Our first class of Week 4 was a collaborative session that allowed us to read drafts of each other’s work and provide some critical feedback. Something that came up in this session, and had been noted in feedback by previous teachers, is that I generally write in a professional manner with little of my own personality coming through. This is something I’ve struggled to address as I have been so accustomed to using a formal tone and have had difficulty trying to adjust to writing differently. Therefore, I have decided to set a goal for myself – through this studio I want to well and truly come out at the end of it with a stronger sense of my own voice. Hopefully, if I read my first and last reflections there will be a notable change in tone, one that is more personal, accessible and overall more interesting and engaging than what it currently is. While working towards this goal, I have found reading my classmates work to be hugely beneficial. I feel it’s even more useful reading the work of my peers as it is a source of inspiration and motivation to strive for producing a higher standard of work, because it seems more within reach. Reading pieces written by critics who have been practising the work for years is great, but sometimes I discount being able to achieve anything of that calibre because it’s excused by the fact that they’ve had years to refine their style. But that isn’t much of an excuse.
Working towards the second assessment has meant doing a lot of reading of reviews by a particular critic. In the work of the critic I have chosen to profile, Luke Goodsell, I’ve found he has struck a perfect balance between sounding professional and eloquent, while still maintaining a strong sense of his character. It seems to work well in establishing a relationship with the audience because it has that personal element to it. Ideally, I would like to achieve that same balance in my own writing. Knowing how and at what point a critic has found their sense of voice is a question I would have liked to pose to the critics during our Q and A session on Wednesday (which I was unable to attend due to foolishly mixing up my times and boarding the wrong train). However, I’m thinking there’s a couple of ways; it either progresses over time, or has to be worked at and properly developed through trialling different techniques or is something that just comes organically through the practice of writing and re-writing.
Anyway, all of this has led to my endeavour to establish a better sense of my own voice through consistently writing reflections and other assessments tasks, so wish me luck!
Be First to Comment