An examination of voice in contemporary Canadian fiction and Ballistics : a novel

When the term “voice” is used in the discussion of contemporary fiction – as it frequently is – its meaning is taken to be understood intuitively, and more often than not no further elaboration is either required or offered. In these essays – augmented by my novel, Ballistics, which has more than once been described as having a “very distinct voice” – I examine what, exactly, we mean (or think we mean) by the term “voice” when we use it in our discourse about fiction: it turns out that what we know intuitively does not so elegantly hold up under scrutiny. I examine the standardized methods for both talking about “voice” and improving it in one’s own fiction, as put forward by luminary novelists and teachers like John Gardner and Jack Hodgins, and I suggest that part of the reason why discussion of “voice” is limited to what we feel, intuitively, is because voice is not embedded in the text, but, instead, constitutes the experience – the what it’s like – of engaging with a work of literature