Great Big Blog Party 13 - Michelle Styles

I'm dodging thunderstorms in order to post and the possibilities of needing to build an ark are getting stronger and stronger by the minute - my sympathies go out to everyone who is suffering as a result of the floods all over the country.



The Guest Blogger today is one of the new rising stars of the M&B Historial line and her books are also appearing as Harlequin Historicals in America - Michelle Styles. She is also responsible for bringing stories of Ancient Rome to the Historical line - a time period that everyone said that M&B would not publish - well, Michelle proved them wrong.

Michelle was born in America, in San Francisco, but she moved to the UK when she married and she now lives in Northumberland. Michelle was one of the authors who joined me for the writers' weekend in Lincoln - where her lovely daughter acted as a caring babysitter for Julie Cohen's small son. Michelle has just filmed her first UK TV appearence for Tyne Tees TV (Hope I have that right Michelle) and perhaps she'll tell us when we can watch that on Monday.



Here's Michelle:

Kate Walker has invited me to take part in her 50th book party blog. Okay, I would have begged very hard, if she hadn’t asked, so she was being kind. She said that I could blog about anything, and after a great deal of thought and consideration I have decided to speak about –


VOICE.



When I first went on e-harlequin, Kate W was there and she had posted a little thing about voice. Basically it was: Harlequin has Betty Neels and Charlotte Lamb books. They can and reissue them when readers demand more stories by those authors.. They even have Kate Walker books which can be reissued. What they don’t have is YOU and the way YOU tell a story. I read that and thought thank God, I can’t write a story in the style of anyone else, but I can write like me.

Voice is very important. It is also very hard to define. It is more than word choice. It is all about what you choose to include and exclude in your book. It is about how you mould your world and define your characters. It is how an author combines ideas. It is what makes your story yours. If you try to write in a different style, it will feel off – much like Noel Coward trying to do a James Brown song. Inevitably, your own voice appears. Through a cultivation of your unique voice, you can write memorable stories.


One of Kate’s great strengths as a mentor (and I considered her a mentor before she even KNEW of my existence) is that she encourages authors to write their own story.

As she says – toss out an idea or a premise in a room full of 50 authors with distinct voices and you will get 50 different stories. None will be the same. Each author has her own idea of what is important in a story. It is the making the idea yours that is important.


Once she took time out of her busy schedule to write me a lovely email about how I should write from the heart and how I should choose to write what I wanted. Because IT SHOWS. This gave me the confidence and courage to follow my dream and start writing historical romance, in particularly The Gladiator’s Honour.

The reason Kate’s books are so well loved is that they come from the heart. When you write from the heart, your voice shines through. It is all about form, not formula and it starts with the

author’s voice.

And please Kate can we have 50 more books all written in your wonderfully evocative voice?


GIVEAWAY
Michelle is giving away a signed copy of her third book Sold and Seduced as a prize

QUESTION
If you could write - or read - a book about any time and any place in history what setting and period would you choose?

As always, post your answers in the Comments section and Michelle will pick a winner from them

PS - Michelle has just pointed out to me that I've got the prize slightly wrong - so the full prize is:

" . . . a signed copy of S&S plus a signed copy of her book --The Antonakos Marriage. I still have a couple.The Antonakos Marriage gave me the seed for S&S and by reading the two, you can sort of see how two writers approach things."

Thanks Michelle!