Slice of Life Story - Finding Your Voice

Writers are readers –avid readers. Writers carry within them an enduring love of words and remain keenly interested in how other writers write and what they write.

For these reasons I scour book shops for books about writing and writers. It is where I found, ‘Writing The Memoir’ by Judith Barrington. This book aims to provide a practical guide to the challenges and dilemmas in crafting your own true stories. In the book, Barrington makes the point that in order for the reader to care about what you make of your life, there has to be an engaging voice embedded in the writing –a voice that captures a personality and breathes life into the words. The author further states that memoir requires that the reader feels spoken to.

It is timely that I am reading this because next week I have to teach a class of 10 year olds that voice is a critical element of effective writing. Sometimes voice in writing is referred to as personality on paper. So my planning will attempt to hold true to this ideal.

I will search my book collection for examples of writing where a sense of voice is apparent. And as these young writers tell stories from their lives; their personal narratives, I will look for the emergence of voice in their writing too.

Comments

  1. Letterpress22 March 2009 at 00:56

    One of the interesting things about reading blogs is voice--how different we all sound. Our family has a series of blogs and each one just "sounds" like the person we know and love, and it is that elusive thing called voice.

    Nice post, this Saturday morning--
    Elizabeth
    http://peninkpaper.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

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