January 4, 2006
I was going to say, ...I'm just written that way, but the truth is, maybe I AM crazy.

A while back I wrote about how the novel-in-progress was being written in a single 3rd person POV.

Yesterday I wrote about how all us so-called pro-FESS-ional writas knew when to use our various bags of tricks called technique.

Yeah, well, maybe. I'm about 150 pages into this new novel and every day a voice in my head says, "This might be better (easier) (more effective) (more commercial) if you go back and start over from the beginning with multiple povs."

I haven't yet. Because the rational voice is saying, "It works as it is. It's focused. It's a thriller without the other voices. It's intense. The reader knows just what the main character does, which in this case is very effective."

They're both right. And aside from the fact that I have voices in my head (doesn't everybody?) I guess this is just the nature of being a novelist. I didn't always have these doubts. My early unpublished work was rarely marred by self-doubt. Hmmm, is there a connection?

I have noticed that the last couple books--all of which received contracts, by no coincidence--had me playing a mental chess game somewhere in the middle (around, say, page 150 or so) with myself, as I try to simultaneously tangle and untangle the plot, which is what the middle of a novel, especially a thriller, is supposed to do. The middle should be a series of hurdles or complications, but done in such a way that you as the writer, at least, can see the way out of the maze, hopefully. No wonder I feel like an animal with its foot in a trap, only it's a mental trap.

I'm sure I'll puzzle my way to the end. There are length considerations and pacing considerations that would make adding more chapters with other viewpoints problematic. (I think). At least part of the issue is that having other povs would solve some technical problems (and probably create a few, as well). Solving these problems with a single pov can be hard, although not as hard as solving them with first person single pov. But, after all, isn't this part of the challenge of being a novelist?

Best,
Mark Terry