  Mystery
This week: Considering the Basics Edited by: Kit of House Lannister  
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First person or third? Past or present tense? Tone, language... all these need to be considered when writing a story.
This week's Mystery Newsletter is about the basics.
kittiara |
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It’s a familiar scene. There’s a fresh piece of paper or a blank document in front of you. You have characters running around your head, waiting for their big adventure. You have a vague idea of what they’re going to get up to. You may even have planned every scene from finish to start. In other words, you’re about to write a story, or a novel. Now you have some big decisions to make… how are you going to bring your tale to your readers?
The first choice to make is a crucial one. First person? Third? Novels written from the hero’s or heroine’s perspective are gaining popularity. Jim Butcher uses this style to great effect in The Dresden Files, and Suzanne Collins and Stephenie Meyer have had a lot of success with it in their Hunger Games and Twilight series. There are some benefits to it. The reader gains a lot of insight into the character’s mind. You share their thoughts, their feelings, and know why they make the decisions they do. It’s easy to bond with them, and easy to place yourself in their position.
There are setbacks, however, and it takes some skill to overcome them. If you have to write a battle scene, for example, in which more than one character is involved, it can get messy. It’s easy to lose track of who is doing what. Your main character may be so involved that he or she is unable to observe what happens to the others. And if your character passes out, you’re likely to end up with a rather clichéd break in the narrative where they wake up somewhere else and have to be told by others what happened.
Also, all the other characters in your novel are seen through the one set of eyes, so it may be harder for the reader to become familiar with them. You can, of course, change perspective, but to do this between more than two characters can become confusing.
Third person remains the most obvious choice. It allows the author greater freedom to play around with a variety of characters and it allows the reader more freedom to pick their favourites. This is great for a whodunit, or for a fantasy novel in which a band of heroes and heroines sets off on a big quest.
Again, there are setbacks. It takes skill to develop each individual character, and to ensure that the reader has insight into each character’s feelings and motivations. That awkward moment when you want to describe a character’s looks is multiplied by however many characters are involved in the story. First person observation has the benefit there. On the whole, though, I personally think that third person is the easiest to use.
The second decision is just as important – past tense or present tense? Most novels are written in the past tense – he walked to the store. It took me a while to get into The Hunger Games, because of its use of present tense, but the author made it work and it did make me feel “in the moment” with the character. When a book is written as a diary, a mixture of both can be used successfully. I tend to use past tense, but that’s not to say that it isn’t good to experiment.
The third decision is what I call “author involvement”. How much will your voice carry through in the novel? I recently started on some of the classics – Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. I was quite surprised that she didn’t shy away from suddenly letting her own views shine through, even using I to make it clear that she was relating the story to us. It didn’t bother me, but I do think that it’s good to be cautious about how you present your characters – readers like the freedom to make up their own minds about the characters, instead of being told what to think about them.
The fourth decision is your tone – formal, casual, warm-hearted, detached? There are many different options, and perhaps we don’t choose between them on purpose. It depends on the story, or perhaps on the mood we are in when we write. It is difficult to give advice about it, other than to say whatever works. So long as the reader is drawn in and feels at home, it’s all good.
Other points to consider are language and swearing. As this is an American website, I will assume English as the main language, but sometimes it can be fun to use a few phrases in a different language when characters come from different countries. When that is the case, do you translate, or will you assume that the reader knows what is being said?
And is it alright for characters to use bad language? I think it is, but it helps when it serves a purpose. Sometimes it suits a character. It tells the reader something about them. Sometimes the situation calls for it. My personal opinion is that it shouldn’t be used merely for the sake of it. If you’re using it to be edgy, well, that’s been done, and I think that the days for that are long past.
Last but not least – how graphic will you get? If your novel involves crime, should everything be described in minute detail, or should some of it be left to the reader’s imagination? And what about intimate scenes? I feel that both should depend on the type of novel you are writing. In the first case, if it’s a hard-hitting novel throughout, graphic scenes can work. If it feels out of place, it’s best to tone it down. Different types of novels attract a different type of reader, and it’s a shame to alienate readers merely because of one or two scenes.
The same goes for intimacy. If you’re writing an adult romance, readers might be disappointed if you gloss over those scenes. If you’re writing in a different genre, we don’t have to know everything!
Getting a novel or a story just right is hard work. It tends to take a few rewrites and a whole lot of editing. If you know how to start off, though, it helps. That doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind if a certain style doesn’t work out for you (I’ve started a novel in first person and I’m going to rewrite it because of the action scenes) – it’s good to experiment – but it’s also good to have a think before you put pen to paper, or start tapping away.
It’s something I should really learn to do…
kittiara
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Here are some of the latest items in the Mystery genre. I hope that you'll enjoy them  .
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| |  | STITCH (13+)
a fallen angel decides to make amends through the use of needle and thread.
#1866399 by Kirsty Heggie  |
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Mystery: May 16, 2012 Issue [#5048]
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