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Who's Voice is it, Anyway?
By Gregory Leifel
In the storytelling world there is sometimes a debate about stories coming from a teller's mouth in a voice other than that of the teller. Yes, I'm talking about the dangerous "character voice" telling the story, and I'm here to set the record straight.
I can say "setting the record straight" without reservation, because this isn't really the author of this article, Gregory Leifel, speaking. No, Greg is quietly sitting there, having a nice warm herbal tea as I've already convinced him how important it is that I, Bob, get my chance to speak. Greg seems a bit amused by me, as he's smiling, but in reality he's thrilled that I get to be so expressive while he gets to relax a while.
Let me tell you how I first met Greg, as it will provide some insight into our relationship. It will also give you an idea of how my voice, and the other characters inside everyone, opens things up for the audience, not to mention all those purists and traditionalists out there in the storytelling world.
One day Gregory was writing a new story to tell. He was telling it like it was; he was fleshing out the bones, down to the metatarsals; he was metaphoricalizing the meaning; he was moving mountains and maintaining molehills, modifying mood, meaning, and many many meanderings. Until....
Until he stepped back and realized what essentially lay before him on the page was a pasture filled with "meadow muffins". Yes, meadow muffins. Not the kind with yellow corrugated paper wrappers and blueberries a'burstin' from the flowery tops of bakery fresh cake, but the depository receipts of the pasture grazing bulls, cows, and horses. Meadow muffins. And Gregory saw that he had carefully stepped around each one in trying to tell the particular story he was writing.
"This story doesn't stink at all", he said out loud.
And this got my attention, as I'm sure it does yours.
I'll admit I laughed when he said, "Doesn't stink at all." I'm sure you, too, probably chuckled at least, seeing as how Gregory usually likes to write wearing hip waders. (If it weren't for me you probably wouldn't know that about him.)
Anyway, I said to him--and I must tell you he was a bit alarmed at the sound of my voice-- I said to him, "Of course it doesn't stink, Greg. You didn't step in anything."
Now, generally being a writer who allows the story to take him places, Gregory lifted his feet to see that indeed the bottom of his soles were clean as a whistle. I, myself, even whistled to drive the point home (something his sense of humor appreciated). "A clean sole is boring," I said to him. "You have to step in something, and preferably, without those waders." Boy, if I could illustrate the look on Gregory's face that second! You'd think he did just step in something.
Gregory looked at me sideways and said, "You step in it."
Sweetest words he could have said to me.
Now least you think I'm getting a bit crude here, I would like to point out the virtues of meadow muffins in a story. Plain and simple: fertilizer. And some stories will not grow without it. And you sometimes need an organic voice to spread it.
I know this for a fact, because I have something Greg doesn't: first hand experience. You see, I am the farmer, while Greg has only driven past farms. Well, there was that one summer he worked in the soybean fields pulling out those renegade corn stalks, but his experience is limited to that and the occasional farmer's market.
Any good farm story that needs to get down and dirty, might be a tad bit more organic coming from my voice, rather than his. Oh sure, you might say we both put on our pants one leg at a time, but Greg's pants stop at the waist, where as mine continue up the back, over my shoulders, and fasten in the front. This gives me plenty more places to hook my thumbs. (See, you're picturing me better already.)
Now I'm not saying all farm stories need to be in my voice; God knows I got enough work to do around here and still have time to tell stories. But sometimes a story needs to be heard in the authentic slang, the raspy voice of an outdoorsman, the tired drawl of someone who gets up before the sun, and maybe by one who is not so shocked creating pasture flapjacks from meadow muffins.
Of course, the decision of whose voice to use is like anything else down here on the farm. You don't chase the rooster, instead, you kind of herd him. And you never pull the goat, just walk with the feed bucket in front of him. You don't use the hoe if the tractor can do the job, and you plant in rows because, well, because us farmers do have a neat, organizational side. (Greg would have called it, "anal retentive," and probably gotten a cheap laugh.)
As a character, I think it's important that on occasion our original voices get heard, and not just our stories. Sure the stories are important, but the audience also needs to "suspend their belief"--as some city folk like to call it--a bit more sometimes. That's where I, or other character voices, come in handy.
I remember I was telling Greg about how my cow once got up on my roof; about how once I had all the animals in the house to prove a point on quietness; and about 3 of the most mischievous, independent pigs a farmer could own and how one was a lot smarter than the other two, since the mortgage he applied for paid for the bricks.
Greg also got my point one day when we were out in the barn pitching hay with pitchforks, and Greg bent over because he thought he saw a needle in that haystack (he's ever the optimist). I showed Greg the point, in the end: work's gotta get done. And nobody knows that like a farmer.
Hope you all see my points. Greg does now, which is why he let me speak. He knows, sometimes, only the character can make the point, And not always so bluntly.
See you all before sun up,
Farmer Bob
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