Tag Archives: City of Orphans

The chatter about “voice”

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There’s a lot of chatter about “voice” in fiction, which I take to mean the presentation of the narrative, its mixture of tone, character, syntax, and vocabulary. Complex and important, writers can and do spend years perfecting voice though some come to it quickly and naturally. It can be very distinctive, as per Hemingway and Dickens. Perhaps the most influential voice in the English language was the sixteenth century King James translation of the Bible. And we sometimes forget that Shakespeare was a great inventor of words, such as gloomy, critic, bump—and many more. I wonder how Elizabethan audiences responded to such an inventive vocabulary.

Books with distinct voice

I’ve never developed a specific voice for my work. I want the voice of my fiction to be part of the story. The voice of Crispin: The Cross of Lead is utterly different than the voice of City of Orphans or Poppy. In Sophia’s War I worked hard to create an eighteenth century voice, using lots of words used then, but no longer.

When I tell a story, I want the reader to hear, each time, a different voice. And not mine.

City of Orphans in Spanish

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Ciudad de HuérfanosIn the mail today came the Spanish edition of City of Orphans, with the translated title, Ciudad de Huérfanos. [Editorial Bambú--Spain] My knowledge of languages other than English is woefully ( sadly) deficient. I cannot therefore, speak to the translation, but it is a handsome hardbound edition, truly stitched, complete with headband, a bound-in, green ribbon page marker (something I love) and an unusually fine illustration for the cover art. Many of my books have been translated (True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is in some twenty languages.). The Korean Crispin: The Cross of Lead, which is fully illustrated, is very beautiful. These translated editions fascinate me, in part by the way they depict the story. They also allow me to wonder how young people in different cultures respond to my stories. Now and again, I get letters from these kids, and they are always delightful. Once, in Denmark, a girl told me how Bright Shadow was her favorite book. There is something very special about reaching across the globe in this way. Deeply rewarding.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award

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City of OrphansLast week I learned that my most recently published book, City of Orphans, was nominated for the Vermont children’s choice award, which they call the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award, (she was the author of Understood Betsy). It’s a big thing for writers who are nominated for these awards. It means that many more libraries, school and public, will put the book on their shelves. Many more kids will read the book. These awards are unique because the kids pick the winner. To win is a special honor, deeply satisfying. These childrens’ choice awards are a reminder of what the whole enterprise of children’s books is all about—the kids. [By the way, Dorothy Canfield Fisher was a very interesting and important person, worth learning about.]

Time

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What role does time play in a work of fiction? A book like my Fighting Ground is broken up into time bits (not chapters) and lasts little more than twenty-four hours. The events of my recently published City of Orphans occur during one week. My soon to be published Sophia’s War begins in 1776 and then jumps to 1780 for the major part of the story. That jump in time is crucial. Sophia goes from being a twelve-year-old girl to a fifteen-year-old young woman. She looks, acts, and thinks differently because of those passing three years. Still, the events of her younger self have a huge impact on what she does when older. While not often thought about, the passage of time is often a key element in a story. In a suspenseful book, time itself can be the engine which drives the story forward. Time can allow characters to change, develop, grow—or decline. Contrast how time works in novels and movies. Is not time in novels more like real time? It takes time to read a novel. Does the time it takes to read a novel add or subtract from the work?