Choice is Voice

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Tom Romano, in a 2004 journal article, relates from his school days those first steps taken toward becoming a writer, writing and sharing stories during study hall with his friend, Jackie. I marvelled at his tale, having had a nearly identical experience back in Grade 5, writing and sharing stories with my friend, Jeremy. Each of us sought to wow the other, with every page passed. I wonder whether Jeremy still writes or, for that matter, Jackie, too. Like Tom, I eventually taught other people how to write: sometimes creative fiction, a little more of poetry, and most of all analytical prose… alas, the plight of the high school English teacher.

Of course, a lot of what I taught eventually became student work that I was bound to read, so I asked myself, Why not try to make my time spent reading as enjoyable as possible? To that end, I taught writing that I thought was readable, which I often whittled down for students to two adjectives:

• concise
• precise

Easily remembered for their rhyme, oh! what those two words convey… anxiety, fuss, struggle and stress, paralysis… alas, the plight of the high school English student – my students, anyway. I countered their anxiety with a plight of my own: “If I spend 25-30min reading each of your papers, do you know how many hours of my life that is?” Alas, for sympathies that were hardly mutual.

But what else these two words convey is a pithy little guideline to say ‘no more than is necessary’ by saying ‘exactly what you mean’. Later, in senior coursework, once some habit-formed skills were theirs to marshal, we eased the stress – it was a relaxation I suggested as a ray of hope to younger classes: “When you know the rules, you can break the rules.” Naturally, I suspect somebody just now has read “rules” and objects to such immorally teacher-driven, back-to-basics, conservative, transactional, top-down, traditional 19^th century industrialised lecturing methodology that tells people: “This is how to write.” It wasn’t like that. On the other hand, people do need practise if they aim to improve what they have never tried before. So they need some boundaries to define what makes for effective practice.

What I called “rules” for those early years of practice were intended to measure progress. However, while I did want students to write precisely what they intended to say as concisely as they could say it (the rules), to an audience they knew well enough (usually me, the teacher), I still wanted what they came up with to result from their own choices (voice), so the audience couldn’t really object but might only try to understand. The tension here is obvious to anyone who’s been a writer, much less a writing student: what does the audience already know-slash-what is my teacher looking for? As I write to be understood, how do I also write to get a good mark? What do I really believe about such-and-such? How much do I really know about such-and such? From that, what do I have to say that interests me? my audience? How can I derive both style and structure that the audience can either manage or else identify as uniquely mine? What is style? What is structure? Such questions are not only common, they are useful because, in trying to respond, an author is bound to improve that piece of writing. The rules, as strictly as I presented them, had more utility than mere grading of papers: rules are about discipline.

What’s more, the promise was that, eventually, the rules would become mere guidelines for papers, to be followed or not according to one’s purpose for writing a piece to ‘this’ or ‘that’ audience. As an aside, what was graded for more mature writers in those later school years were contextually effective choices, persuasiveness, fluency and control, and such more subjective measures. I suspect one reason why a lot of writing students grow fed up is because teachers apply these measures, maybe even unintentionally, too early in the students’ development process.

In any case, what I mean by this broader idea that I call “style” is a kind of fingerprint, a unique identifying feature of a piece of writing or, given enough similarly styled pieces, of an author. Style being, by nature, a trait more clearly possessed by more experienced authors, I described it to students as a goal that developing writers might aim to reach. It’s hardly a new idea, style, but for anyone who’s learning a new thing or really honing a skill for expertise, milestones and measures are always useful to keep in mind.

What I call “style” I also call “voice,” the idea being that stylistic decisions are to be made in order to convey with concision and precision some purpose in the most effective way to some audience. In other words, any author employing style amounts to that author establishing voice, by way of choosing from alternative words, expressions, sentence options, and so forth.

In other other words, authors must make choices, and thereby, choice is voice.

Click here for some final practical thoughts on applying rhetoric in ways that can help an author control what they intend to convey with their voice.