ODD VOICE OUT

I just heard five minutes of a play on Radio 4 in which two characters are getting around -guiltily - to admitting they have actually rather enjoyed the pandemic.

There's probably more to it, but that's the bit I heard.

I may have mentioned I used to have a neighbour who sailed on a minesweeper during WWII. When I found his medals and asked about them, he trotted out the all-too-common line, "I don't like to talk about it."

But the reason he didn't like to talk about it was different. "I had a great war," he said. "First time in my life I had three good meals a day. People don't want to hear that, though."

For every mass experience, or common belief, there will be a sincerely held, and often justifiable, opposite stance. Part of the writers job (sometimes), is to give them a voice.

If you can write (through actual experience or imagination, the voice-left-out, you will be giving your readers something they probably haven't heard before.