The Voices In Your Head

A topic at our most recent (wonderful) Tuesday Reticent Bloggers Support Group was, “How much of yourself do you expose online?”  Of course, that depends on the website, haha.  For blogging it came down to choosing the voice with which you write.  Example: Is this blog Personal Scott, Business Scott, or a hybrid?

I’m going to tend to go with hybrid, and not just for just blog, but for all the writing I’ve done over the last…20+ years.  The truth is that I have done very little personal  writing; my writing has always been for a client or a performance.  But that doesn’t mean that I am not “in” my writing.  We all lend our own voice to our writing.  I would venture to say that even those who are ghost writers, and I have not officially done that, put something of ourselves into our text….ghost writers by ingesting enough of their client into themselves to be able to speak with their clients voice.

Anyway, in this blog posting, as I enjoy a which chocolate latte at Tully’s and crank this out before an approaching afternoon of Nerf swording (sword fighting, for long), I want to talk about the various voices I’ve written with.  Go ego.

CLIENT:  I have written thousands of local tv ad scripts, ranging from baby supply stores (Git Yer Fresh Babies, Fresh Babies on a Spit!) to screaming car lots to retirement communities to environmental concerns to restaurants to on-screen-graphics-only….you get the point.  Typically I receive approximately 1 short paragraph of copy points.  Any information I glean beyond that comes through appointments with the client or doing my own research on the client.  From this I have to craft at least 1 script for a thirty or sixty second commercial.  This has always been no problem for me, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that anyone with some writing experience can easily write 30 seconds worth of words on HVAC if they have a trifold brochure to base everything from.  The interesting part comes when you inject your own imagination into the copy.  Why not have a mosquito sell BBQ?  So a guy wears a Ram costume to sell trucks; what’s his day to day life like?  What’s his motivation and passion?  You start with that foundation of the client’s own words, then you build a beautiful structure on top of that foundation.  Or at least a structure that gets approved and makes the client some money.

Another side of client writing is press releases, emails, flyers, speeches.  For one employer, I had to write everything in a very specific way.  Many companies do this, and I think it is a good thing for synchronicity in communications.  But I think that the communications overall suffer because the writers imagination can end up being removed.  The result is a series of dry, unmotivational blasts that serve to inform but don’t necessarily move to action.

Maybe I can illustrate this point by comparing 2 services.  The headlines on Yahoo’s homepage vs the daily coupons that Groupon serves to your email account.  Yahoo’s headlines are recycled product.  Looking on any given day you will see a thumbnail with text along the lines of “Celebrity embarrasses herself.”  “Politician apologizes for ______.”  “NFL player makes worst play ever.”  How about I just go online and copy some direct samples from 1-11-11:  

   “NBA Teams Play To Puny Crowd”  “Player Punished For Photo Tweet”  “Official Warns of N. Korea Threat”  “Improve Those Job Skills in 2011”

These catch my eye because they are so generic.  Groupon, however, is always unique and often hilarious.  Here’s Jan 11^th’s Groupon example:

   “What ratio of schmucks to smarts should I invite to my next function?” 

It’s highly corporate communication, so easily lampooned in places like The Onion or even the Daily Show, versus original thought.  To me it looks like corporate communication would benefit from an injection of someone’s original voice…but maybe they are not looking to reach little readers like me.

SCREENPLAYS: How much of yourself can you put into each character in a movie without feeling schizophrentic?  I guess that’s the fun part, and I guess it depends on how much you care about reality.  I believe I’ve written or adapted around 10 screenplays in the last 10 years.  Two were optioned as master’s thesis projects to students in USC’s Peter Stark producing program.  I have always have a lot of fun creating the characters and the way they interact in their world, though of course sometimes it’s harder than others.  How do these voices start?  Sometimes with my own original idea, sometimes with a brainstormed idea from a group, and once or twice it’s been a suggestion given by a friend. 

The hardest process for me is the suggestion from a friend.  It takes a lot of work to ingest a world that someone else has envisioned, and I have not always found success in doing so.  Even when I have been successful ingesting the world, thinking of the characters and creating their own voices is still another challenge.  Why?  Because for me it is easiest to inject myself into the characters, but the project may not always call for that.

Can you think of fictional characters that you create as an extension of your own personality?  I believe that you have to do so.  Is it a bit frightening to think that we all have an axe murderer living somewhere inside of us?  Well….1) not everybody writes an axe murderer.  I’ve killed characters in plenty of other ways!  2) It’s part of the art of words.  Just because you ingest a world doesn’t mean you become that world, it just means you get to play in it.  Playing Grand Theft Auto doesn’t make you steal cars and do all those other enormously fun, consequent-free, virtual things.  You’re not giving up your choice by writing with a different voice, you’re exploring a different world where you can craft any kind of imaginary reality that you see fit.  Anybody read Chuck Palahniuk? 

PERSONAL:  Truly personal writing takes me the longest.  It’s not a difficult exercise, it’s just a different though process, because I have to consider me and only me, no real external input.  This can be very therapeutic, intensely deep and emotional, or purely stream of consciousness.  Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s awful.  Sometimes it’s wordy as all hell just like this posting that you’re finally nearing the end of.  I don’t do it often, because I’m not sure where the revenue is.  How is that for personal?  Practically all of the writing I have done has had a paycheck attached to it, or hopes for a paycheck.  So why write anything personal if the paycheck is my gratification?  That’s something I had better think about and save for another posting!

So, I think that covers what I wanted to cover.  The hybrid business/personal Scott voice, injected into all, and a little bit about it.  If any of this has been understandable, I’d love to see your comments!