Testing new Muscles
So, George RR has made his decisions and I am writing the interstial sections of our next Wild Card book BUSTED FLUSH. George has been reading my posts and has remarked that they are very evocative. He was wondering why my prose didn’t have the same immediacy, (though in my defense he has only read the 13,000 word, three part story I wrote for the last Wild Card book. He’s unaware of how often my colleagues in Critical Mass have boxed my ears about not enough sensory detail, and I’m getting much better.) But enough of the big aside. George’s theory is that my posts have more texture because I am writing in first person, and he suggested I should write my story in first person. I’ve done this once before in a short story I sold to PulpHouse, and while it was fun it was also very difficult.
I thought about it for a few minutes and realized that writing has to be about challenging yourself and getting outside your comfort zone. For a variety of reasons this would actually help sell the journey my character is taking, so I agreed. I started this morning on the first section, and it’s strange — I don’t find the intrusion of the smell of mown grass, and the sound of a dog barking, etc. to be such a boring intrusion when it’s in first person.
I’m still a bit wary of this because it is a difficult form, but I’m going to read some Roger Zelazny — he was a master at first person — and do the best I can. All in all I think it is going to be fun. I’ll keep you posted on how long this stays “fun”.
Melinda
April 11th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Oddly enough, I was reading some Zelazny this afternoon as I passed time in the downtown Minneapolis library between appointments. Just browsing for something short to read and picked up Unicorn Variations (if I recall the title of the collection correctly). The title story therein was not first person, but I remember fondly his use of first person in other works.
April 12th, 2007 at 12:22 am
Very interesting news! The interstitials can be some of the best parts in the series.
First person seems to be having a little bit of a revival lately, at least in novels. Or maybe I’m just reading them more.
April 12th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Have fun with the interstitials, Melinda — I always have!
First person is a mode I’ve used before — there’s an ease to being able to sink into the character, to simply *be* the character and not have to worry about other viewpoints. To me, writing in first person is like playing a RPG in print. The form allows for greater character identification, certainly.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I’ve always found first person challenging, because I’m always tempted to slip into the merely conversational.
First-person prose provides an illusion of a conversation with another person, but it’s still an illusion— the writer still has to make the same kind of disciplined choices he makes with any other form of prose.
My problem is that I start to fall for the illusion myself, and my prose slops over into the lazy solecisms that I allow myself in actual conversation.
April 14th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I have a bad habit of using the adjective form because I’ve structured the sentence using _is, was, or seems_. As a result the writing ends up losing a lot of its punch. Now that I’m writing in first person I find this quirk of mine stands out like a klieg light. So, this will end up as a good lesson as well as being fun.
I guess the “conversational” problem doesn’t afflict me because I’ve written so many screenplays, and the dialogue has to feel like conversation but not actually flow like conversation.