Cambria Dillon - YA Writer
Friday’s Focus: What the…?
It’s a week before Christmas and I must say that although I LOVE this holiday, it’s also screwing with my personal timeline for my current WIP. Here’s where I am–I’ve finished Chapter One of my spanking new YA. The same one that interrupted my NaNo and has left my sleep schedule all out of whack. I still find myself dreaming snippets of this story, waking up to write it all down lest I forget, and embracing new research methods (which have been so insightful and irreplaceable in helping me understand my protagonist).
But there’ s something I’ve recently encountered that caught me completely off-guard. Yes, this is a YA and that alone was enough to make my head spin. I love reading YA, but I had been writing paranormal romances. ROMANCES. As in, against-the-wall steam, lusty heroines, and naughty heroes with a penchant for stalking the halls of my mind with their beefed up chests and brooding eyes. Well, it just so happens that YA’s don’t really have a whole lot of, ahem, s-e-x. And what little nookie there is, is usually behind the scenes.
So imagine my second surprise when I actually start writing this thing and notice that I’m using a whole lot of I, my, and me, me, me. WHAT?! I’m writing first person? But, but…I’ve only really written in third person before because sex scenes are always more fun to write and read when you can get in the heads of both characters (in separate scenes of course). What the heck do I know about writing in first person? I don’t even like to read in first person all that much. At least not in romance novels.
I got over my initial visceral response and started doing more research. Reading research. Reading as many first-person books as I could in a two-week time period. I noticed a trend that I guess I never paid much attention to before. It seems that romances are the overwhelming leader of books written in third-person. Because most other books I picked up — literary women’s fiction, legal thrillers, cozies, commercial fiction, YA, MG — are written in first-person. I’ve read a lot outside the romance genre before so why didn’t I pick up on this tidbit before? I can only assume it’s because my goal of writing toward publication is still new (April 2009 is when I started seriously writing…although like every other writer out there, I’ve been writing since I was a kid). During that time I started pursuing this goal, I was fully engrossed in romance. I had just given birth to my daughter in September ’08 and who knows, maybe I wanted to spice up my new lifestyle change a little. (But I can positively say I’m not a newbie to romance novels since I picked up my first romance book — a Jude Deveraux sheet-wrinkler — when I was twelve.)
So here I am writing in a new genre, writing in a new POV…what more could be thrown at me? Heh, heh, heh. My muse is wicked. That little tramp. Because a third revelation comes to me after I re-read my first chapter. I had to read it again because I felt like a deer caught in headlights, like eighteen-wheeler headlights with a neon row of fog-lights thrown in for good measure.
Here’s my first sentence (DISCLAIMER: This is rough. Very, very rough. So don’t get mad if your eyes start to bleed.):
I feel the fingers of dread massage my stomach as I walk across the pebbled pavement.
Huh? Then I read further thinking this must surely be a fluke…
A piece of gravel finds its way inside my flip-flop. But before I can stoop down to wheedle it out from between my toes, it’s already gone. I cough. Noxious exhaust pollutes the air around me, thick and suffocating like icing on the cake of my impending sentence. A warning that today is really going to suck.
Like I don’t already know.
Huh? I read it again. And again. I envision plantlife shriveling, puppies dying, books burning…did I write that in present tense? Warning bells go off in my head. Danger! Danger! I read it for the hundredth time. No way. This can’t be present tense. I’ve never written in present tense before. It’s like a foreign language to me. I start to think that maybe I’m one of those religious fanatics that can all of a sudden speak Latin even though I’ve never spoken Latin before. Yes, that must be it.
But after splashing a little water on my face, I settle into my seat with a fresh cup of hot tea. I start out slow, only punching a few sentences into my laptop. Then I start pounding away, typing until my eyes are dry and my tea’s too cold to drink. And I think maybe…just maybe, I kind of like this new writing style. I like the freedom it gives me. I like feeling more connected to my character, more invested in my story. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
The next day I ventured into the cyber world just to make sure I wasn’t turning to the dark side or anything. And I stumbled upon a wonderful post by Timothy Hallinan, an author of thrillers, about the advantages to writing in present tense. You can read his full post here.
There’s one passage that really struck a chord with me.
“It had an immediacy I enjoyed. It was less like writing and more (do I dare to say this?) like a movie or a play. Plays and movies exist in a permanent present tense, a period of time that begins the moment the curtain lifts or the image hits the screen. The viewers enter this period of time with the characters, and live through it right beside them. (This is an interesting illusion because it holds even when we see a film for the third or fourth time.)”
I highlighted the point that made me sit up and think, Holy cow, that is sooo right on. I was a Thespian in high school (I denounce the term “theatre geek”). I once majored in Theatre in college (before I realized I didn’t want to eat tuna fish and Ramen noodles my whole life). So I know what it’s like to have that curtain part and there’ s no turning back, no assurances that this performance will go smoothly. It’s the excitement and thrill of investing yourself completely in your character, playing off the audience’s emotions, and letting it all unfold naturally.
Hallinan is right on with his assessment. Why didn’t I think of that before? Major lightbulbs went off in my head when I made this connection because in my story, I want the reader to know everything as it happens. I want the reader to sit on the edge of his or her seat and wonder if my protagonist will be okay in the end. I want the reader to feel like they’re the character, the one experiencing this story first-hand.
I want that experience for them.
And for me.
So tell me…am I alone on this vessel of first-person present tense? If you write it, what do you see are the advantages? If you don’t, have you tried it? If not, what do you see as the major disadvantages? I’d love to hear from you!