NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR ANNE FRASIER
Thursday, October 8, 2009
STRUCTURE!
I'm revising the memoir and should soon have it ready to send to my agent. but argh! structural problem! book begins with a scene written in third person, a story about a little girl, kind of an urban...er rural legend. second chapter is first person, me as a little girl. i cannot figure out how to avoid confusion with the 2 girls. Readers are going to assume they are the same person. ( I go unnamed throughout entire book, so using names doesn't work.) I've cut and pasted this me-as-child scene everywhere, and it seems to only work at the beginning of my story, after the opening featuring ANOTHER little girl. argh.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What if you dispensed with the third person in the prologue and began in the first person as you reflecting on the story of the rural legend? Or someone telling it to you? I know it pulls some of the immediacy out of the prologue, but you could write it nearly the same, especially if you turned the story over in your mind as a child. If you didn't know the story as a child, maybe you as the adult could briefly start the memoir to draw the parallel between the legend and you.
ReplyDeleteall good ideas, but i just don't feel there's a satisfactory solution. the scene is chilling, and would def lose impact if told through someone else. i really think i'm going to have to leave it the way it is and hope an editor will still like it enough to buy it -- and we can sort it out later. or maybe my agent will have an idea once she reads it. one thing i thought about was having child-me reference the legend after we've read the legend. just to set the kids apart. like oh, she'd heard the story about the girl who blah blah blah. but that doesn't really fit in scene. but maybe it will take something a little heavy handed.
ReplyDeleteanne
If the impact is key, the taste of the moment, then yeah, I guess it has to stay.
ReplyDeleteCan you title the prologue to clarify there is a difference?
ReplyDeleteHeather Dearly
heather, i have a little intro to each section, but i'm not sure it really helps. maybe i'm worrying about nothing. i hate to confuse reader right out of the gate. hopefully it won't be a deal breaker when it comes to editors.
ReplyDeleteanne