I've just been reminded of Deb's thread a while back about the clichés in a 15yr old narrator's voice, by stumbling on a classic Nicola Morgan post.

On that thread of Deb's I was talking about trying to find ways to make things fresh and vivid (i.e. not clichéd) while staying true to the child-sounding voice.

Nicola's post is about similes and metaphors, and is very good on thinking about suiting the connotations of your image to the narrator, as well as the denotation:

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/as-pointless-as-pointless-thing-care.html

What made me think of Deb's thread was the Chris Cleave example about halfway through.

And you might want a coffee alert.

<Added>

Deb's thread is here:

http://www.writewords.org.uk/forum/65_443276.asp

Just had a skim through and will read properly later - thanks, Emma.

I must read Incendiary. I had read The Other Hand and loved it when I stumbled across him at a writing conf. I bought a copy of Incendiary (on sale there) and asked him to sign it, and he let slip that he didn't really like it - that it went soggy in the middle or something. I must admit that his comment, along with its rather bleak subject matter, quite put me off reading it. Writers really shouldn't tell potential readers such things, bless him. He seemed a lovely guy.

Deb

That's a really interesting post, Emma, thanks for the link. I enjoyed the discussion after it, too.

It's Nicola at her best, that link I think.

he let slip that he didn't really like it - that it went soggy in the middle or something.

Oh, bless him! If you're brought up self-deprecating, it's really hard to switch off that reflex.

Yes, he was ever so sweet. A really lovely guy. I really liked him.

Following on from the comment about people being "self-deprecating", I know people from any culture can be this, but I think it's especially a British thing. Americans are encouraged to be upfront about their self-congratulation, and we British are not always comfortable with that.

It reminds me of when I was at Wimbledon on the first week, centre court, with a friend who had tickets (lucky me!), and she mentioned how the Wimbledon crowd usually seems to support the underdog, unless perhaps the stronger player is British in which case they may support her. It was def true in the 3 matches we saw - the underdog got more audible support. I wondered aloud whether that would be the case around the world, and my friend suggested that Americans would be more likely to support the winning player.

I know that's stereotyping, and everyone's an individual, but I do think she may be right as a generalisation.

I think the British want everyone to be happy and hate seeing someone thrashed in a situation like this (unless that person was known to be unpleasant or something). However, Americans very much value winning, so their mindset is a bit different.

I like aspects of both, I suppose. It's nice to be able to feel good about yourself, but also nice to have some modesty.

Deb

Edited by debac at 31/12/1899 00:43:00 on 18 July 2013