Voice...
Yesterday blogger.com seemed to be having a problem posting my material. Sorry you didn't get the update until today. Anyway, today I have a new little article, based on a conversation I had with my technical recruiter last week.
She was astounded to know that I am a writer and that I have finished novels (the news that I am unpublished didn't seem to phase her, which I found interesting). She asked me the classic question - "When you submit your work to people, aren't you nervous that someone will steal your work?" My answer to this has always been, and always will be, "No."
I have had business ideas stolen from me, I have had a guitar stolen from me, and I have even had my wallet stolen. Each of those things made me warry of allowing the situation to arise again - discussing business with friends, letting new friends into my house, and leaving my wallet in my vehicle.
However, sending my writing out to other unpublished writers and agents, editors, publishers does not worry me in the least. This is because of voice. Let's get two things straight off the starting point here:
1. There is no such thing as a new story idea.
2. Everyone is unique and different and special in their own way.
So, considering that I can't come up with a new story idea, I can just rehash what's there already, people ask - " Then how do you write something original?" See part two - Voice. I might tell a vampire / vampire hunter story (Dracula) but in my own unique way (Death of Blood, coming in 2007 if I ever get around to finishing the edits on my current manuscript).
Voice and perception are the reasons that literature, much like artistic painting, can never truly be 'stolen'. An artist paints a picture of a flower. The flower is not original - Good old Mother Earth has been making them for years. But the WAY he paints it is unique. And try as they might, another artist will not be able to paint the same uniqueness unless he does a stroke by stroke copy. Writers are the same.
Sure, I could take 30 pages from Stephen King's Carrie and stuff it into a work of my own, and then write something around it and pass it off - but it would be completely obvious that the voice changed in the middle. Evidence such as this is why I don't worry - the idea for the story isn't new (good vs evil, love vs hate, life vs death) but the way in which it's told and the voice which tells it are unique to me. Without copying me word for word, no one will ever be able to steal 'me'. There was a writing professor who tested this theory. He gave all of the students in his class a plot and characters, with a description of what the characters were like. The class went and wrote the story. Though he gave them the same plot, and even the same characters, he received back 15 different stories.
So don't be scared - submit your work, no one can steal (or become) you.
She was astounded to know that I am a writer and that I have finished novels (the news that I am unpublished didn't seem to phase her, which I found interesting). She asked me the classic question - "When you submit your work to people, aren't you nervous that someone will steal your work?" My answer to this has always been, and always will be, "No."
I have had business ideas stolen from me, I have had a guitar stolen from me, and I have even had my wallet stolen. Each of those things made me warry of allowing the situation to arise again - discussing business with friends, letting new friends into my house, and leaving my wallet in my vehicle.
However, sending my writing out to other unpublished writers and agents, editors, publishers does not worry me in the least. This is because of voice. Let's get two things straight off the starting point here:
1. There is no such thing as a new story idea.
2. Everyone is unique and different and special in their own way.
So, considering that I can't come up with a new story idea, I can just rehash what's there already, people ask - " Then how do you write something original?" See part two - Voice. I might tell a vampire / vampire hunter story (Dracula) but in my own unique way (Death of Blood, coming in 2007 if I ever get around to finishing the edits on my current manuscript).
Voice and perception are the reasons that literature, much like artistic painting, can never truly be 'stolen'. An artist paints a picture of a flower. The flower is not original - Good old Mother Earth has been making them for years. But the WAY he paints it is unique. And try as they might, another artist will not be able to paint the same uniqueness unless he does a stroke by stroke copy. Writers are the same.
Sure, I could take 30 pages from Stephen King's Carrie and stuff it into a work of my own, and then write something around it and pass it off - but it would be completely obvious that the voice changed in the middle. Evidence such as this is why I don't worry - the idea for the story isn't new (good vs evil, love vs hate, life vs death) but the way in which it's told and the voice which tells it are unique to me. Without copying me word for word, no one will ever be able to steal 'me'. There was a writing professor who tested this theory. He gave all of the students in his class a plot and characters, with a description of what the characters were like. The class went and wrote the story. Though he gave them the same plot, and even the same characters, he received back 15 different stories.
So don't be scared - submit your work, no one can steal (or become) you.
posted by DanStrohschein at 4:14 AM
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