Stories Determined by Voice

I recently attended a seminar on writing during which the instructor, a novelist and short story writer, talked about wrestling with a particular character’s voice because voice would ultimately determine the feel of the story she was attempting to write. 

This brought to mind a recent New Yorker author interview in which  George Saunders said that when he sat down to write the story entitled "Mother's Day," he at first envisioned a rather elegant woman as the main character, but when he gave her a voice, she came out grouchy “so the story took a swerve there.”

A bit later in the interview, Saunders described his style of writing as “more about trying to find a voice that is fun to do … and then at some point, you look up and you’ve made a person who is in a certain fix.”

Starting with voice is an interesting notion that seemingly flies in the face of the idea that one envisages a character and then tries to give him or her a voice that squares with the character’s persona and lifestyle as opposed to the reverse.

As for "Mother's Day" itself, this is another one of those "life is a downer" stories the New Yorker  so loves to publish. And it's a prominent genre of fiction generally these days as well.

You can read more about that topic here and here.