I Heart Lisa

Pink World author Lisa Clark (who I've interviewed here) does something awesome when she writes. She has a totally unique voice and vocabulary which instantly bring her words alive. It's fun and cheery and wonderfully upbeat and I love it.

In fact, I covet it.

Yep, that's right. I have writer's envy. Not because of Lisa's richly deserved book deal with Harper Collins (although that's pretty brilliant.) I'm jealous of her writing because she personalises every paragraph. She has a voice.

A unique voice is probably one of the important ingredients in a successful writing career. I think many writers, myself included, fail when they try to capture somebody else's writing technique and copy the style of authors and genres that inspired them.

I realised this the other day, when I was sitting down with a colleague and discussing writing. She was telling me about some stories she had planned - evil and scary and riveting stuff which would give psychologists years of material. She had great, compelling ideas.

The writing she showed me conveyed these ideas in rich, thick prose. It was incredibly reminiscent of the style H.P. Lovecraft used in his books and short stories. Lots of darkness and evocative adjectives. That's when it hit me. This wasn't her voice.

They were her ideas, but she was trying to convey them in somebody else's voice. It didn't quite fit right. There was nothing wrong with the writing, as such. It's just really unique voices, like Lisa Clark's, leap out of the page at you in a way H.P. Lovecraft's vintage prose simply can't. He was considered excessively wordy back when his books first hit the shelves, back in the early part of the 20th century. Now his style seems ridiculously outdated.

My writing is guilty of the same crime. I have deliberately tried to adopt the style of my literary heroes, Ian Fleming and Leslie Charteris. Fleming was a journalist, always willing to cram trivia into his work to illustrate how smart and well travelled he was. Charteris was passionate about the dashing, handsome, infallible Saint. He was forever describing his long legs, piratical smile, tanned face and effortless charm. In recounting his adventures, Charteris used a style of writing which my brother once wisely described as "masturbatory."

I like to think the same phrase couldn't be used to describe Adventure Eddy - but certainly the methods and tone of my novel have their origins in the works of my two favourite writers. Perhaps the only way to move my writing career forward is to rethink the story and re-imagine it in an entirely new voice.

My own.