The Forge: Understanding "Author Voice"

 
Hello, all you Helpful Humans and Engineers!

Session by session, we've been moving through a lot of Terry Pratchett's work in preparation for the forthcoming Terry Pratchett series. And while that's (obviously) done a lot to inform me about the man himself and his writing style, I've been finding myself struggling to grasp what exactly I'm learning about writing in general from Pratchett. 

There are a lot of things, but if you've been attending the sessions, you'll know we've been circling the drain of "author voice" in every session, trying to peg how Pratchett manifests his voice in his work, and everything it allows him to do.

In order to figure this out though, we've gotta dive into the mechanical side of things. So this time I'm going to be scouring the internet and the libraries for information on Author Voice. What it is, what other paradigms are associated with it, how to recognize and adjust it, how it interacts with tone, etc.

That means there's no specific reading for you guys this time. Only, we'll be looking back at the Pratchett books we've read (Going Postal, Guards! Guards!, Good Omens, and Hogfather) and connecting some conceptual dots!

This is a new experiment, and I hope it turns out to be a lot of fun!

The Foundry Forge

When: Friday, January 4th, 6:30-7:30pm CST

Where: The Tale Foundry Discord server, in the #the-foundry-forge and #the-foundry-forge-voice channels. Make sure your Patreon account is linked to your Discord account in order to participate (click here to see how). Only Engineers ($10+ patrons) can type in chat, but all patrons can watch and listen.

Topic: This time we're gathering and reviewing research materials to understand the paradigms beneath Pratchett's writing style. Specifically, we're looking at material about Author Voice and Tone, and then connecting what we find individually with what we've read in Pratchett's work. No particular materials; feel free to do your own searching and bring your own input!

Remember: It's a "forge" session because the ultimate goal is to learn and make something up together. Be ready to give your thoughts and your opinions, and feel free to share any resources you might have at your disposal!

Hope to see you all there!

—Benji