Question #1

OK, so I asked for questions and Lynn gave me three amazing ones. I’m going to answer one right now, just because I can (and because I’m procrastinating!).

Lynn asks: Your upcoming book is told from a male perspective. Did you find it hard to write from a boy’s point of view? In general, how do you find the voice of your main characters – does it just come to you, or do you write towards it with many iterations?

First of all, Lynn’s talking about Fall Line which, indeed is told from the perspective of fifteen-year-old Chris Myers. I’ve posted the Fall Line cover before, but never the full jacket, so – just for fun – here it is:

Cool, huh?

OK, let’s talk about Chris. So, the answer to Lynn’s question is yes and no. I had no trouble writing Chris. He was in my head, I knew him, I wanted to tell his story. I adore him.

The trouble came later. Fall Line is – bar none – my most re-written book EVER. And I hope it will remain my most re-written book ever, because I never want to re-write a book as many times as I’ve re-written Fall Line.

I changed from first to third person. And then back again. I changed from Chris’s point of view to Tilly’s (female protagonist), and then back again. And then back again. And then back again (not kidding). I considered swapping POVs chapter-by-chapter.

I have so much extra / deleted material for this book – I have more than the book I’ll be publishing in extra material.

So what was hard wasn’t writing Chris’s story, it was knowing whose story to tell. His? Or Tilly’s? Or both?

But Chris himself – what he’d think, what he’d do, what he’d say – I knew it.

Which is easy for me to say now. I mean, only a few people have read the book. The test of whether Chris resonates with readers in general will only come when those readers meet him. But that’s true for all my characters – male and female.

There is one caveat to the above. There were a couple of small, specific, times when I got unexpected help with writing from a male POV. When you read the acknowledgements in Fall Line you’ll see how lucky I’ve been with the help I got, and what generous people I know who guided me with material for this book.

One of those people was supposed to help with ski details – which was great – but a couple of times I ended up firing him emails asking “Would a guy say this?” or “If you said this to a guy friend, would he punch you?” His answers to those particular questions were golden, and have helped me feel much more comfortable with the (almost) finished manuscript.

Bottom line, simple answer to your question, Lynn – I enjoyed spending time with Chris. I looked forward to writing his story. Which is why I’m so excited to know I have a second book to write about him after I get Fall Line out!