My goal as a writer is to be invisible.
I write in my character's voices. Third-person, and these days I switch among four or five characters in each book – sometimes even climbing into the villain's head, which can be … interesting.
The whole idea behind this is to achieve Total Immersion. I want you, my reader, to forget – at least for a little while – that you're reading a book. I want you standing right there beside the characters, living in their world.
Is it hard? It can be. What I try to do is find each character's Voice – the way they phrase their thoughts, the shape those thoughts take, how each character thinks of her- or himself. For a little while, my goal is to become that character, seeing the world through her, or his, eyes. And write the scene accordingly.
Kat Morales, the human detective in my Portals books, is easy to write. She's kind of an extension of me, so her voice came to me naturally. Hers was the Voice for my first two Portals books. It wasn't until Book 3, Deathtalker, that I got up nerve to tackle scenes from the POV of Tevis, who is Kat's partner – and an elf.
What I hope, with all of my books, is that the reader never sees the author between the front and back covers. At least not while you're reading.
I want to be invisible. How about you, as a writer or a reader? What's your goal?
I write in my character's voices. Third-person, and these days I switch among four or five characters in each book – sometimes even climbing into the villain's head, which can be … interesting.
The whole idea behind this is to achieve Total Immersion. I want you, my reader, to forget – at least for a little while – that you're reading a book. I want you standing right there beside the characters, living in their world.
Is it hard? It can be. What I try to do is find each character's Voice – the way they phrase their thoughts, the shape those thoughts take, how each character thinks of her- or himself. For a little while, my goal is to become that character, seeing the world through her, or his, eyes. And write the scene accordingly.
Kat Morales, the human detective in my Portals books, is easy to write. She's kind of an extension of me, so her voice came to me naturally. Hers was the Voice for my first two Portals books. It wasn't until Book 3, Deathtalker, that I got up nerve to tackle scenes from the POV of Tevis, who is Kat's partner – and an elf.
What I hope, with all of my books, is that the reader never sees the author between the front and back covers. At least not while you're reading.
I want to be invisible. How about you, as a writer or a reader? What's your goal?
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