On Cynsations, I read
the interview with Amy Christine Parker. She talked about struggling with
finding the voice for protagonist because she was a unique character. What
really stood out to me was her answer on how she found it, “What helped me most
in finding Lyla’s voice was figuring out her back story and how she came to be
in this cult. Once I knew how that happened I had a better sense of what she
was feeling and how she would react to those around her.” We usually tend to
make things up for a character as we go instead of giving them a complete
background and personality going into a story, which makes the entire process
way easier.
I had trouble finding
something relevant on Editorial Anonymous, but there was an article about
publishing a book that I think I can relate to the class. It talks about being
confident about your work as a final product. The three keys are time, critique
and self knowledge, in that order. Time is stepping away from your work after
you complete a draft and letting it rest. This rests your mind and gives you
the opportunity to change something before you submit the story. Critique is
self-explanatory but I don’t think we take advantage of our peers enough by
using this technique. Self knowledge is knowing simple spelling and grammar,
that way your story comes off as professional. Just something simple to keep in
mind when writing a story.
This week in class, I
learned how truly hard it is to write a children’s dummy book. The hardest part
was definitely structure. Once you have a story you have settled on, you must
divide it up so that it fits the dummy, while also making sure you have
well-structured page turns. Also, having to write a story for an entirely
different demographic was challenging.
