Welcome to The Verb!

A picture frame sits on my desk, but it doesn't hold a picture. What it does hold is a white sheet of paper with a list of ten words. These words are reminders, a check list I refer to when I read manuscripts.

The first word on the list is Voice.

You may not realize this, but an enormous amount of information can be extracted from the voice you choose. I can hear the tone, yes, but I can also feel the temperament and the pace of your thoughts. I can tell whether you have a sense of humor, whether you're comfortable in this world you've created and whether you care about your lead character. But mostly, I can feel the level of your enthusiasm, or lack thereof, toward the story itself.

The first page is magical. I always wonder how you decide to start where you start. Everything is new to me, including the lead character, and I haven't yet figured out what's going on. At this point, you can take me in any direction you like and I will follow.

In and out of the chapters, I move. I become comfortable in your fictional world. I begin to form opinions about the people, and I'm able to step inside the scenes for a look around. My curiosity takes over. I talk to the Voice. What's in that room? How does this smell? And then what happened?

Sometimes the Voice tells me things that don't make sense, so I go back to re-read certain lines. Sometimes the Voice changes perspective or focus, so I feel lost, disoriented. Sometimes the Voice ignores me completely and goes off on a tangent.

Other times the Voice takes command from the very first line. It never falters, never doubts. This is the story, it says, and wait till you see what happens next. The Voice surprises, stimulates and squeezes into the heart. I am forced to make an emotional investment, hopelessly hooked. No turning away. No taking a break. I am engaged till the last page of the manuscript.

And when I do reach the last page of the manuscript, and the Voice grows quiet, I know exactly what to do. I look up at my list of words, between the seashell chimes and the brass lamp, and I stare at the one on top. Well, Voice, did you do your job? It's all in the Opinion. And if, by chance, the answer is no, suggestions on how to fix it will immediately follow. Suggestions that you, of course, are entirely free to use or ignore.

Occasionally Voices echo, bounce around the corridors of my mind weeks, maybe months after the Opinion is done. I wonder how they're faring and what's changed in their world. As if they were long lost friends. Which, in truth, they are.

Thus the power of Voice. And you thought, perhaps, you were merely narrating.

Next month, characterization.

Elizabeth Guy    
Editor    

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This issue 
was published 
under the musical 
influence of...



Tears For Fears
Elemental