RE: Finding Your Voice as a Writer
Interesting. Other than classical novels like Pamela, writers avoid second person mode of narration and it's relegated almost entirely to letter writing genres. The selection featured is vaguely reminiscent of the style of travelogues.
Personally, I've gone from third person omniscent mode, which I employed in my first novel, A Familiar Rain, to first person participant narrator mode which I adopted after reading Jack Finney's, Time and Again.
Regarding voice, that's a very elusive quality to define - for me, it's my personality on paper, but even that doesn't say much. I guess I believe in the Jack Kerouac school of hard knocks - before you can have a voice you have to be somebody first, and that comes from isolation and suffering in my experience. I like the way you structured this post - you remind me of the fellow who used to run the fiction channel on here and who shared his various WIP's. Good work.
The second person writing is kind of fascinating, while also not being that useful. Although, I've recently been interacting with more people that do role-playing games and it's not seen as unusual in that group of people because of their almost constant reading of it. They have to be the only group where they read so much of it, unless there is a group of epistolary novel enthusiasts somewhere.
I haven't read Time and Again, but I love Replay by Ken Grimwood which I've heard is similar.
Voice is an elusive definition unless you stay somewhat vague, which everyone does. I agree that having a perspective on life and having life experience help with writing, although there have been great/successful writers in their teens and that seems to refute that premise.
I appreciate it John.
You're welcome, Jeffery - an epistolary novelist club - that would be as recondite as the Cloud Appreciation Society - Okay, I belong to that, lol. Thanks for the Replay tip - I'll give it a look
Never, and I do mean never, insult the CAS.
I like playing with time. In the recent past there was a movement in Continental Europe as part of existentialist psychology to ascribe most disorders to the improper perception of the temporal order of reality. And, I think there's something to that.
I was saying I'm an unofficial member of the CAS - always have been :)
I don't know about that theory but I was sincere when I referred to the Phenomenologists and in particular, Husserl's Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness - not for the faint hearted, lol
Lol.
Yes, the phenomenologists definitely made some good points, although they tended towards confusing language in my opinion. A natural result of trying to articulate the limits of human experience and knowledge.
I like how Snygg and Combs pulled their influence into Phenomenal Field Theory. And, there is also the feel of their influences in Affordances from James Gibson. Husserl made a huge impact.
BTW, looked at several reviews of Replay and read a plot summary - it's very similar to my first novel, A Familiar Rain, which I began in 1980 and finally finished in 2013 - the exception being that my novel was more technical relying on neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield's work. I personally have read many time novels that transport people back in time relying on a simplistic trope like a bump on the head or a dream - that doesn't cut it for me. I want something plausible. And I realized Iactually did start to read the Replay novel once but didn't find it suitable for my taste. IMO, Time and Again is much more plausible - akin to Matheson's Bid Time Return. Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with time...
Here's a paper that you may like: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WXNk5j0_vEEf0LJECRslVQ_89nIs8s3-/view?usp=sharing
At this point I think my favorite novel dealing with time is All You Need is Kill. I'm guessing it's a little off of what you normally prefer, but I especially like how the style came out after being translated from Japanese to English.
Thanks, Jeffery - haven'r read something like that since my studies in Husserl - I'll take a look :)