Saturday, August 06, 2005
I swear, it's one thing after another with this WIP. First, I find out after finishing Lucivano's character bio and outlining accordingly that he was enslaved for ten years, which so totally fucks over my former idea of his character. Read: bitter ex-slave vs. hopeful ambitious youth. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, I find out the book is actually a trilogy.
I've been having trouble with the book since I started working on it. At least, trouble with Zenaya's scenes. I didn't have any trouble with the first interlude with the Voidlords. Rather liked how it came out, and liked working on it. Came off it excited to work on the next one, which I found somewhat strange, since I left the first scene not looking forward to the next.
I attributed it to just having problems with writing in general. I've had trouble every time I've attempted writing a novel for the past two years. I think the most I've ever managed to write in one before burning out was about 15k. (I'm getting sick of it.) So I didn't really pay too much attention, just kept (trying) to slag along, without making much progress. Got very annoyed at the WIP trying to flip to 1st person.
After two hours and 200 words tonight, it hit me. The book--or, at least, Zenaya's scenes--want to be written in 1st person. Except the book can't be in 1st, because I have more than one viewpoint character. I know that books with more than one 1st person viewpoint character are selling now, but I haven't seen it done (yet) in a way that works well. I tried to push ahead anyway, and kept having trouble.
So I decided, no harm in seeing how it would flow in 1st. So rewrote what I already had. Ended up with 450 words vs. 280--in 15 minutes. Part of the speed is the words I already had written... but I nearly doubled my count in less than an eigth of the time it took me to write the original words. And I'm not slogging through it, feeling like it's fake and shitty.
*thunks*
So the first draft will be written in 1st, at least for Zenaya's scenes. After the book is finished, I'll rewrite to tight third. Shouldn't be that big a deal, as tight third is essentially 1st person written with 3rd person pronouns, sans limitations of 1st.
This never could be easy, could it? :P
Nonny Blackthorne wrote at 6:08 AM
