The Muse and the Marketplace begins this Friday, May 10! Attendee schedules are now frozen for printing; if you did not sign up for sessions in advance or wish to make a change, never fear: you’ll be able to join sessions on the fly as well by checking in with the Session Manager at the door. For completely full sessions, the Session Manager will use their discretion on whether additional seating and/or standing room will be available per fire code. We cannot wait to host you at the Boston Park Plaza for an incredible weekend ahead!
Voice is the intelligence behind the narration. It is the attitude and the emotion. It gives subtle clues about who’s speaking and what’s going on. Over time, voice forms a distinctive pattern that makes your work recognizable and unique to you. For anyone planning on publishing their work, voice is vital. Agents and editors frequently cite voice as the most important element that makes a manuscript stand out from the slush pile.
In this session, we will discuss six elements of voice in fiction - Inflection, Dialect / Jargon, Saying exactly what you mean, Sentence length and rhythm, Characterization, and Access with examples of each pulled from works by Deesha Phillyaw, Albert Camus, Denise Chavez, and John Kennedy Toole.
Through a combination of lecture and Q&A we will explore how we can strengthen our narrative voice. You can expect to also have some take-home exercises at the conclusion of the session.
Elizabeth Gonzalez James is the author of the novels Mona at Sea and The Bullet Swallower as well as the chapbook Five Conversations About Peter Sellers.
Saturday May 11, 2024 11:45am - 12:45pm EDT
White Hill
