Day 26
30 mins editing + 15 mins planning + 1 hr planned writing
Interesting one today. We are asked to look back at the voice we have used for the draft so far, and consider whether it is i) consistent, and ii) effective.
Jacqui talks about a trick she used in one of her novels which went between the past and the present: she used present tense for the past, and past tense for the present. What a great idea.
It reminds me of our current master of historical storytelling, Hilary Mantel. She writes her Cromwellian novels in present tense, which is part of her assault on the convention of historical stories seeming “already completed” in their telling. As she says, the characters don’t think that they are in history. They don’t know what’s going to happen or what it means looking back; it’s just a present-tense day that they’re bumbling through.
I write historical fiction and my version of this is that every historical time was once the modern day. People live on the edge of time, no matter how long ago.
Hmm, where were we? A review of our narrative voice. As I’ve said a few times, I don’t feel that I quite know what my main point of the story is, therefore what perspective I’m going to give my character, therefore what voice will tell her story.
I have so far been using a mix of third-person main-character point of view, and main-character first-person. It’s been past tense throughout. I do like the immediacy of future tense, but I find it a strong stylistic choice and not one I’m going to choose unintentionally. Besides, it is a bit of a trend at the moment, and I don’t want to be carried along by what I’ve read recently if I’m not sure it’s right for my story.
I like past tense as a default because it leaves it unclear where the narrator is looking back from and how much they know. Are they telling us what happened just this minute, or seventy years ago? If the narrator identifies themselves, then we have the chance to learn more about them from whatever time period has elapsed.
So, in reviewing my draft’s voice, I will stay with the past tense I have chosen so far. A large part of the story is about naivety, regret, and learning the truth too late, so it makes sense to me to have a retrospective feel.
Exercise
- Option 1: 1,000 words (I added 30 mins editing + 15 minutes planning): focus on what you have already discovered about your narrative voice
or
- Option 2: 1,000 words: write using a different narrative voice (tense /character / p.o.v.) and see what it brings to the work — is it just an interesting new viewpoint, or would its inclusion benefit the story?
My response
- Unusually for me, I chose the straightforward option, as I feel that I haven’t got enough grip on the other aspects of the work yet, so want to find the consistency with the voice as much as possible.
- I don’t know about you, but while I find 1,000 words a demand to write, I don’t find that it covers much ground at all in terms of a scene. Perhaps if my thoughts were more condensed, I could write more meaningfully in short spaces, but as I am rambling and exploring, my sentences are loose and not full of content. I think a lot of my story is really boring, unfocused, and uncharged with any meaning right now! Some of the larger ideas are interesting, but the execution is lacking.
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