Janette Kenny


Back on track

After getting a fourth of my chicklit mystery written, I realized it wasn’t a true mystery. (Talk about a head-slapping thung moment!) I started getting a bit nervous when no dead body showed up early in the book. I was reader to knock someone off and get the murder underway, but it just wouldn’t happen.

Instead of murder, I’ve got people missing and blood. In fact, I still don’t have a murder. I don’t know where the people are either. Well not entirely. I think I know where one of them is holed up.

At any rate, Hello Chaos is chick thrill–a suspense but not that edgy drilling-the-fingers-into-the-chair read. I’ve written that type and I’ve got to say I like the difference in this type suspense where the reader suspects there’s danger, but doesn’t know just how big bad and ugly the bad guy can be at this point. Throws a different light on the read. (I hope.)

I’ve been writing this in first person point of view but that wasn’t working to the advantage of the plot or the characterization. At least it wasn’t doing it for me, so I changed the first four chapters from first to third person.

I like it better. It still had the same voice, bite and immediacy. But in first I could only tell you what my main character saw, heard or did. In third I can clue the reader in to what my hero (yum) and bad guys (boo!) are doing. And yes, I know I could’ve kept the heroine in first person and used third for the hero and other characters, but stickign with third throughout feels more natural.

So it’s time to get back to the writing and get my characters out of the nasty jam I just got them into and into another surprise. 🙂

Until next time…

5 comments to “Back on track”

  1. Jordan
    February 21st, 2006 at 5:59 pm · Link

    Sounds like you solved your problem. I tried just the opposite. I had a story that was written in first and I switched it third. It lost all its voice. Good luck with the new version. 🙂



  2. Jan
    February 22nd, 2006 at 8:27 am · Link

    Damn, I hate when that happens, Jordan. Honestly I’m still waffling a bit over the first/third thing. After writing a chapter in third in nasty bad guy’s pov, I was really tempted to switch the protag back to first. Guess that’s why they call these first drafts! LOL



  3. Jordan
    February 22nd, 2006 at 3:19 pm · Link

    LOL, yes, it is. 🙂



  4. Amy
    February 24th, 2006 at 10:49 am · Link

    I think it does sound good in third, Jan. Good decision!



  5. Jan
    February 24th, 2006 at 10:59 am · Link

    Whew! Thanks, Amy. I’ve really struggled to grasp a couple of issues in this work, so it’s good to know I got something right. 😉








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