writing tips – Page 2

Okay, so I’m not an expert by any means, but before my massive revision I had one resounding note from people who read my book.

“The dual narrative voices were too similar”

Ugh.

How disheartening because they were SO incredibly distinct in my mind. Writers can attest that you know your characters and of course know their “voice” so when that is not portrayed on the page, it’s difficult to know where to start.

Yet when I went back and started revising… you can guess it… the further into the book it got, the more similar they sounded.

Here are three tips I picked up while revising:

1. At the beginning, exaggerate their voice. I went back through and revised my male character and probably went overboard on everything from curse words to slang and whatever to differentiate. I needed to get in a rhythm of his voice and figure out how he would say the things he was already responding too. He’s not going to say “what was that?” he’s going to say, “What the hell?” He’s not going to wax on poetically in his internal monologue, he’ll be more dry, but also intense. In my effort to differentiate and set his tone, I accidentally made him wildly misogynistic. Oops! Had to rein that one back in 🙂 After I went overboard, I revised all his chapters back down to make him more realistic and relatable, but overall it really helped to establish his voice.

2. Revise one POV at a time. In my novel it was basically an every other chapter kind of split (though it did vary) and so I would ONLY revise one character POV at a time. So that would be revising chapters 1,3,5… and go all the way to the end. Then I would start back over at 2,4,6… This helped me SO much in keeping in the “head” of my character.

3. Read your chapters out loud. This is particularly useful when you are having voice issues. You just may realize that they are sounding more similar. Also, while reading out loud, tweak as you go rather than go back.

Extra:

If you’re writing YA, pretty much make sure you only use contractions (aka: it’s rather than it is). This helps establish voice in YA characters and can be used to differentiate voice as well.

So these are a few things I picked up while trying to differentiate my dual POV! Hope these help!

Trying to write with kids in the house is my life right now since they are home on summer break.

Some days it’s super easy. Some days it’s impossible. Most days it’s a mixture of both.

The average day with my three kids (ages 6, 4 and 2) is some sort of rendition of this:

and me being like this:

Then they are all:

and I’m like:

Then they come back with:

and I go:

Okay, just kidding about that last one.

But really, it’s not the easiest thing to get creative work done when you have kids at the house.

I’ve found a few tips that help me get things done.

Make a schedule. Figure out what needs to get done that day and set realistic times in which you will be able to accomplish it. Do you need to grocery shop, write 1k words, revise a chapter and fold laundry all before cooking dinner? Schedule it out!
Don’t try to work through meal times. Just stop what you’re doing, make them lunch and sit down and eat it with them. They need too much during meals and you’ll just get frustrated if you’re trying to go back and forth from writing to cleaning up a spilled drink.
Don’t rely on the TV. Now don’t get me wrong, movies/shows are a great tool for you to get work done. What I’m saying is that you should try to save it for the afternoon or for short bursts (if your kids don’t take naps anymore.) That way, you get a good hour or two to work without them bugging you. However, if the TV has been on all day, they won’t pay attention to it anymore and you’re out of luck. Netflix is awesome for finding movies they’ve never seen that can keep their interest.
Call in the troops. If you have a deadline that you MUST meet, then you’re going to have to find a sitter. If you can afford it, I would encourage you to find a reliable babysitter to come once a week. If not, try to see if a family member will come by and pick up the kids or stay with them while you head out to a coffee shop. Sometimes you just can’t afford to have any interruptions and the only way to guarantee that is to get out of the vicinity of “MOMMY!!!!!!”
Set daily goals. This is THE most important thing for me because if I set a goal, 90% of the time I will work until I get it done. That may mean coming back to it after the kids are in bed (or before they wake up – but I’m not a morning person so that seems like torture) regardless of how you get it done, as long as it gets done, you’ll reach your goal.

Everyone has their own particular way they can get things done with kids in the house, these are just a few of mine. I also copyedit, transcribe and intern at a literary agency in addition to writing and so I use these tricks a lot!

The biggest thing is they’re your kids. They are only this age for so long. They’ll only desperately need our attention for so long. Time flies and we writers sometimes need a reminder that we can’t just live in the worlds we create. So when the kids interrupt you for the millionth time in 20 minutes and everything in you wants to go:

Just remember to:

Because the last thing you need is to give them any more fodder for hating you when they are teenagers.

Tag: writing tips

Tips For Writing a Dual POV

Tips for writing while home with the kids