Progress

Now, for some more experienced writers here, this should be something obvious, but for me, who is primarily a poet, writing fiction is a completely different world, so bear with me.  Suddenly, I realized that I had been approaching this whole thing wrong and should have written in in the third person, past tense.  Duh.  So, I went back to the beginning and cleaned it all up, converting all the text I had written in this way.  It allowed me to purge a lot of crap, get more into the story in a way I felt I wasn’t before, and widened the scope a little to help make this thing a little more interesting.  See?  What my seem obvious to some was something new for me.  Such is the way of the novice....

My first novel, “November Rust” was written in the first person....much like all of my poetry had been, so it just came natural for me to do this.  It also allowed me to spout off in the mind of the character telling the story, forcing it to be seen through the eyes of the narrator and therefore not having to care too much about what the other characters were thinking, feeling, etc.  Switching to Third Person was a new approach for me.  I had literally never done this before so naturally I would have to learn as I went.  I really enjoy it too.  Opens the doors to infinite possibilities.  

The story being told here is also something new for me (in a way).  More “psychological” than “action” so to speak.  (There are no car chases, explosions or anything).  I hope to get the point across through the interaction between the characters and through the worlds they move around in and, most importantly, the “inner” worlds they move around in.  Not that easy, really.  There is a definite risk of boring the shit out of the reader with this approach, so I’ve been working hard at making these characters seem as real as possible with the hopes of a reader being able to relate to them in some kind of personal way.  

I still have a lot of work to do but so far I am pleased with the results, even in its current rudimentary form.  The question I have for all the writers out there, with the hopes of beginning a discussion:   

What is your approach to writing fiction?  What do you hope to achieve and how do you go about trying to bring your ideas to life?  

Looking forward to hearing from some of you.  

In the meantime, enjoy the weekend, wherever you may be.  

Onward....