Inevitably, it’s back to writing! I’m three chapters in on the ‘must make my main character sympathetic’ novel. Yesterday was an epic event as I was in a foul mood and yet I managed to come up with a compelling opening paragraph and a new title! Still, after all the messing around I had to get down to writing.
The MC is a thirty-something woman (no, it’s not Bridget Jones with a backbone – or is it? Another dilemma) who is unlucky in love. She’s a normal person with an unusual problem to solve and she meets a fairly ordinary bloke who helps her to solve it. Her friend is a little more unusual and is hiding a secret and her parents provide an icy backdrop to the plot.
So far so good. Except she is terminally boring. I am writing in first person and at first the descriptive section resembled lists. It turned out, however that (yes you’ve guessed it) my MC is insecure and questions herself a lot. She has come up with a sure-fire method of finding Mr Right and she balances this with her insecurities.
Ms Average will eventually turn out to be Ms Challenged again when she focuses back on her own life after finding Mr Perfect and her friend’s secret is revealed. So it all turns out well in the end (for my kind of novel anyway). No-one dies (unusual for my writing) and at least one person lives happily ever after. The only problem is that I sort of feel like I ‘have’ to write her this way, a sort of compromise to break in to something that could easily be another way – way, way more interesting!
This MC has such a different voice to my past MC’s that it’s difficult to recognise her as one of my characters at all. It has almost killed me to write the word ‘Prada’ and have a full scene describing someone getting ready to go out, but both are necessary for her role and important to how she is drawn, so, so be it! Her constant questioning herself is a feature that has developed as the plot has developed and without this the main premise of the book could not have worked, so hopefully I have finally manage to write someone nice!
By the way, my blog seems to have started a discussion on Twitter about Cheryl Cole’s tits. People seem so interested in this subject that they are searching the Internet for them (presumably they are missing somewhere?) and landing on my blog! It’s a testament to the powers of the Internet as an educational tool that Cheryl’s breasts are the focus of so many ill-destined searches. Hopefully their mention again on this page will divert the previous searchers to more Dirtysparkle! material.
In other news, I am in the process of commissioning an image for my non-fiction book. It’s becoming clear that decision making is not my strong point as I have three possible images and only one can make it to the from cover of a book that will be published worldwide. Eeeep! That’s right, Jacqueline, worldwide, so you’d better get writing end editing writing and editing writing and editing……..