Different Voices

How do we give shape and voice to characters within our story? 

Whether we are writing our stories or telling them aloud the listener needs to get a good sense of who this character is. If it is someone from true life that we know then this is easy. If your story is fiction and you want your character to be believable there are a number of things that you can do to create authenticity.

Annabel and her Stories

My grandmother used to live with us when I was growing up. 

Nana fishing at Dark Corner, Patonga

Nana had a granny flat down the back – a converted garage. If mum was going out us kids would sleep down there, either on a stretcher bed or the floor. My Nana’s name was Annabel Isobel Agnes Clark McLean  Klineberg. She was Scottish – and proud if it.

When I was 6 my cousins came to stay with us for a few months. They had been living in Malaya as my uncle was in the airforce. They stayed with us while their house in Queanbeyan was getting ready. Of course there was not enough beds up in the house, so my cousins and I would sleep with my grandmother. As it was just one room, she would turn off the light at bed time and tell us stories.

Authentic Speaking

What does it mean to speak authentically? 

How do you stand in your own light? 

Have you ever hidden behind the veil, not allowing others see who you really are? 

I know that I have in the past – many times. Have you been in a discussion and wanted to say something, but for some reason you didn’t? Perhaps it was because you thought to speak may have seemed disrespectful in some way as your ideas were different; or the other person was more ‘important’ than you or cleverer than you. Perhaps they were in a position of more power than you so in some way, an authority.

I guess it can feel pretty safe when you do this, but whichever way you look at it, it is disempowering.

What gets in the way of speaking our truth?