Unwriting to Find Voice

As the editor of Storyglossia literary magazine I receive a lot of story submissions that rely heavily on narrative voice rather than scenes. Although I do have a preference for stories with strong scenes, the main reason that many of these voice dependent stories are rejected is that they don't have a tone of reality to them. They read as if they were written. What I look for is a voice that creates the illusion of reality, a voice that allows me suspend my disbelief and imagine that a real person is speaking. I want to be made to forget that I'm being written to.

A good example of a voice-driven story achieving that goal is Robert Lopez's story "Shall We Run For Our Lives" in issue 50 of The Barcelona Review. The voice draws me in at the third sentence: "Still people are looking to pin it on someone." This sentence, with its lack of punctuation, its colloquialism, and its sentiment makes me think someone is at home. All three of those strategies continue throughout the story, which contribute not just to maintaining the voice, but also to maintaining the illusion that we are not being written to. Another strategy that makes this story feel anti-written and also helps to make it voice-saturated is the breaking of time and space rules, the when and where of the narrative. Because the narrative itself is not grounded we cling to the voice as guide. As the story deteriorates, becomes less written, less followable, the voice is all we have left.

Not a strategy for all occasions, certainly, but one worth trying if you are struggling to find a less writerly voice to narrate your story.