Lesson 1 Writing

 


Voice, Style, and Identity



http://www.newopticalillusions.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/horse-or-what-optical-illusions.jpg

Working Definitions

VOICE: The voice of the text is its controlling presence. This may be understood as the implied author behind the narrator, characters, and plot structure.

Understanding voice as distinct from the narrator is most essential to coming to terms with tone and meaning. The voice is in control of the entire composition and communicates directly to the reader.

  

Take a look at the voice of Holden at the end of Catcher in Rye.


STYLE:  a distinctive manner of expression in writing determined largely by the author’s use of diction (word choice) and syntax (the way words are structured in a sentence).

Is the style FORMAL, using strictly proper English sentence construction or is the style more INFORMAL, capturing the oral speaking characteristics of the characters over using standard written English?

 What should I look for if I am asked to deal with diction and syntax?
  • Word choice...formal or informal? Use of colloquial, slang, dialect?

  • Sentence length or brevity...does the selection use simple sentences or complex and/or compound sentences?

  • The different kinds of sentences (questions, exclamations, declarative sentences, rhetorical questions, etc.)

  • Fragmented sentences/run-on sentences

  • Sentence inversion (e.g. the unusual ordering of the verb/subject relationship) for emphasis.

    "Your apprentice Skywalker will be," says Yoda in Star Wars III, placing the object first, then the subject (Skywalker) and then the verb (will be). Yoda's unusual sentence ordering distinguishes his character.


IDENTITY: the particular attributes of an individual as she/he perceives her/himself; how one places her/himself in the world.




NEXT: Lesson 1 The Bean Trees: Quotations and Themes