NaNo UPDATE, DAY 26

It's the final countdown.

For those of you who have made it to the finish line--congrats.

To those of us still limping along. We still have five days. We CAN bring this home!

With an illness then holiday drama, I thought NaNo would be a bust again this year. Granted the month isn’t over. I still have time to crash and burn, but I’m more hopeful about finishing than I was three days ago.

 

On day 23, I was at 31,000 words. If I wanted to a have any chance of finishing on time, I had to write 10,000 words by Monday. I spent 12 hours on the story on Saturday. Sunday, I edited my critique partner’s story during the day. That night I wrote another 4k. I’m officially caught up. If I can write the necessary 1700 words a day, I’ll finish on time.
 

Okay, enough with the statistical data. Boring, right?

Last week, I asked about POV, and I received a lot of advice. My thanks go to those of you who took the time to share your views and encouragement.

Terri Bruce, author of HEREAFTER, gave the answer which made my decision.

“Hmmmm...I have seen the use of two different tenses, I think, but I can't think of any of the book titles. However, keep in mind with the tense change, what you're saying to the reader is that the first person character is telling the reader what happened AS IT HAPPENS, while the 3rd person character is telling the reader what happened AFTER THE FACT. If that's what you mean, then it should be fine (the examples I'm thinking of are usually suspense/mystery/thrillers, where one person is telling the story after the fact (like the detective/cop) and one is telling it as it happens (usually the bad guy), but I've also seen it in mother/daughter women's fic - with the grown up daughter explaining the present day problems in the past tense and then the book switches to the mom's PoV in present tense as she relates her life story). I'd have to check but Paulo Coelho may have used two different tenses in The Witch of Portobello and I think possibly Amy Tan in The Bonesetter's Daughter. But if you mean for your characters to both be telling the same story at the same time (e.g. as it happens), then you'd really need to use the same tense I think.”

 

I wrote the second POV character, Landry’s chapter in Present/1^st person, and his whole personality flowered upon the page. He had his own voice, his own views and interpretation of his world which was totally separate from Mala’s. He allowed me to explore an otherwise closed part of the story, and in turn, made the story deeper and richer than it was with the single point-of-view.

I’m 150 pages into a story that I find to be even more thrilling than the original.

I think I always worried about that. I’ve read a few sequels that couldn’t stand up to the original. As if some essential spark which infused the first is missing from the second. That doesn’t seem to be the case with this story (of course, I'm biased, lol.) I think it's because I know the characters and their world so well now that I’m able to build up on it with layers and depth.

It feels pretty cool.

So this question is for those of you who have written sequels or read sequels. Was your sequel difficult to write or easier? Do you often enjoy reading about the same characters and what would you suggest makes the sequel better than the original? Or is it even possible in your view to recapture the magic of the first book?

NaNo UPDATE, Day 19

 

There are only two more days until my vacation. I’ll be able to enjoy five days of uninterrupted writing time. Well, maybe a few interruptions, like turkey, stuffing, pie, black Friday, my sister coming in from San Diego, entertaining the kiddies who are out of school, and…the list goes on.

But I should have some NaNo time.

My work-in-progress, FIXED, is shaping up now that I’m editing as I write it. For those who followed my NaNo journey last year, you know I like to experiment.

 

This time, I added in a new POV character, Landry, to the story. I wondered how he felt about all the crazy happenings in Mala’s world.

His chapter…wow, it felt wonderful to write. It got my mojo flowing again. After I wrote his chapter, Mala’s chapters wrote themselves with little effort from me. I love when that happens, but I was afraid it wouldn’t with story after the rocky beginning.

I’m now on Chapter 8, which will be a Landry chapter. I wrote the first one in 3^rd person, past tense. I didn’t want it to be confused with Mala’s 1^st person, present tense.

 

I’m not sure whether it’s too jarring of a change. If necessary, I can always go back and convert it after I’m finished. I won’t worry about it until I get feedback from my critique partners.

I need your opinion. Do you find books with dual POV’s that are written in different POV’s distracting or is it better to have such a distinct separation?

