First Person

A friend of mine in a writing group said this about writing in First Person:

In general, I think the key to writing effectively in first is about not treating it like third person with a find-and-replace button, he or she swapped out for I in the same sentences, structures, and techniques. For first person present to be truly sustainable at novel length — and, well, more readable in shorter lengths — it has to be more experiential. If I’m telling a story, “No shit, there I was,” I’m telling you about what I saw, how I felt, what my emotional reactions were; how I tell you and even what I tell you will be coloured by what I think of the whole thing.

So the major thing I’d put out there for writing effectively in first would be this: Think about how people actually do tell stories about themselves. What kind of language they use, how casual or formal they are, how they get across their personalities in the style and what they omit and what kinds of things they mention. Think about how they put the listener in the story with them.

I’m toying with the idea of writing my Secret Novel in Multiple First Person. I’m wondering now how different each “voice” should be. My characters are quite diverse in background and age, and I suppose that ought to be reflected in the narrative diction, but I don’t want to draw too much attention to it.

Another Perfect Example of Human Strangeness

“It was such a perfect example of human strangeness that I cried.”

So said the friend who emailed me this.

Me too.

Furthermore, I’ve actually been to the Central Station in Antwerp, Belguim.

Bad Query Contest

I entered a fabulous Bad Query Contest and my query was awful enough to warrant “highly recommended.” Check out the winner and also the list of things which can go terribly awry in a query letter.

Here was mine:

Dear To Whom It May Concern,

What is the most allusive dream which is what Elenor Paige wants? But her husband has missing for forty years. Little does she know her sister knows where he is but is dead. When her sister is a ghost, the other ghosts are tyring to stop her. This is the point in the story where the villain reveals his ability to control all the governments of the world, including the Pope. And this is a conspiracy.

This is is not a stupid book like all of the crap on the shelves. This fiction novel will transforming your sole and make you glad to be life. This is a novel of the triumph of love and beauty and hope and goodness and the importance of freindship over an evil appliance of governments, religions and coroporations to control your brain and make you do what they want. This is a true story, but I change d the names so I wouldn’t get sued again.

You are really stupid if you reject this book like all the other agents I quereid. But you probably will reject it because the Big Money wich is controlilng the Publishing is not really interested in wakening the sheeps but only in making people dumb. I hope you will be smart.

This book is 37,436 words long. Most of it is typed (but I had to hand write one chapter, ok?)

You may think because I am in prison I can’t write a book, but you would be a fool if your really think that. This is a true story, so you should buy it. I have a good markiting plan too. I plan to be on Oprah. I think the Rock should play Bill Blade, the hero of my book, when it is made into a movie. So I will not take you as my agent unless you can promise tot get the Rock to play Bill Blade. Shakira should play Elly, but some other hot chick would be okay too.

Sincerely,
Soon to Be Famous Author

In retrospect, there are so many things I could have done to make the letter even more ghastly. I can’t believe I forgot to type my letter in inch-high pink gothic font against a sparkly orange background with red blinking hearts and dancing skeletons. Why didn’t I include pictures of me, in lingerie, holding my beloved pitbull Killer Pumpkin?

Blog Notes

Urm, I have some stuff I need to do for my blog. My blog won an award — squee! — but I haven’t nailed it to the wall yet. I want to catch up on a bunch of blogs I’m following, and I still want to post my thoughts on Endings, which is about half written. (My post on Endings has no ending. O, Irony, you kill me.)

Kids are off on Spring Break, I have a few art projects I’m going to bid on and Revenge of the Vomitous Stomach Flu has struck members of my clan again. However, I will brush up my blog eventually, and I apologize for the delay.

The Secret to Overnight Success

This interview with Arthur Golden, the author of Memoirs of a Geisha is ten years old, but new to me. A friend in a writing group passed the link to me, and I pass it on to you, with these thoughts:

1. This” overnight night success” took fifteen years to research, write, rewrite and sell.

2. Golden wrote a complete draft before he was able to interview a real geisha. “But I wrote a draft based on a lot of book-learning. And I thought I had a pretty good idea of what the world of a geisha was like, and wrote a draft. Then a chance came along to meet a geisha, which, of course, I couldn’t turn down. And she was so helpful to me that I realized I’d gotten everything wrong, and I ended up throwing out that entire first draft and doing the whole thing over again.”

3. He then rewrote the entire book again, this time changing from third person to first person.

And I also found this insight to the point:

O’BRIEN: What’s it like, sitting there at the computer keyboard, trying — as a white male, trying to put yourself into that skin?

GOLDEN: You know, I think that it’s pretty much like writing anything else in fiction, in the sense that even if you sit down and try to imagine a story about somebody who lives on a street you’ve never seen, you really can’t escape the hard work of just bridging this divide between you and an imagined other. And the difference for me was that I had to do a lot of research to put myself in a position where I could begin to know enough about that imagined other to make that leap. But the leap, I think, is the same, really, whatever kind of fiction you’re writing.

Saving Money as a Writer

SunTiger tagged me with coming up with 3 ways to save money.