I carry on with the exercise mentioned in the previous post. First I try to write like Marian Keyes. This is ridiculously easy. I hardly have to change words at all. Her novel is my novel. Her voice is my voice. (And, in fact, often when I’m reading her I think it’s me talking. She makes me laugh and cry like no one else.) Then I try to write like Val McDermid. This is impossible. I love her novels too but I just cannot fit my story into her way of writing.
I do another exercise from the Mslexia website. I print out my entire novel-in-progress in a font I don’t like and in a size larger than one I would normally use. This is to enable you to look at your novel in a detached way. You’re meant to put it to one side for two weeks before looking at it but as I print it out I catch sight of bits. I decide I hate nearly all of it. It doesn’t sound like me at all. It sounds forced. I’m trying too hard. I haven’t found my ‘voice’ – or even my genre.
Marian writes romantic tragi-comedies. Val writes crime novels. Is that telling me something?
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