What the program stated:
What’s the best way to capture the essence of a voice? Dialogue, verbatim techniques and interviewing skills will be explored, as these writers do what they do best: talk and listen. Featuring Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Jennifer Down and Livia Albeck-Ripka.
Wanting to become a non-fiction writer, and becoming increasingly interested in narrative non-fiction which combines elements of fiction into non-fiction, having a grasp of voice is vital for my writing.
Throughout the hour, the authors touched on many topics yet ‘authenticity’ was the common theme. The conversation was around what an authentic voice is, and whether writers can ever attain it. It was highly recommended that for any piece, if it is directly not your experience than it is your duty as a writer to research the topic extensively.
As a trained library technician, researching is second nature for me. Whether it be as simple as what to have for tea, to weighing up the best sources for an article, most likely I have found a variety of sources from reliable resources.
When it came to dialogue it was highly recommended that we write with our ears open and capture the dialogue like it is being spoken.
The common thread, not just for this panel but throughout the day was whether the writer had the write to tell the story they wanted to tell. While some people there where of the opinion that even though you are a writer, you do not have the right to tell every story you hear and it is important to determine what stories you have the right too.
Finally a panellist mentioned that all writers in fact write for revenge, and I would have to disagree with them. I write because I feel the need to write, I write because I love it. The reasons that I write are to inform, entertain, persuade and question the issues that matter to me in life.
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