REVISING HOUND OF ANNWYN

As I drove to work last week, I let my mind sort of drift. I watched the cows in the pasture, stared at the hot pink, post apocalyptic looking sun, and despaired over the smoke from the wildfires burning in the foothills which made the pretty pink sunrise. Like I said, I wasn’t thinking about much of anything when my epiphany struck like an owl slamming into my windshield.

Let me back up to provide those of you who are new to this blog a bit of background for this particular ah ha moment. I began writing HOUND OF ANNWYN back in March of 2010. It features two of my favorite characters, Juliet and Jude.

Here's the query I used back then.

Juliet finishes Jude’s sentences, feels his pain, and gleefully exploits the fact that he can’t bluff her in poker. She takes their psychic connection for granted until her heart stops beating at the exact moment that her twin brother dies in a car accident. Nearly eight minutes elapses before their resurrection.

 
A year later, seventeen-year-old Juliet’s near-death experience continues to haunt her. A ghost contacts her in the high school bathroom and a sexy, albeit annoyingly conceited boy with wings—who claims to be her guardian, but definitely no angel—saves her after she’s attacked by a hell hound in the woods.


Her brother’s emerging, uncontrolled empathic and telekinetic abilities—he accidentally hurls an alarm clock at Juliet’s head while she sleeps—are eroding his humanity and threaten to blow their familial bond apart at a time when they need to be united.


Unaware that the darkness infecting their relationship is a manifestation of the evil that returned with them from the underworld, its taint spreads unchecked through their small mountain town. If the twins can’t resolve their differences and link their powers, neither they nor the people they care about will survive. And this time, death’s grip will be eternal.

This story owns a special piece of my heart because it was my first Young Adult endeavor. It is the reason I fell in love with YA. I worked on this story for three months, and then entered the story in the Speculative Fiction Marathon at agentquery connect. I then went through twelve intense weeks in which this manuscript was critiqued my peers. It was a total blast, and I found my critique partners through this process.

I wrote this story by alternating each chapter to tell the story from their view point. In the initial draft I used the Roshamon Effect, only at the time I didn’t know there was a name for this particular format. Here is the Wikipedia definition.

In the Roshomon style, I wrote the chapter from the protagonist POV; however, at certain times they would come together in a scene. The scene was written through the lens of the character whose point-of-view the chapter was written in. Then in the next chapter, the same scene was shown from the alternate twin’s point of view. I liked this effect because it showed how flawed Juliet and Jude’s relationships were with one another, and how their perceptions of their sibling’s motivations were skewed.

For example:

Jude's POV:

Electricity sparked between Juliet and Gwynn as they stepped toward each other. The hairs on Jude’s arms stood on end. The static hum in his head grew louder, almost distinct as if words were trying to break through the block that had been constructed in his mind.

Juliet gave Jude a tight smile then addressed the real subject of her ire. “I’m a grown woman, Gwynn. I’ll kiss anyone I choose. See that boy over there?” she pointed at Randy Lipshultz. “If I wanted too, I’d kiss him, right now. You wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

Juliet's POV:

Juliet gave Jude a tight smile, but her attention remained focused on Gwynn. “I’m a grown woman, Gwynn. I’ll kiss anyone I choose. See that boy over there?” She pointed at a random guy, praying she wouldn’t get called on her bluff, because... eww gross, she’d once caught Randy eating his boogers.

“If I wanted too, I'd kiss him, right now. You wouldn't be able to stop me.”

Unfortunately, seeing the scene multiple times regardless of the differences inherent to the point-of-view characters perceptions failed to hold the reader’s attention. It needed an in-depth overhaul,

Out of necessity, I put the revision on hold as I worked on other projects. That’s not to say that I haven’t worked on it for the last two years. I have. If you were to read the version I queried in 2010 to the current version, you would see that I've removed the Roshomon Effect. You can check out the updated sample pages here.

The last issue I need to correct is my inability end the story without a cliffhanger. I think my epiphany will solve this problem. What is funny is that I should've seen the answer to this issue a long time ago. It is so freaking obvious. I guess I needed distance from the story to be able to see the answer to the problem I was having with finishing it.

So, I'll let you know when I finish this final (okay, it probably won't be the last) revision.