At the moment I'm trying to write a novel that essentially works backwards dealing with an amnesic main character.

Right now it seems like the most unbelievably fucking difficult subject in the world to capture in words.

Just wondering what other people find hard to write and why?

My why would be that unlike most attempts at writing or portraying amnesic characters (knock to the head results in complete loss of identity and memory bollocks) I'm trying to write a realistic character with realistic amnesia. The hardest part being writing all the technical stuff in the first person in a way that doesn't come across as a shed load of info dump so that it all makes sense.

Geoff

The hardest part being writing all the technical stuff in the first person in a way that doesn't come across as a shed load of info dump so that it all makes sense.

I think that's probably the hardest thing for me too. It's usually history, in my case, but the problem's the same - the 'but he wouldn't say that' moment.

The only thing you can do is pat yourself on the back for actually knowing that info-dump is a Bad Idea. Most aspiring writers and not a few published ones haven't quite grasped that.

Emma


<Added>

Having said that, I find that in the end I don't need to put in all sorts of info that I thought I did. The information shapes how I write it - makes the situations and experiences seem real - but then most of the actual sentences of info can be cut, and readers don't seem to mind at all, or even notice. If I get it right, I think they're convinced by the real-ness, and don't question 'would that really happen?'. So I don't actually need to explain that yes it would and why.