Levi's Writer's Voice

Premise: Angela

"When a recovering drug addict has her custody battle sabotaged by her bitter sister, in desperation, she sabotages that same sister's piano rental business by using it to smuggle narcotics to revive her custody battle."

Methodological Approach

• Synthesized Vaage's narrative techniques with case study anti-heroines.

• Nancy Botwin (Weeds), Sarah Lindon (The Killing) and Floyd Gerhardt (Fargo 2016-)

• Wheel of Techniques

Original Drafts

• Removed a set of secondary characters, who were presented stereotypically as middle class housewives Indulged in gossiping about Angela in the opening scene.

• Characters did resonate with me or with Vaage's narrative techniques.

• Angela's son, Clarence, did not resonate with Vaage's techniques, but with me. Couldn't put my finger on it.

• Clarence is a projection of myself; the child that was met with a turbulent upbringing and parents that often did not put their children.

Writer's Voice

• Exploring my own confusion over the circumstances of my childhood

• A childhood of confusion led me into adulthood unequipped

• Questioned if I am now unfixable and ultimately, a lost cause

• Angela, is battling similar feelings, fighting these vines by seeking redemption and purpose for her life through her relationship with Clarence

• Her actions also reflect my beliefs in the importance of building my own loving family around me

• Vaage’s framework never references the importance of a writer’s personal influences

What Precisely is Writer's Voice?

• Writer’s voice is a disputed area of study since it is viewed

as 'fuzzy, slippery, hard to define, and nearly impossible to

teach' concept (Sperling & Appleman 2011: 71).

• A dispute on whether writer’s voice is a result of an author’s individuality being reflected by their unique self or if it is culturally manufactured and therefore the self does not truly exist in a narrative

• Important in encouraging audience engagement.

• Needed to resolve an on-going debate among theorists on the definition and tangibility of writer’s voice

V

Writer's Voice

• Culture and society I was raised in, is almost always entwined in my writing.

• Unique environment I experienced as a child also created who I am today, my unique self.

• Therefore I take the stance that voice is simultaneously social and personal (Prior 2001). 

Voice or Voices?

• Historically, the writer has been attributed to having one voice.

• Bakhtin (1981) disputed this Bakhtin, as he argued that the author has 'two speakers at the same time and expresses simultaneously two different intentions' (1981: 324). 

• Bakhtin also argued that these voices “fight it out on the territory of the utterance' (1981: 360). 

• First, there is the voice whispered through Clarence who represents my child self who desires love and security. 

• A contrasting voice is influenced by government austerity throughout my twenties, which is woven in when Angela is informed by her sister Charlie that she will be challenging Angela for full custody over Clarence. 

Voices Battle it Out

• My child voice issues blame onto Angela, subtly revealing that she is a bad mother and is at fault for Clarence’s needs not being met.

• My adult voice whispers that Angela is not to blame and there is wider societal accountability.

• Bakhtin would argue that these two voices, child and adult, are engaged in rhetoric to persuade the spectator to form an alliance. 

• Bakhtin’s only references two voices and in examining my teleplay there is also a third voice battling for utterance. 

Third Voice...

• Third voice does not resemble any of my own life experiences.

• But as Elbow (1981) argues voice can still be authentic when a writer merges their

mind with another personality. 

• I realised that during the fourth draft of Angela she is an exploration of a life that may have occurred for me.

• Having had the occasional problem with the law as a teenager my life could have turned out vastly different.

• Yet the propensity to ponder a negative future remains constant for me.

• when Foucault (1967:1) raised the question, “what does it matter who is speaking,” it can now be argued that it does not only matter, but the writer is critical.

Identifying Voice & Strategies for Discovery 

• The first recommendation is that screenwriters need to speak the

“rude truth” and not censor their impulses (Romano 2003: 49).

• Writers can ask themselves what personal drives and instincts have been frustrated or silenced by society since they have been inhabiting planet earth.

Four Walls:

Culture

Screenwriter

Family

Education

Gender

oCulture includes a broad range of influences on a writer such as the local media, revered celebrities, politics of the time and broad societal views around them etc. Education strictly deals with the writer’s achievements and experiences while studying – for example, what kind of schooling where they enrolled at and to what extent did this shape their aspirations and confidence.

Family comprises the cumulative of one’s attitude, behavior, beliefs and values due to the presence (or absence) of parental influences. Thus, how a writer’s relationships with those closest to them effects their personality.

Gender is distinguished on its own, which in the case of this research is particularly important for the development of a female character. Gender beliefs have historically repressed women’s ability to acquire the same influence that men have endured. This means writers, specifically male ones, must tread carefully. 

For screenwriters to employ this model, they need to explore all the comfortable and uncomfortable aspects of each “wall.” Writing these thoughts down will help them script their blessings and frustrations with each wall before developing correlations between them. For instance, when considering a couple of these walls in the development of Angela education was generally a negative experience, resulting in poor grades and for family I rarely felt consistently supported, comfortable or loved at home. Thus, drawing the correlation between these two walls, starts to reveal the cracks of society that emerge. 

Education is afforded to everyone but if a domestic space is not harmonious then the likelihood of a child having a success education is depleted. We can see that this is one of the voices that filters into the screenplay. Angela represents the result of abuse and neglect in childhood and its detrimental effects seen in adulthood as she easily falls into the immoral criminal underworld to provide for herself and her family. 

Conclusion

• Not just about narrative ploys to encourage audience engagement.

• Writer's voice is at the heart of encouraging engagement.

• Voice denotes plurality.

Narrative Technique Analogy

• Vaage’s narrative techniques are analogous to the interior design of a house.

• Fails to recognise the framing of which ensures the house remains standing.