Help with writing skills: Why must I complicate the simple distinction between voice and no voice by introducing a third category, real voice? It’s because I think there are some pieces of writing with the liveliness and energy of voice — and in this respect they have a great advantage over writing without voice — yet they lack the power and resonance of the Medawar and the Cheever. The following excerpt is an example (written by a student):
Help with writing skills: It always kills me when I see somebody who can take an old toothbrush, a used toilet roll, and a ball of twine, and in ten minutes can whip up a sculpture to rival the beauty of any Da Vinci. Personally I am about as creative as Richard Nixon’s joke writer. Something as simple as "Three Dozen Ways with Nylon Net" just flies right over my head. I mean, what would I use nylon net for anyway? To catch praying mantises in my dorm room? Line a shirt with it and wear it when I feel masochistic?
Help with writing skills: Maybe I’m just frustrated. I just got back from my community kitchen, where my next-door neighbor, Alice Artistic, was cutting partridge-shaped seals from foil Sucrets wrappers to put on the back of her homemade envelopes in which she plans to mail her homemade Christmas cards. My Christmas cards consist of eight-cent postcards with "Noel" written on them in red Bic pen.
Help with writing skills: I knew I had no artistic talent when my fourth-grade class made maps of Washington out of oatmeal and plywood. I colored mine with pink food coloring, spelled out "Wash" in the middle of it in silver cake-decorating balls and brought it home. My dog ate it for dinner.
Help with writing skills: This writing has the lively sound of speech. It has good timing. The words seem to issue naturally from a stance and personality. But what strikes me is how little I can feel the reality of any person in these words. I experience this as a lack of any deeper resonance. These words don’t give off a solid thump that I can trust.
Help with writing skills: Consider the speech of certain hyped-up radio or television announcers or slick salesmen or over-earnest preachers: speech that is fluent and without hesitation, full of liveliness and energy, "full of expression" as we say — and yet its voice is blatantly fake. These people are doing some kind of imitation or unconscious parody of how an "expression-filled" voice is supposed to sound.