Wednesday 15 December 2010

His 'n hers novels

The problem with writing a novel from your female MC's point of view, and then writing a second novel covering the same events, but from your male lead's point of view? Editing one means you've messed up the other. Right now I am working on editing the heck out of the first, and I truly hope to have every single line of dialogue decided upon, before I ever get around to editing the 'mirror' novel.

It's hard to truly decide on what my characters are going to say, and when. When it comes to Jared, sometimes he talks too much. He's not like that. He isn't a social creature, deep down inside, though over the years he's learned to fake it incredibly well. So he needs to talk less, at least in the beginning. As Louise draws him out of his shell, naturally he will start talking more. But that's got to take time. He has good reason not to trust (he doesn't trust anyone, not even himself), and no matter how comfortable he may start to feel around her, he is never truly comfortable. Not until book 5. Here I'm talking about books 1 and 3. Book 2 is a prequel, documenting Jared's earlier days. Confusing?

So, yeah...Jared talks too much. And this is because, as I have discovered, I talk too much. Only in my writing. In reality I am rather sparing with what I say. But when it comes to writing, I can bloat out a story with the best of them. This is how I've managed to cut 19k from SUNDOWN so far. And I have no doubt I can cut a lot more, just by saying the same things in less words.

In future, then, Jared will talk less. Louise will probably continue to ramble, because he makes her nervous. He will continue to misunderstand things, no matter how far he's come since the early days. And I love how far he's come. The prequel, documenting his early days when he first met Adelai, was incredibly fun to write. His social ineptitude is one of my favourite things about him. And I don't want to lose that, just because he's meant to be better at faking nowadays. Jared = ineptitude.

So, in a nutshell...

Step 1: Get SUNDOWN dialogue so perfect I love every single line my characters say (slowly but surely getting there at present).
Step 2: Face the daunting task of editing SUNDOWN.

P.S. Gotta do Reverb10 week 2 next!

4 comments:

  1. You're really dedicated--the same novel from two different POVs? I've got to hand it to you!

    ~Debbie

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  2. Well, I did it for me, really. :P And yes, it appears I am very dedicated to these particular characters. In short, I adore them. ;)

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  3. Wow, sounds like quite the project! Good luck on revisions/writing. I'm curious to know more about what story it is the two of them share... will have to go explore your blog a little more for the answer. :)

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  4. Hi Guinevere, thanks for stopping by :) You can see the rundown of all my novels here:

    http://thefarseas.blogspot.com/2010/12/rundown.html

    If you look for Midnight in that list, that's the series I'm working on currently. Midnight is only a working title for the series. But I have yet to write a proper post detailing the actual plot premise. Need to do that sometime soon :)

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Thanks for your words, me hearties! and don't forget to leave a link to your blog somewhere I can find it!