Get Published, Part 4 — It isn’t about your writing voice… it’s about your story.

Want to get published?  Of course you do.  But you won’t until you get this one thing right.   

Among five other things you need to get absolutely right, too.

But this one thing… it’s at once easier than you think it is… as well as easier to screw up than you can imagine.

Nobody ever said this was gonna be simple.

In fact, it’s downright ironic.

Has anyone ever asked you to define the word irony?  Try it sometime.  I have no doubt that you understand it, that you recognize it when you see it, and perhaps you even use it on occasion.  

But defining it?  Very challenging.  Almost impossible.

Because in the telling something doesn’t so much get lost as it gets confused.  With what?  With coincidence.

Winning the lottery and dying the next day?  That’s not ironic, that’s coincidental.  Winning the lottery on the day you enroll in Gamblers Anonymous?  That’s ironic.

Working Around the Irony

Here’s another example of irony, one you can use next time somebody (like your kid) asks you what it means. 

Consider this truth: if you’re trying to publish a novel, your writing voice – your style, your personality, your edge, your passion… – is the least important thing in the equation.  Of the six core competencies you need to bring to the publishing proposition, writing voice comes dead last as a priority.

In fact, it’s not a priority at all.  It’s a pre-requisite.  It’s merely the ante-in.  Like being able to run and chew tobacco at the same at a baseball tryout.

And yet – and this is the ironic part – it’s probably what got you into the craft of writing in the first place.  You’ve always had a way with words.  You write killer letters.  Your proposals are used as templates at work.  Moreover, you think it’s fun.  You write just to play with the words, twist them into all sorts of shapes and layered interpretations.

Some people write because they have to.  You write because you can.

That’s ironic.  Because now that you’re looking into the eyes of an agent or an editor considering taking on your manuscript, the truth is they couldn’t care less about your writing voice.

Unless, of course, it sucks.  To be clearer, and perhaps even more ironic… they couldn’t care less how great it is.

But wait, you’re saying.  Some of my favorite writers are wonderful stylists.

True.  Doesn’t mean a thing.   John Grisham and James Patterson and Nora Roberts and whole bunch of other bestselling authors are more successful than your favorite writer, the one with that flair for words, and I dare you to compare voices or royalty statements.

I’m not saying there’s anything at all wrong with a unique and compelling writing voice.  Quite the contrary.  What I’m saying is that, if you don’t, and if you try too hard to fake one, you’re killing your chances.

This irony isn’t unique to writing, either. 

Look at music.  Did Bob Dylan have a great voice?  Kris Kristofferson?  Or more lately, Taylor Swift or Britney Spears?  Even Bono, the supposed reigning king of popular music, really can’t sing his way out of a high school talent contest.

Today’s music is all about style, rather than the more obvious perception of quality.  It’s imprecise.  It’s a matter of taste.  A judgment call.  And, if you want to get downright analytical about it, it’s a matter of fit.  You won’t hear Josh Groban singing bluegrass, and you never heard Pavoratti doing rap.

And yet, if you try to infuse too much style into your writing, if you force it, you’re just as dead as if you can’t spell your own name.

Here’s what you need to understand about your writing voice, at least as it pertains to getting your bad self published.  There are two things, two eternal rules, that apply here as guidelines.  The rest is a crap shoot.

First, your writing voice has to be adequate.   That’s all.

It must be professional, even polished, and hopefullly imbued with at least some subtle essence of personality.  At a minimum it must not detract from the storytelling, just as a choir won’t keep someone around who chokes on the high notes.  At a maximum, it becomes part of the story experience itself (think Holden Caufield in J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye).

Less is always more.  Clear is always better than cluttered.  And white trumps purple every time.

Next, the writing needs to be appropriate to the genre and the context of the story. 

Just like Willy Nelson won’t be appearing at Carnegie Hall with The Three Tenors  any time soon, you’d best be sure your stylistic craft supports the story on the page.

Your detective noir masterpiece shouldn’t come off like a geography textbook.  Your romance novel shouldn’t read like a drippy Hallmark card, either. 

So what’s the aspiring writer to do with this information?  This is a how-to-get published series, after all. 

First take away – at all costs, as if your career and your dream depend on it (guess what?  it does…) avoid over-writing.  It’ll get you rejected by page 1o, even if your story is the next DaVinci Code, and even if all five of your other core competencies are off-the-charts brilliant.

I’ve written this here many times:

All six core competencies need to be solid. 

A weakness in any one condemns the story to rejection.  And – again, ironically – writing voice, while perhaps the lowest bar to attain, is also the most frequently abused of the six core competencies.  Even more than manuscripts full of been-there-read-that ideas and characters with all the depth of a classified ad.

Why?  Because the writing isn’t crisp and clean.  It’s either over-written or obviously the work of an amateur.  One or the other.

Your goal is to fall somewhere between those two fatal extremes.

When you think of solid, clean writing, think of fresh air.  The best air on the planet is mountain fresh, the very epitome of clean and crisp.   You don’t really notice it at the time, but it makes you feel good.  It’s invigorating, healthy, energizing.

But there are other types of air that some people actually like, such as smoky bars and casinos, food courts, bakeries, dancing with someone who spends all day working at a perfume counter, the smell of bacon and coffee in the morning.

But here’s the deal.  Not everyone likes those smells.  There’s a chance the agent or editor reading your manuscript is one of them.

If the reader can smell your writing style, if it’s palpable and intentional and too omnipresent, then you are in risky territory.  If you’re trying to be funny, know that one reader’s glib remark is another’s distasteful distraction.  If you’re trying to be romantic and passionate, know that some readers have a purple alert that begins flashing at the first sign of an adjective.

It’s always safest to write cleanly, clearly, and with some essence of personality that may or may not meet the criteria of your high school English comp teacher.

Anything beyond that is an artistic, aesthetic choice. 

And therefore a risk.  Make it wisely.  The publishability of your project depends on it.  Carve this on your forehead: less is more.

You can never get enough minimalism in your writing.  (Hopefully you get the irony of that statement, too.)

Of course, all this talk about the risk of overwriting and the need to bring your writing voice up and out of the common masses of the pedestrian into the realm of the competent and even professional, wouldn’t be complete without reminding you of what does matter.

And for that, just go back to the top and read the title again.

It’s all about your storytelling.  Writing voice is subordinate to it.  Your style either empowers it or distracts from it. 

Writing voice never stands alone as the thing that will get you published.

Your writing voice isn’t about adjectives.  It’s about attitude.

Want an example?  Here’s my favorite.  Go to the Amazon.com page for Manhattan Nocturne, a killer novel by Colin Harrison, who has been called the poet laureate of American thriller writers.  Not because he’s poetic.  But rather, because of the imbued attitude and crispness of his narrative style.

Click through to read the first paragraph of the book.  If you think that writing voice is about adjectives and adverbs, here’s proof it’s not.  There’s only four in this entire paragraph that is dripping with attitude. 

Read and learn.

Learn it well enough, and you’ll have another piece of the publishing puzzle solved.

Coming next: Part 5 — What agents and editors are really looking for.

Read one of my guest posts, this one on Pattistafford.com, here.  It’s an intro to the Six Core Competencies development model for people who may not have seen it before.

Also, turns out I’ve been named one of the “Hot Authors of 2009,” and I don’t think it’s because of my hairline.  Check it out here (it’s a book full of interviews)… that guy in the second row middle, that’s me.  Back when I had hair.

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