When writing my novels, while I will shift poins of view between different characters from time to time, I generally stick to one POV per section. As such, when I do so I tend to get into the headspace of the character I’m writing so as to better present things from his or her point of view (what he or she sees, how she interprets different things, even the style of his or her–or its–thoughts, etc.).
Sometimes this is easy–especially if I’m writing from a character I particularly like. (Felix would be one of these.) Other times, it’s less so. Heck, there’s one character from my first book whose part I wound up toning down because he was such a pain in the ass to write. (That’d be Brian, if you’re curious. He’s such a putz.) It’s interesting, though, to see how I’m feeling after I finish writing certain characters. In the second book, for example, I’m occasionally writing from the point of view of Diomedes, and let me tell you, that’s a draining place to write in. It takes me a little while to switch gears back to myself, which I suppose might sound weird to some of you.
Right now, I’m working on writing a small section from a character who is SO alien to my own personality that it’s very, very slow going. Quite frankly it’s draining, both because it’s so hard to translate my own thoughts into this character’s to write the POV properly, and because the slow going makes me feel like I’m just plain going too slow. If I go to slow, I start feeling blocked, which only makes me go slower. It’s like a slog through the mud, really, and I have to work to make sure that READING it doesn’t feel like slogging, too. I don’t think it does, but making sure it comes out right is important to me. I suppose I should think of that part of the writing process as a 9-hour flight to a vacation spot. Sure, the flight (or the writing process) isn’t the most fun, but once it’s over, I’m in a spot I really want to be.
So what’s my point? I don’t really have one, I guess, but I wanted to take a break from trying to write this character’s point of view and switch back to my own brain, ’cause today I’m a lazy, lazy man. 🙂
Amy says
February 12, 2008 at 6:44 AMOh, I know! You should write a book with just lovely, wonderful characters! Then it would be just lovely and wonderful to write every single day, and you wouldn’t have to worry about connecting with characters such as Putzy Brian and Yikes Diomedes!
Of course, that book would be a very boring read, because one thing I really enjoyed about “Shadows” was the complete immersion into one character’s thoughts per section…made it more like a movie in my head than words on a page.
So in Book 2, am I going to have to wander around the city in a Putzy head again? 🙂