To prep for my NaNoWriMo challenge, I have been reading an old book of mine called “I, Jedi” by Michael A. Stackpole. While no, the book nor the author are award-winners, it’s the only book I own which is written in first-person and involves entirely fictional characters.
It’s important for these characters to be fictional because with all of the biographies out there, the reader has some sort of outside knowledge about the person being written about. Ie. If you read a biography of Ozzy Osbourne, you’d have a general idea about Black Sabbath. With Stackpole’s book, everything is made up.
Every book I’ve attempted to write with so far has been done in third-person (albeit the first one was in first-person but with two narrators). But I’ve always given up because things became too complicated with the narration. To keep a long story short, I was tired of trying to pull “twists and turns” rather than just let the story flow naturally. I’ve gone back to “I, Jedi” to really get a hold on how I can create new characters only using a first-person narrative and still entice new readers to continue reading the book (which is arguably the hardest thing to do as a writer is to have something which makes your readers crave more).
Given the nature of the story I am going to write, I wanted to take on this first-person perspective to really strike the emotional feelings the protagonist will be going through. I think I finally have an idea with where I’m going with this story. I actually believe I’m going to accomplish this goal.
And while I do not expect this story I’m about to write to break any new ground, I really am excited to get started on it. My goal is to achieve a minimum of 1,500 words a day.
I really do not think anyone has any idea how inspired I am to get this goal accomplished.
January 4th cannot come soon enough!
I hope you all had an excellent Christmas.
UncannyDerek 