Hey all

I've recently finished a novel with a very individual first person narrator. It took me three years, but by the end of it I could sit down at the computer and slip into her voice as easily as if it were my own.

The problem is, that novel is finished, and I've been having the plot of the second bubbling away at me for a couple of months. I've been making notes, starting witing scraps here and there, and I keep slipping into the voice of the narrator of my other one. This isn't desirable at all, because she's a different kettle of fish all together.

Anyone any ideas to help me break the habit and find a new voice? I realise I'm going to be working blind at the begining and its going to be months and months and thousands and thousands of words before I find a voice for this woman that I am perfectly happy with - it wasn't until I was on my sixth draft of the first one that I had it down pat. Perhaps I'm just impatient.

Anyone have any thoughts for me or experiences to share about creating a voice for a character when someone else is still in my head (that's really what it feels like).

B

P.S It has occured to me that perhaps I need a longer break. It's only been two months since I finished the last one, and it may be that I need to go back and make a few revisions to it. Emma - I know you wrote two novels back to back - did you find it difficult in this respect?

They do say 'as soon as you've finished one novel, jump straight into the next'.
I guess that makes sense otherwise you risk going off the boil. I'm trying to get back into a novel I put on hold back in September. BIG MISTAKE! It's proving very to get going again.
Even if you don't have her voice yet, just borrow your old character's for the time being. You'll probably find it changes as the plot developes anyway, and it's always easier to edit if it's written down in the first place

- NaomiM

Blackbird, I wrote them fairly back-to-back, but only in the sense that it took ages to 'sign off' the first one - by the time I started the new one I was fairly detached from (aka bored to tears with) it. The voices in TMOL are quite different from my 'natural' voice, but the thickest strand of the new one is much closer to that natural voice, in the sense that though the character isn't me, in terms of rhythm and vocabulary I haven't particularly tried to make it sound like anyone else.

It does sound as if you're perhaps still a bit close to the old one - specially if you're thinking that you may be doing revisions. I think it can be awfully tempting - specially when there are exciting/nerve-racking things going on with the first - to launch into the second asap, if only as a displacement actitivity. But it does sound as if the first is still very present in your head. One possibility would be to write some short stuff as a palate-cleanser, even perhaps playing around with some of your possible new characters and voices, without the pressure of it having to be Right For The Novel. (Apologies to short fiction writers who get sick of novelists and the rest of the world talking as if their art form is a five-finger exercise.)

The alternative is to go for it, accept whatever comes out, and when you know the new book better, you'll be better placed to decide if it's wrong, and by how much. You may also find the voice changes and gets its own confidence as you go on, and develops into itself, in which case you'll only need to go back and revise the beginning. I'm a hell-for-leather first draft writer, and I'd be tempted to do this, and make a note whenever I find the voice going wrong, but not halt to unpick it. That way you'll get the pace and plot and structure right, and can fine-tune later.

Emma

thank you - sounds good and will reply more fully when sober.



B

Thanks again all.

'Displacement activity' struck a chord with me - I do like to be busy rather than waiting. Also, writing is what I do. For three years I've been in my room every night tapping away on my computer and it feels very, very odd now that it's over. Don't like it much, in fact, and would love to be in that place again.

I do have the bones of a plot - need to ask myself the questions that worked last time, I think: what kind of person would do that, and how can i show they are that kind of person before they do it?

Thanks

B

I've been in my room every night tapping away on my computer and it feels very, very odd now that it's over.

Yes, it's like when they turn the strip lights on at the end of the party, and you look round you and see life in all its disagreeable reality.

Emma

Hi Blackbird,

what helped me (I've just started my new book) was to do a really extensive character profile of my new MC (have a look at the character profile thread in the Women's Fiction forum, on page 4 of the older posts)...

I'll probably never use half of the information in this profile, but it really helped me to get inside the head of my new character.

Casey

Thanks again all. I've decided to leave my computer alone (except for WW, that is) and just write with pen and paper as it comes to me - I'm making character notes, trying out scenes, writing down ideas and thoughts about structure all as I go along. I'm finding it much better because I think, oh well, it doesn't matter if it's wrong - I'm going to have to type it up anyway.

Its like, deep down, I think I probably wont be able to pull it off again. I'm not implying that I've just written something fantastic, but I finished something, and the story hangs together. I don't remember how I did that, and I really don't know if I can do it again. I gave up the other novels that I tried to write, or got stuck and lost enthusiasm.

You'd think it would be easier if you'd done it before, wouldn't you?


B

I too was haunted (slightly) by the voice of the MC of my first novel. I broke out of it by going into the 'lab' - developing a screenplay idea as far as a treatment, writing some short stories, playing around with a totally different character - a girl as opposed to a boy.

That sort of thing. Writerly gymnastics.

well I've been pottering, and found that I am starting to notice more, as I write, when I'm slipping into the voice that I created before. Then I'm able to fix it. At the moment, the voice is a bit neutral and patchy - a chattier version of my own, but I've decided I'm not going to hear this person's voice until I see what they do, and that's not going to happen until I write more than the five pages I've got. I'm just going to potter on until something happens.

Ta

B