I'm a sucker for voices. I like the sound of language spoken.

I especially enjoy bass voices, ones that make you think of words like "resonant" and "timbre." The first boy who kissed me and really kissed me was older, his voice deeper than any boy in my grade, and it struck me like a plucked string whenever he said my name. I've dated three boys with accents, one whose voice was clipped and tumbled softly over the harsh edges of consonants, swallowing the ends of words, another whose every sentence was liquid burbled bubbling that tickled down my spine, and the third was from Liverpool. (He spoke Scouse and was always good for a laugh!)

So it should be no surprise that while most writers fill their folders with photos of movie stars and models, knowing the hair style and type of nose and he exact shade of their characters' eyes, my files are filled with memories or movie clips capturing a sound or voice delivering a line. I may have a vague impression of what my characters look like, but I know *exactly* what my characters sound like.

Is it what they say or how they say it?

In every story I've ever written, there is someone with a distinctive, deep voice. Most often, these are bass voices or tenors or some rich, rumbling echo that emerges from their chest like a summer storm. I can hear James Earl Jones and Ron Perlman, Sir Patrick Stewart and, most recently, Jim Carter. These men have a quality to their voices, the delivery of their words, that slip beneath speech and give their words power and grace, depth and vibrancy, weight and breadth. These are voices that command respect, piercing right to the core and humming like a gong, reverberating in our heads.

I love that.

Oddly enough, my brother has a voice like this--something I never knew until I came home from college--a voice made for singing in vaulted halls, rich and chocolate-thick and when he sings, it fills the world and I can't believe that such a sound can come out of a person, let alone a person I know. He tips back his head with it, opening his throat and lengthening his spine to let the sound pour out. I am in awe of my little brother in those moments. The sound is what the word "sublime" was made for. It is this quality that I find most humbling and fit for characters who deserve a little awe, a little external characteristic that exemplifies their internal (awesome) character.

Whatever the reason, voices "speak to me" in a way that pictures can't quite capture. Voices breathe and resonate and make a character real to me in a way that exists off the page and in my mind. When I write folks like Graus Claude, I hear James Earl Jones. Ink's voice, too new and fresh to have weight, spoke in a "simple way that sliced through sound." And when I wrote Nikolai, I gave him one of my favorite lines: “Happy Lehman’s Day, Joy.” he said with a grin. His accent was like marzipan, rich and sweet.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for voices.

What "speaks" to you beyond the hair and eye color of your characters? Is it a quirk? A color? A smell? A sound? Share some thoughts, links or clips in the comments: we're listening!

So I'm still in the revision cave, (it's very nice here--a little musty, a little dank, and the chain to the desk is nice and thick!) but I wanted to resurface to wish everyone a Happy Friday! I have been a-swim in emails to my PR g-ddess, upcoming plans and swag and can't wait to share them with a now-suspecting public, but in the meantime I wanted to at least share a smile. Remember when I said last week that I'd made my first Dr. Who fanfic? Well, that was true but it wasn't the only one. I'd made two to submit to the contest that I shall not enter, but that doesn't men I can't post it here and this was my favorite of the two. A little wish-fulfillment for fans of the Ponds...

Enjoy & tell me what you think (or what you'd wish for!) ;-)

