Hi, everyone. Im Alex Bledsoe, author of THE HUM AND THE SHIVER, HE DRANK AND SAW THE SPIDER, and THE GIRLS WITH GAMES OF BLOOD, among others. Melissa asked me here to talk about writing in first person, which Ive done a lot. And am doing right now, in fact. One of the more interesting challenges is coming up with different inner voices for my first-person characters. Both my Eddie LaCrosse novels and my Firefly Witch short stories feature the voices of their main protagonists telling the story as if it really happened to them. Of course, I in a story doesnt always (or even often) equal the I of the writer. Dr. Watson is not Arthur Conan Doyle, whatever similarities there might be. JD Salinger is not Holden Caulfield. It gets even trickier, though, when youre both trying to make a character not sound like you, and also not like another of your first-person characters. Im heavily influenced by the hard-boiled or pulp genre. One of my I characters, Eddie LaCrosse, certainly falls into that same genre: slightly distanced and ironic, willing to see the bitter humor in grim situations, and not above tweaking both other characters, and the reader, with his wry observations. Ry Tully, the I of the Firefly Witch stories, is similar. Not *too* similar, I hope, but he also has a black sense of humor and a tendency, as a contemporary small-town reporter, to take things less than seriously. So its fair to ask, whats different about them? How do I keep their voices from sounding identical? One thing is perspective. Eddie is a veteran of his world, whos traveled and seen a great many wonderful and horrible things. Hes well-educated, sophisticated and able to converse equally well with kings or beggars. Ry, on the other hand, is younger, has had a much less broad set of experiences, and is secure really in only two things: his career, and his love for his wife. And thats the major difference. Eddie is the hero of his stories: he motivates the plots, drives the action, and is responsible for the resolution. Ry, on the other hand, is like the aforementioned Dr. Watson: his voice may tell the story, but its hero is always his wife, Tanna. Thus there are aspects that we are never privy to, because *he* is not privy to them. So whatever similarity there may be in their voices (and it may be greater than I think; thats something only readers can really determine), their functions are quite different. And I suspect thats a big part of giving characters unique voices. If they do the same things for the same reasons, and the same person is writing about them, theyre likely to sound a lot alike. If you can vary their purposes, their voices will vary as well. What first-person character is your favorite? Leave a comment or ask a question and Ill pick a random winner for a signed copy of my latest Eddie LaCrosse novel, HE DRANK, AND SAW THE SPIDER. alexbledsoe
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 23:01:25 +0000
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