Author: Justin Page 64 of 66

The voice is one of a writer’s most important tools. Sure, being able to write good and spel stuff is important too, but if a writer can truly grab their audience then some sins can be overlooked. In fact, along with plot and character, voice is one of the three key tools in the writer’s workshop. Together they give you: what’s going to happen in your story; who’s going to make it happen (and, if you’re doing things properly, why); and how it’s going to be told.

Warning – the rest of this piece will unavoidably include some shameless plugs for a few of my stories…

One of the great advantages of the short story form is that it lets you try out a multitude of voices with only a limited risk of pissing off your audience. For a budding writer such as myself this is an infinite and invaluable playground: I can not only take time to discover my own voice without having to go back and rewrite screeds of fiction but also try on plenty of other voices for size.

For my first two stories, Colder Still and Graves, I didn’t give much thought to the voice. I was far more concerned with telling the story and, at that stage in my non-career, simply finishing it (actually, the finishing is still proving an issue…). With Colder Still, in particular, I was a little surprised to end up with two characters who bore virtually no resemblance to myself: one a bitter drunkard; the other a soldier in World War II (I am neither of those things). In fact for a time I was marginally worried that readers would think that the the bitter drunkard character was in some way meant to represent my own inner voice (he doesn’t in any way). 

For Graves I was far less ambitious. I made no real attempt to define a voice since the main character simply provides a viewpoint for the reader; he doesn’t drive the story greatly, merely lets it happen around him. For stories like that you sometimes want a Generic Male (or Female) so that readers can more easily put themselves into the story. (As a footnote here, judging by the reception for Graves, which is easily my most popular story to date, I think I’d successfully found my voice by this point).

Obviously then I got cocky. My next story, Bunnies, proved a real challenge. Following a slightly tortuous development I eventually settled on a story in two halves, with a different primary character in each half… which, of course, meant two voices again. To make life even harder for myself I decided the first half would be from the viewpoint of a nine-year-old girl (and I haven’t been one of those since ever!). After writing the first page a few dozen times I realised the interesting conundrum this posed: how to give my story the voice of a nine-year-old girl but not make it read as if it had been written by a nine-year-old girl. I got there in the end, but it took quite a few drafts to get to a point where I was happy with what I was doing.

While most of my stories default to a Generic Male voice, the experience of writing Bunnies did give me the confidence to not shy away from other voices when needed. For The Last Laugh, a parody of pulp/noir fiction, I not only had to move out of the horror genre that I’d settled comfortably into (unless you find clowns scary, in which case we’re still right at home there) but make sure that my main character had just the right hard-boiled tone about him.I’m not sure how successful I was with the story, but it was certainly a lot of fun to write.

In perhaps my boldest departure yet, the story I started last week is written from the point of view of … well, I don’t want to give too much away but let’s just say the main character could hardly be further away from who I am. I hope I can pull it off.

As a last footnote I’ve noticed, while writing this post, that I’m not particularly keen on the voice it uses. It seems – to me at least – a little self-important (“When I was knocking back some beers with my good friend Shakespeare the other day, I gave him some points on that new Scottish play of his …”). I’ve toned it down a bit but since I don’t want to labour this post, and since it’s probably just me being self-conscious, I’ve decided to leave it as it stands. Just seemed an interesting final irony …

Cake.

What would life be without cake? Cakeless, I guess, but let’s not dwell on that horrific, potentially post-apocalyptic scenario (and let’s just hope that even when the world ends the good old-fashioned bakery will still prevail).

Although I’m not a huuuuge cake eater it’s reasonably safe to say I’ve never met a cake I didn’t like. Put a cake in front of me and I will eat it (put two cakes in front of me and I will eat both and score myself a nickname for life). I prefer chocolate based cakes … actually I prefer chocolate based anything – and I’m frequently unexcited by mere sponge cake but, as you’ll see below, several of my favourite cakes don’t even involve chocolate.

So, what follows is a list of my top 5 cakes; cakes that have made an impression on me over the years; cakes that I would have to do my duty by nomming into oblivion were they to be placed in front of me; cakes that, by all rights, should be an essential component of a carefully calorie-controlled diet.

5 Manor House

This is one of of Mr Kipling’s ‘large cakes’, but if your definition of large is the same as mine then you’re likely to be disappointed at first. However, if your definition of large is ‘can I eat this entire cake in one sitting’ then you’re in good company with a Manor Cake.

It’s true that this isn’t the best cake in the whole world, but it’s one of the most convenient (just open the packet and slice… or not) and it saw me through many a hangover in my teenage days. For that reason alone it makes it into my top 5 cakes.

4 Jaffa cake

Is it a cake or is it a biscuit? Well, it goes hard, rather than soft, when you leave it out (oo-er) so it’s a cake. Actually they tell you it’s a cake right on the packet so if you still think it’s a biscuit then there’s nothing more I can do for you. Eating an entire packet of Jaffa Cakes is all too easy: the dark chocolate, the tangy orange jelly, the firm, spongy base. What’s not to love?

3 Carrot cake

Vegetables? Plus cake? What dark sorcery is this? That was mostly my reaction when I was first invited to try some carrot cake. Since then I’ve been hooked. It has to be moist and it’s better with the cream cheese topping (and some cream cheese filling too just for good measure). Dry carrot cake is a bit like flat beer: you’ll drink it, but you’ll hate yourself with every mouthful.

2 Cheesecake

I love almost any cheesecake. It can be a packet mix with ground-up digestive biscuits for the base, or it can be a full-on New York style baked cheesecake: I don’t discriminate when it comes to cheesecake. While the filling is the best part, it wouldn’t be anything with the contrastiness of the crumbly, crunchy base – possibly what draws me to Jaffa Cakes too.

OMG – what if they made a cheesecakey version of Jaffa Cakes? Has anyone done this? Can we patent this idea?!?

1 Chocolate fudge brownie cupcake

The best cake in the universe is one my wife makes (no I’m not being biased there: you’d totally agree with me if you tried one of these). We bought the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook a few years back, tried the Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cupcake recipe and never looked back. I think we’ve only tried one other recipe from the book since we got it.

The basic recipe for this cupcake is chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. And butter. It is chocolate in cake form: all the chocolatiness of chocolate and all the cakiness of cake (if you’ve been disappointed by other ‘chocolate’ cakes then you’ll understand what I mean). The recipe is supposed to include icing, but you don’t really need it – the cakes are *that* good. If you live in Sydney you might be lucky enough to try an ‘original’ at one of the weekend markets otherwise grab a copy of the book and try some homemade – it’s worth it.

(Disclaimer: I’m not sure how much of the awesomeness is in the recipe and how much is from my wife’s tender, loving, mad baking skillz but you can only try and hope for the best.)

I’ve set up, and am participating in, a new blogging initiative called 52 Blogs. The idea is simple: to get all participants to post (at least) one blog per week. Full details are here if any readers fancy joining in.

The first topic is cake, so if you find yourself wondering why I’m suddenly writing about cake, well … now you know 😉