss it.
The short story reminds me of the language used in the movie Brick. I really liked it!
Coffee and Pie Oh My!
Exactly. Neo-noir. If you want to sex-up a story, tell it in Raymond Chandler-speak. Dashiell Hammett-speak. My story "Torcher" set a murder mystery at Burning Man so that jaded, world-weary detective talk was perfect.
That would make for a good assignment: Write the opening chapter to a Neo-noir novel.
Don't know if it's the same but writing hard boiled stories is so much fun.
Hey Chuck, the eye of Cheops arrived this morning along with its “baggage”. Thanks for making my morning, man. I mean, cursed jewellery and plush doughnuts -- need I say more?
Voice-driven fiction kicks ass. Can I name any examples? I’m gonna go with Irvine Welsh’s “Filth” and Bret Easton Ellis’ “American Psycho” because they seem like good examples, I guess.
Haven't lost a package yet. Hurray!
I enjoyed this article on craft a lot. I'm feeling that the book I'm currently working on feels stagnant about half way through it. I think a rewrite with voice driven fiction will give it the Frankenstein spark it needs. thanks.
Congrats to Krissy and Andrew last night at Hindsight Story Night. Hopefully, we can all read their work when it gets published someday.
This is wonderful!
An aside; I love The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Saw the play adaptation on Broadway a few years ago. 😊
This is is so remarkable! Thank you so much for all these gifts Chuck!
And WOOHOO Krissy and Andrew!! I’m SO excited for you!!
It was fascinating to see the crowd's reaction to my story last night compared to the last one I read at Hindsight. Not just the laughs. But the visible level of engagement. Really cemented the importance of character over plot to me. Thanks again for putting on an amazing evening, Chuck! And for yet another lesson learned.
That must have been an awesome experience! Well done 😊
It was electric.
Correction. The difference between the first and second stories was Voice. As soon as you lapsed into the accent and the burnt tongue you had people hooked. The unique, specialized language of that family. The mispronunciations that allowed the audience to be smarter than the narrator. All of that allowed you to get to the nuclear blast of your plot. It was your breakout story to date.
Thanks, Chuck. Appreciate you.
Hi Andrew, love that you got the amazing experience. Been looking forward to making a trip to Portland for this. Just wanted to confirm with someone who's been to the event that it is every 3rd Monday night of the month? (I believe I read that somewhere on this substack but can't find it again for the life of me.) Looking to book the tickets soon, but want to make sure the 18th is the right date for July. Hopefully I will get to meet you at the Hindsight Taproom?
Just finished Dermaphoria by Clevenger. The voice is so hypnotic. Especially when he waxes about chemistry and proves his authority.
I just picked up “The Contortionist’s Handbook” and it ended up being an autographed copy for $7.00!!
I love that book! Keep it safe!
The week before—- Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour” signed and FREE! Now that’s a stroke of luck right there.
Chuck, If you ever read my stuff, please do me the favour of telling me if I cross the voice-driven threshold. But please, more importantly, tell me if I haven’t so that I may break my jaw and then reset it in the hope that the resulting voice may sound better.
“A Clockwork Orange” -- Real horrorshow book; you hang off the humble narrator’s every word.
I read ACO after studying Russian for some years at university and without knowing anything about the book. Talk about delightful.
George Saunders does a bunch of voice-driven short fiction. See quote below from his story, “Jon”
“And then nightfall would fall and our facility would fill with the sounds of quiet fast breathing from inside our Privacy Tarps as we all experimented per the techniques taught us in "It's Yours to Do With What You Like!" and what do you suspect, you had better make sure that that little gap between the main wall and the sliding wall that slides out to make your Gender Areas is like really really small. Which guess what, it wasn't.”
And that’s before the narrator’s scifi brain implant thing is removed and he can only speak in broken advertising copy.