Don’t Miss (updated)

Updated:

Really, really, really don’t miss Nicola’s guest essay at Booksquare about the difficulties (and joys) of writing a series character who changes and genre expectations and the whole ball of wax. A snippet:

I hadn’t set out to write a series character (I was halfway through The Blue Place before I understood the novel was merely the first act of the play that was Aud); I’d never really considered how it might be to write more than one book from first person. I wasn’t ready. So when I sat down to write Stay in the same bullet-train, cold-edged, urban-metaphored style as The Blue Place, I was shocked that it wouldn’t work. Aud was not only in a different geographic and emotional place, she persisted in seeing and responding differently. I kept writing then throwing away chapters, and then one day, duh, it hit me: change the metaphor systems, change the focal length, change the expectations. That is, change the voice. Just don’t change it too much.

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