You Know it When You Hear It

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  How often have you discussed it with your fellow writers--at dinner, or at a convention, or (maybe more likely) at the bar after a day of panels and interviews and classes? “Voice,” someone says. "What is that, exactly?" And everyone looks at each other and then someone says:

“Well you know it when you read it.”

Right? 

“Voice” (just thinking out loud here) is not only the voice of the characters and the words in their dialogue. We can all demonstrate Eeyore, of course. And Holden Caulfield. Scarlett O’Hara. Kinsey Millhone. Amy in Gone Girl. Andy in Defending Jacob. But “voice” is in every cell of the writer’s words. You can tell a Julia book from a Hank book, Hallie’s from Roberta’s,  Rhys from Debs and Susan. It’s how the book IS, how the sentences come out, the vocabulary choice, and tone and the rhythm and the music.

And now I’m thinking, well, you know it when you read it.

Which brings up Rachel Howzell Hall.  See if you agree.

Mad Writing

   by Rachel Howzell Hall

It takes balls to write a crime novel – a different set, though, from the ones needed by real heroes, like cops and firemen, soldiers and teachers. Ninety-thousand words all dedicated to a make-believe world with characters who don’t exist saying things that come from nowhere and it’s all so clean and funny and la-la-la.

Except, for me, sometimes it’s not so clean and so funny. For me, it’s more, ‘What the hell?’ than la-la-la.

That’s because I write mad.

Sometimes, on days when I don’t feel like heavy lifting, I wish I could pick a topic, any topic, to write about. A story about X meets Y and then they Q. Fin.

But I want to persuade you. Convince you. Get you mad, too —at the characters, at the situation, at the similarities between real and imagined. And in order to convince you, I need to believe. I need to feel.

Ninety-thousand words. That’s a lot. And it takes nine months for me to finish a story. That’s a lot of time. And because of this ridiculous commitment, I need to push into the light those issues that tick me off so that Lou Norton, my LAPD homicide detective, can confront them. Right those wrongs. Point out the elephant in the room and hang curtains on its trunk.

So how do I find wrongs to right and elephants to decorate? Just by taking a look around. Unfortunately. Violence against women will, alas, propel me through at least 600 books because it never seems to abate. More women are murdered each year. More women are raped. More girls are snatched off the streets. Girls can’t walk on the sidewalk without cars slowly rolling past them. Girls don’t go off alone and must always travel in groups when vacationing in Aruba or Cancun or the cantina around the corner.

More. Don’t. Can’t. More. Don’t. Can’t.

 

It breaks me sometimes to see ‘more women…’ and ‘women can’t…’ especially as a mom to a ten-year old daughter. But I, too, indoctrinate her. Don’t talk to strangers. You can’t wear that skirt without shorts underneath. Don’t wander off on field trips.

Grrrr.  

Enter Lou Norton, my heroine in LAND OF SHADOWS. In this story, she’s confronted with the disappearance of her missing sister and dealing with the murder of a girl who mirrors that missing sister. Identity, sexuality, loss—a lot there that moves me to write. Who are girls and women supposed to be? What is expected of us? What happens when we ‘stray’ from the so-called virtuous path? Even as a law enforcement officer, Lou is Woman and therefore, subject to the “More. Don’t. Can’t.” rules in life. And she sees first-hand what happens to girls and young women when they don’t heed “More. Don’t. Can’t.” She tries to right wrongs but in a city of 9.9 million, there are so many wrongs.

What propels you to the end of a story? 

HANK:  See? Voice. So do you write mad? Or happy? Or suspicious? And what voice would you always recognize? LAND OF SHADOWS to one lucky commenter!   (And does she have a terrific website, or what?)

  

RACHEL HOWZELL HALL is a writer/assistant development director at City of Hope, a national leader in cancer research and treatment. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. 

LAND OF SHADOWS

Along the ever changing border of gentrifying Los Angeles, seventeen year old Monique Darson is found dead at a condominium construction site, hanging in the closet of an unfinished unit. Homicide detective Elouise "Lou" Norton's new partner, Colin Taggert, fresh from the comparatively bucolic Colorado Springs police department, assumes it's a teenage suicide. Lou isn't buying the easy explanation.

For one thing, the condo site is owned by Napoleon Crase, a self made millionaire. . .and the man who may have murdered Lou's missing sister, Tori, thirty years ago. As Lou investigates the death of Monique Darson, she uncovers undeniable links between the two cases. But her department is skeptical. Lou is convinced that when she solves Monique's case she will finally bring her lost sister home. But as she gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer to a violent killer. After all this time, can he be brought to justice... before Lou becomes his next victim?