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Why I write like a 1940s gangster

Writer's picture: Florence BlissFlorence Bliss

Updated: Jul 2, 2024




As it turns out, my natural writing voice is that of a 1940s gangster. 


To clarify, I am not a 1940s gangster. 


I was born in the 80s, I’m a female, and I've engaged in very little racketeering. 


So, how did I end up with this voice?


My dad came to Las Vegas from Brooklyn, New York in the 60s.  If you know anything about Vegas in the 60s, you know the mafia held it by its throat at that time. Glamour, money, cement shoes. That kind of thing.  Along with his two older brothers, my dad worked as a dealer (craps specifically) at casinos up and down the strip. He knew all the guys getting bumped off (and many of the ones doing the bumping) in the movie Casino. He may or may not have stolen a lot of money from the casinos. If you’ve ever noticed that when you change money at a table game, the dealer will never take it directly from your hand, you should know my dad is the reason. (I can’t tell you why or how, that novel is still coming.) 


So, how does this affect my writing voice? The first stories I was ever told were from his perspective.  Throw in a Brooklyn accent, inventive strings of curse words, and a rousing charisma and you get the idea about what I heard growing up. (Forget the three bears…I wanted to hear more about when the Marielitos came to the strip!) 


That is the voice embedded in my head.  When I started my MFA program, it was that voice and those stories that I used. And everyone loved it! As an inexperienced writer, I found a way to make my exposition sharp and clippy so people would read it.  


By the time I started writing romance, I had learned to soften my tone. I’ve learned other tricks, too, about implying time period or accents without being overbearing or making the reader work too hard. Taken by His Sword is set in France, so technically they are speaking French.  I struggled with how to portray the speaking tone for people of a different language who lived several centuries ago. It seemed weird to make them speak with British accents, which is the default for American-written historicals that far back.  But that didn’t seem right. So I relied on my own voice to lead the narrative, an evolved voice that I have been hearing since I sat in my swing chair while my dad flipped casino chips over his knuckles to entertain me.  


And when I see myself staring down 7 paragraphs of boring exposition, that’s the voice that comes in to do my editing. See. 


Note: If any law enforcement officers happen to be reading this post, please note that my dad has an airtight alibi.    


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