Sunday, January 18, 2009

Something bold II

More than a monthy ago on Dec.10, I mentioned that I was trying something bold for the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. I was changing my novel, "Death at the Jungle-bunny Journal," from a third-person narrative to a first-person narrative. I said it would be hard but challenging and certainly bold.

When I started, I immediately cut out the scenes that didn't include my hero, Jason Crown. That in itself shortened the novel from 78,000 words to 45,000, 5,000 short of the minimum for the contest. But I still have to somehow cover some of the material from the scenes Jason wasn't it, in many places having to add him to a scene that he wasn't in originally or somehow having him around to learn of the crucial elements.

I never finished re-writing the first-person novel, realizing after weeks of work that it wasn't going to work. It was a good experiment that I don't regret doing except that it took time away from me preparing the third-person narrative for the Amazon contest.

So it was a bold experiment that failed. It's not for this novel nor the next one, "The Death of Art." but I haven't given up the idea of writing something in first-person.

Perhaps it will work for my Fall 2009 novel. I decided yesterday on what that novel should be. I will have to give this idea some thought.

Until then, thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.

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