When I was a young girl, a black lady named Helen used to take care of me while my mother worked. Helen’s voice was soothing and loving; when I heard her voice, I knew I was safe. Later, my mother remarried and we moved away to another city. I used to think about her and wistfully wished I could hear that voice call my name one more time: “Lori.”
One afternoon, quite by surprise, I arrived home from high
school and I heard a voice from the past in the basement of our home laughing
and talking to my mother. I stopped for a moment, thinking, could it be? But it
was too outlandish to even consider, I brushed it aside as impossible. Then I
heard my mom call me, “Lori, come see who came to visit you.”
I rushed down the stairs and there she was. Helen said,
“Lori, it’s so good to see you.” My first thought was that her voice sounded
exactly the way I remembered it from a decade earlier, a sweet sound,
distinctively hers no matter how long I went without hearing it. That made an
impression on me that I have never forgotten. All those years, I had longed to
hear her once more and thought I never would. If I heard her voice again today,
I would recognize it as Helen’s.
To me, that is an authentic voice – one which is identified
as belonging to one person and no one else. It translates into writing. We must
each have our own unique voice. My voice should identify me as Lorilyn Roberts.
While I think it’s good to read and examine others’ style of
writing, we should strive to develop our own. I am still playing around with my
own style because writing fiction is much harder for me than nonfiction. I have
come to realize, though, it’s what I feel comfortable with, what flows
naturally, and where my creative process takes me. It’s what I was born with.
God gave me a voice to talk; He has given me a voice with which to write.
Involved in that is a process of learning. Children have to
learn how to talk, and that’s much easier and more natural than learning to
write, but they still have to learn. In the same way, writers need to develop
their own authentic voice and not be afraid to claim it. They should not try to
write something intentionally or unintentionally that imitates someone else.
A great example of voice by a young adult is Anne in The Diary of a
Young Girl, by Anne Frank. Anne was writing to “kitty,” her best friend.
Her spunky personality shone without pretense or excuse for why she felt the
way she did. She was comfortable in her own skin. There is a term called
self-actualization, where one uses everything he or she is to become what he or
she was created to be. During Anne’s confinement, she was able to verbalize her
innermost fears, hopes, dreams, ambitions, and little triumphs as she learned
to rise above the horrific situation she was in and “cope.”
It’s a tribute to
her that such a young girl could come so far into understanding so much about
herself and who she was. The amazing thing, which was a God-given gift, was that
she had the capacity to write it down so that future generations could
empathize and understand what she went through. It’s a great achievement, I
believe, in the use of authentic voice, to come so close to knowing Anne Frank
and yet never having met her.
Her authenticity came out in the graphic descriptions of the
people in the attic; what it was like to live there for two years locked away
from society; their everyday struggles, from using the bathroom to what they
ate to what they did to occupy their time; the frequent references to the war
and who was winning; their fears of being discovered and their constant
squabbles among each other; and even Anne’s innermost thoughts about love and
sexuality.
In one way or another, I could relate from my own life
experience. I knew she was real and what she suffered was genuine. I wanted to
read more to learn what would happen. I was engaged and transported back to a
war fought before I lived. I wanted to save Anne and her family. It was hard
for me to believe she died before I was even born. This book is a masterpiece.
A third-person narrative can also have an authentic voice,
but it needs to be so close to the person’s feelings, thoughts, and actions
that you can’t tell the difference. If a book is well written, I won’t even
notice if it’s first person or third person unless I stop and think about it.
More than any other genre, young adult books need an authentic voice. YA readers need to be able to like the protagonist and identify with her feelings, thoughts, and goals. That makes writing for young adults challenging but very gratifying when well done.
