As you might have read here before, I’m writing a book. I woke up yesterday morning and decided my novel fell into the Young Adult category. I decided to rename the book “Prodigies”. Then I decided that, instead of splitting the narrative into four different segments with four different first-person narratives, that I would retain one first-person narrative throughout. So in about three minutes, I changed everything but the characters and the plot.
When I first started shaping this story, I wanted to write in the viewpoints of all the characters because — so cool! so experimental! so avant-garde! I loved my characters; I wanted to give them all stories — the eighteen-year-old mixed race violist who spent her life in residential music schools; the seventeen-year-old graphic artist whose talent is edged by madness; the 26-year-old teacher and mentor who has declared war against a shadowy conspiracy; the 28-year-old veteran with PTSD and a talent he will not reveal. But one of the rules of writing is to limit your protagonists to one (or maybe two if you must) because readers prefer reading the story through one person’s eyes. I chose Grace, the violist, because I felt she saw and interacted with the characters the best:
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I stood in front of Room 16, afraid if I knocked too loud at that time of the night, I would attract the attention of those large men who served the Ivanovs. If I knocked too quietly, I would not wake Ichirou at all, especially as the bedroom lay beyond the suite —
As I dithered, I realized that I could go outside and throw rocks at the kid’s second-story window. As if that wouldn’t attract attention. As if I could figure out which window was his.
The door opened, and Ichirou hissed at me, “You may want to keep the grumbling down.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I hissed back as I let him pull me into his room and close the door silently.
“I’m just saying …” Ichirou took a deep breath. “How do we get out of here?” I noticed he wore jeans and a t-shirt with his hoodie over it, and his laptop sat by the door.
“What about Ayana?” I whispered, remembering that Przemysław had said he wasn’t sure about Ayana.
“Ayana told me to go with you.” Ichirou picked up his computer bag and peered through the peephole. “Of course,” he muttered. “A reverse peephole.”
“Should we — “
“Go go go!” Ichirou hissed, then grabbed my free hand and trotted across the lounging area, bumping into a chair. He threw the curtains open and pulled the window sash up. “Watch your step; it’s a bit far to the fire escape.”
Ichirou tried the fire escape first; his laptop appeared to unbalance his small frame for a moment, until he lurched forward and pulled himself onto the metal step and gripped the railings.
My turn. I perched on the sill, judging the difference between myself and the fire escape. I would not have to jump; if I shifted far enough to the right and stepped a bit, I could reach the step with my foot and shift my weight to grab the railing. Hopefully my viola would survive the maneuver.
As I swung myself onto the fire escape, we heard a gunshot, then another.
We ran down the fire escape. The pounding of our feet met the pounding of my heart.
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I also wanted to move away from “The Ones Who Toppled the World” because I’m afraid that title oversells the plot. They don’t topple the world, but they certainly do a number of the United Nations. (What do you think of “The Ones Who Toppled the Nations”?)
I guess I wanted to say that a writer should not be so wedded to something in their story that they will not walk away from it. If change improves the story, by all means change!
Words Like Me 