{"id":111,"date":"2012-05-17T10:14:57","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T10:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dave0.nfshost.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2012\/05\/17\/a-lil-bit-more-on-voice-sauce-and-gravy\/"},"modified":"2012-05-17T10:14:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T10:14:57","slug":"a-lil-bit-more-on-voice-sauce-and-gravy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2012\/05\/a-lil-bit-more-on-voice-sauce-and-gravy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lil Bit More On Voice, Sauce, and Gravy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I guest blogged about “voice in writing” for Shimmer<\/i><\/a>. That essay starts something like this:<\/p>\n

I want to talk about voice–about your capital-V Voice as a writer, and the little voice of each specific piece you write–but first I want to tell you about how this guy I know makes steaks.
\nHe goes to the butcher and buys a few good cuts of beef. Back home, while these steaks drain on the cutting board, he makes his \u201csauce.\u201d This sauce consists of Worcestershire sauce, malt vinegar, salt, pepper, brown sugar, ketchup, maybe barbecue sauce, whiskey (or whatever he finds in the cupboard), beer (maybe), wine (why not?), soy sauce, and season salt. He marinates the steaks in this sauce for an indeterminate period, then sears them briefly on a high-BTU gas grill.
\nIf you\u2019ve spent any quality time in the kitchen, then you see how absurd this \u201csauce\u201d is . . .<\/div>\n

and ends like this:<\/p>\n

\nVoice is the economical result of not throwing anything away, but instead boiling and scrapping until what you have left is as concentrated as possible, a half-once of liquid with more flavor than the chops you started with. Every good story will make its own gravy.
\nAnd your Voice emerges from the process of cooking up story after story after story in the same iron skillet, until that skillet is so seasoned that you don\u2019t need oil to fry an egg, and any steak seared on it comes off tasting like it put you back $50 at a necktie establishment, even though you didn\u2019t even bother to sprinkle salt on the pan prior to sizzling.\n<\/div>\n

In the middle I specifically cite David Foster Wallace and Stephen King as examples of how a Voice–even a very ornate one–arises from a process of reduction. So, I was interested to come across this note DFW sent Harper’s<\/i> magazine<\/a> regarding this nifty lil piece he wrote about Kafka<\/a> for that magazine in 1998. The note reads, in part:<\/p>\n

\nThe deal is this. You\u2019re welcome to this for READINGS if you wish. What I\u2019d ask is that you (or Ms. Rosenbush, whom I respect but fear) not copyedit this like a freshman essay. Idiosyncracies of ital, punctuation, and syntax (“stuff,” “lightbulb” as one word, “i.e.”\/”e.g.” without commas after, the colon 4 words after ellipses at the end, etc.) need to be stetted. (A big reason for this is that I want to preserve an oralish, out-loud feel to the remarks so as to protect me from people\u2019s ire at stuff that isn\u2019t expanded on more; for you, the big reason is that I\u2019m not especially psyched to have this run at all, much less to take a blue-skyed 75-degree afternoon futzing with it to bring it into line with your specs, and you should feel obliged and borderline guilty, and I will find a way to harm you or cause you suffering* if you fuck with the mechanics of this piece.)<\/div>\n

I share this, because DFW was fundamentally wrong. I was a UofM comp lit student with a subscription to Harper’s<\/i> when that essay was first published, not to mention an embarrassingly enthusiastic fan of DFW’s, and I remember reading that piece–feeling how breezy and conversational it was–and I’ve gotta say that this sense of the piece’s voice wouldn’t have been at all affected if DFW had elected to use Chicago Manual of Style<\/i>-compliant punctuation after his abbreviated Latin introductory clauses, instead of being a royal prick.
\nThe takeaway: Don’t do this; don’t squander even a few minutes from your limited store of earthly hours fussing over pinches of pepper on what is already a really damn good steak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I guest blogged about “voice in writing” for Shimmer. That essay starts something like this: I want to talk about voice–about your capital-V Voice as a writer, and the little voice of each specific piece you write–but first I want to tell you about how this guy I know makes steaks. … Continue reading “A Lil Bit More On Voice, Sauce, and Gravy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}