{"id":9255,"date":"2016-12-01T15:47:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T04:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com\/?p=9255"},"modified":"2024-03-09T09:41:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T22:41:54","slug":"return-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/return-source\/","title":{"rendered":"Return to the Source"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Writer’s Voice Linked to A Childhood Spent in the NSW Clarence Valley<\/h4>\n

The following historical photograph of my hometown, with the Clarence River and Susan Island across the water, bring me back to long-forgotten memories of childhood evenings underneath a balmy star-spangled sky in South Grafton next to the water’s edge. I wonder now whether this is the source of my writer’s voice: the places and storytellers from childhood that I carry within till this day?\u00a0 And for me, nature played\u2014and still plays\u2014a large part.<\/p>\n

\"grafton-clarence-river-island\"

Grafton on the Clarence. State Archives NSW<\/p><\/div>\n

Is it the past that gives birth to the special voice within all of us, the one that reappears when narrating stories in written form? This throws up other questions for me, to do with the the relationship of voice to person, character and narration, and how “written voice” touches vicariously on an assumed reader and an assumed listener.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We were an unruly composite of uncles, aunts, siblings and neighbours, as a dark-skinned man that we kids knew as “Uncle Sammy” kept us spell-bound with tales from the Arabian Nights. His deep voice wove magic on us, retouching millenia-old yarns with an Aussie flavour that pulled us into the caves of Ancient Syria, whilst sitting on manicured lawn on the banks of the Clarence River in Grafton.<\/p>\n

\"upper-clarence-river\"

Clarence River-way upstream: Adam Gordon, Flickr 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

Other story-tellers from childhood were on the Irish side of my family: my mother and her mother, Grandma Walker; the Walker uncles, especially Uncle Bargy (pronounced \/bah-ghee\/), who was a stutterer. When Bargy told a story, his stutter magically disappeared during the telling of the tale.<\/p>\n

And of course there were my teachers, many of whom were experts or naturals when it came to telling a good story. I remember the fairy stories that filled me with dread or longing in kindergarten, “Hansel and Gretel” and “Cinderella”, and later on, the stories of explorers, such as Burke and Wills, who perished in the desert. Then there was the teacher who recited “The Forsaken Merman”, reducing me to tears for the family of mer people abandoned forever by the human wife and mother.<\/p>\n

\"sohrab-dies-rustum.\"

Sohrab and Rustum<\/p><\/div>\n

And then, in Year Nine in high school, there was an occasion when I was reduced to a weeping mess as the teacher read out a long narrative poem, “Sohrab and Rustum<\/a>“, by Matthew Arnold, about a father and son on opposite sides\u00a0 in battle, the father killing the son, who dies in his arms on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

And so I realise now that it is to these story-tellers, the flesh-and-blood ones,\u00a0 that I owe a debt of gratitude for opening me up to the power of narrative. With a short story, it is important to know who is telling the story\u2014the narrator behind the words\u2014 in mastering the concept of voice. Within a novel it can be more complex, as several “voices” might be used in retelling. However, many agree that each author has a particular “voice”, which distinguishes her from others.<\/p>\n

Voice and person are closely connected.\u00a0 The choice of a certain person\u2014first versus third\u2014will greatly affect voice, just as the choice of a certain character will assume a certain voice distinct from other characters in the story.\u00a0 This is what writers mean, when they say that the characters took over and pulled the narrative along. I believe the voice we choose when we write creatively is linked to the stories\u2014the voices\u2014we heard when we were little. And to the smells, sounds, images and feelings arising from the environment we found ourselves in.<\/p>\n

My sense memories will forever be imbibed with the minty fragrance from eucalyptus trees and stories on the riverbank.<\/p>\n

\"the-howleys-place\"

Riding a cow at the Howleys<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Writer’s Voice Linked to A Childhood Spent in the NSW Clarence Valley The following historical photograph of my hometown, with the Clarence River and Susan Island across the water, bring me back to long-forgotten memories of childhood evenings underneath a balmy star-spangled sky in South Grafton next to the water’s edge. I wonder now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1734],"tags":[2743,2725,2726],"class_list":["post-9255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memoir","tag-do-all-authors-project-an-individual-voice-sohrab-and-rustum-by-matthew-arnold","tag-voices-from-childhood-linked-to-creative-writing","tag-what-is-the-source-of-voice-in-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nReturn to the Source - The Art of Creative Writing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Childhood memories are often key to story telling and writers voice, linking back for me to uncles who told stories in favourite places our river in Grafton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/return-source\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Return to the Source - The Art of Creative Writing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Childhood memories are often key to story telling and writers voice, linking back for me to uncles who told stories in favourite places our river in Grafton\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/return-source\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Creative Writing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Creativewritingsharings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/anneskyv\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-01T04:47:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-08T22:41:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tree-grafton-susan-island.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1070\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"602\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Skyvington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Anne Skyvington@anneskyvington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@anneskyvington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anne Skyvington\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/return-source\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/return-source\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Anne Skyvington\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/#\/schema\/person\/251108c7aa1ccd52b37ffc4918186bcd\"},\"headline\":\"Return to the Source\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-01T04:47:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-08T22:41:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/return-source\/\"},\"wordCount\":663,\"commentCount\":10,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/return-source\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.anneskyvington.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tree-grafton-susan-island.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"do all authors project an individual voice? 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