There’s nothing like your own voice.
I just spent an hour in a tire store, having my snow tires installed and getting reacquainted with an old friend.
A gifted storyteller from rural Idaho, Steve kept me captivated in the busy waiting room while the technicians changed my tires.
I’ve not seen or talked with Stephen Bly for years, but thanks to his 1994 novel It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, I felt like I was again talking with Steve, as well as visiting 1882 Arizona.
Steve put a lot of himself into his stories. Not just his values, imagination, and expertise in things western, but also his voice.
I just spent an hour in a tire store, having my snow tires installed and getting reacquainted with an old friend.
A gifted storyteller from rural Idaho, Steve kept me captivated in the busy waiting room while the technicians changed my tires.
I’ve not seen or talked with Stephen Bly for years, but thanks to his 1994 novel It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, I felt like I was again talking with Steve, as well as visiting 1882 Arizona.
Steve put a lot of himself into his stories. Not just his values, imagination, and expertise in things western, but also his voice.
I’ve never experienced his novels
in audio format, but I had a lot of conversations with Steve. As I read his
character’s words and the narration, I could almost hear Steve speaking. The
pacing, the vocabulary, everything sounded like him.
Nobody else writes like Steve, and I’m grateful he didn’t try to write like anyone else.
Nobody else writes like Steve, and I’m grateful he didn’t try to write like anyone else.
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing. I suspect we writers preserve more of ourselves in our written pages than we realize. Yet, personal friends can detect the impressions of our personality.
Andy, this is exactly why I have trouble getting rid of my books. They are old friends I often revisit. I would be disappointed if they suddenly veered from their original voice.
My beef is with beginning writers to try to sound like another, established writer. That results in mighty thin soup.
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