The following are my thoughts and questions I’m working through with a new project:
The other day I went to a bookstore because I felt like I needed some inspiration and to check out what other people are writing in the YA genre. I don’t know why, but it seemed to do exactly what I needed. I remembered I had written a script that could fit the YA Fantasy genre perfectly. I mean it is just sitting on desktop in the folder just waiting for someone to read it.
So here I am starting a whole new project, but luckily it’s not from scratch. I do, however, have to figure out different stylistic choices when it comes to prose writing instead of screenwriting. I need to add more “zush” to the descriptions, more sounds, smells, etc. I also have to figure out POV. Do I want to still make this feel cinematic or should I really delve deep into the first person POV I know and love?
There have been a few fiction novels written to mirror a screenplay to make it marketable and easy to adapt. I was researching on POVs and tenses and am trying to find the best fit for this story. Books written in present tense don’t translate well with most of the readers. For some reason it becomes too jarring and it feels almost unnatural to read a book that’s “happening right now”. I want to do something different for this novel, but I also don’t want to lose readers after the first paragraph.
I found out that The Hunger Games series was written in present tense. I have not read the books, but I feel like it’s an outlier amongst other novels. This one just so happened to be the right story to tell in that format. I don’t believe mine fits that category.
Another thing I have to look into is whether or not this story has been overdone. I know there have been a lot of average girl turned “I must save the world” heroine stories out there, but I feel like this one is different. (Said every other author out there) I just hope that I’m right.
It’s funny, when I’m reading over old material, I can tell how old it really is. There have been really great advances in technology and it always dates my material whenever I read them over. Then again, “period pieces” have become all the rage lately. Do I really need to make it modern?
I think I’m putting too much thought in this process, but I’m really excited to finally have inspiration and motivation. I just hope this lasts longer than just a few days.
Thanks for reading!
-Emi