* * *

MAKE A WISH

He stood in the shadow of a building watching his two best friends feed one another forkfuls of noodles in the fancy restaurant across the street. They were laughing and wiping their chins with black napkins. Amy wore purple nail polish. Rory’d grown a goatee. The Doctor memorized the details. This was as close as they could ever be again. He was cold and it was raining. It was every sort of bleak.
Amy laughed and tweaked Rory’s nose.
“You’re skulking.”
He tucked his hands under his armpits, ignoring the woman in the trench coat. “I’m not.”
“All right,” River said, twirling her umbrella. Her shoes tick-tacked against the pavement with their red stiletto heels. “You’re simply standing in the shadows in the middle of Manhattan watching two of your closest friends eat dinner at a discreet distance in the rain.” He glowered at her. It had no effect. It rarely did. She ran a critical eye over the grey sky, the grey brick, and his grey mood. “Quite the setting, I’ll give you that,” she said casually. “I *did* ghostwrite a mystery novel in the 1930’s, if you remember.” Her mouth massaged the pen name past her lips. “‘Melody Malone.’ I thought it had a nice ring to it.”
The Doctor stared through the window smudged with rain. It was New York then, too, full of panic and faded wallpaper. Aged retinal flashes, glimpses of angels and death… Don’t blink! He squeezed his eyes shut.
“I remember,” he said. Amy. Amy Pond. She’d always been Amelia in his heart—seven years old, moon-faced and perfectly Scottish. It was terribly unfair that she’d grown up without him. Growing up. Growing old. He hugged his arms tighter. “I don’t want to remember. It’s my curse to remember. To keep on remembering long after they’ve gone.”
River pursed her lips and took a step closer. “When, exactly, do Time Lords pass through adolescence? As your wife, I feel that I really ought to know.”
He sniffed. Raindrops dripped off the tips of his hair. “Is there something you want?”
Her voice softened, a satin kerchief over a Glock. “I want you to stop skulking,” she said. “And here it is, your birthday.”
That got his attention enough to tear his eyes away. “What do you mean?” he said, despite himself. “You have no idea when my birthday is. It isn’t the anniversary of this regeneration…” His face scrunched up. “Or is it? How does one count the days when you’re a Time Lord? Backwards? Forwards? Reverse-innie-outwards? Sounds more like bellybuttons.” Ignoring him, she’d produced a red ribboned box out of her fashionable purse. He tilted his chin at it. “What’s in the box?”
She smiled her Cheshire smile. “Spoilers,” she teased. “That’s why it’s wrapped up properly. You’re supposed to open it.”
The Doctor took the pressie and tugged the bow loose. Inside the box was a blue cake thick with icing and cream. Instead of “Happy Birthday” it said “Police Box.” It was a small cake, but he figured it was probably bigger on the inside.
“Happy birthday, Sweetie.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek since he’d turned aside with a flinch. She admonished him with her eyes. “Can I have a little more, please? I’ve come all this way, having broken out of prison and everything.”
He smiled only slightly abashed. “Sorry. I’ve grown leery of beautiful women bearing moistened lips.” He kissed her and she returned it with gusto. He came up for air a little happier, although he still glanced back at the window.
“I wish I could share it with them,” he said.
“I know, darling,” she said. “Me, too. They’re my parents and yet there will always be this distance between us. We revolve around one another, but never quite touching. I envied you your time with them." She shrugged. "Now it’s my turn. I *do* understand.” Her umbrella sheltered him from the last traces of rain. “But we know something that most people will never learn in a lifetime,” she whispered. “That they loved us, wholly and completely. And that’s something.”
“That is something,” he agreed and handed her back the cake. He straightened his bow tie and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she fished for candles in the depths of her bag. “You know, it’s *completely* unfair that she got to be a ginger,” he muttered. “Eleven incarnations and not once!” He grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and shook them for emphasis. His wife indulgently allowed his segue/rant. She considered it an early birthday present. Until later. (Approximately forty-two minutes later when she’d open her trench coat.) She grinned.
He blinked up at the clouds and leaned against the wall. It was cool and unforgiving, but supportive all the same. “Sometimes, Dr. Song, I think the universe is laughing at me.”
River patted his shoulder. “It might as well join in.” He grunted and she gave him one of her wide, winning smiles. “Now go on, then. Say good-bye.”
He ducked his head and pouted. “I don’t want to.”
She sighed, “I know.”
“Are you sure?” He spun to face her with renewed energy and a dash of frenetic hope. “I mean are you really, really sure? As in proof-positive, no-doubt-about-it, absolutely zero room for misinterpretation of any kind imaginable within the realm of quantum physics or the TARDIS at full-reverse that there aren’t any other Ponds out there?” He squeezed his finger and thumb together, squinting through them. “Not even a little one?”
“No, darling,” River said, plunking tiny colored candles upright in the frosting. “I’m afraid not. No other Ponds—I’ve checked. I remain an only child.” She tried not to sound too sad about it as she shook a matchbox by her ear and removed the last stick. “Not that I doubt they had a lot of fun trying.”
“LA LA LA LA LA!” The Doctor sang with his hands over his ears. She smiled. He was sounding more like his old self again. Or his young self again. It was so very hard to keep track without her journal. She struck the match and lit each of the wicks in turn.
“Now be a good boy and blow out the candles,” River said, offering up the birthday cake and breathing into his ear, whispering-close, “Make a wish, my love.”
The Doctor looked back at the Ponds sharing a tiramisu, and then at River whose eyes were alight with love and candle flames. He knew what he’d wish for. Nothing big—no good ever came of those—only a tiny wish. A little one.
He closed his eyes, pursed his lips, and blew.