Adding another perspective to my book?

[Anonymous]

@lewilliams

Oh my! Well, I read a book recently in which there were four different perspectives, all in first person, and it was done seamlessly so that there were never problems in differentiating who was speaking.

Ooh, okay, that’s great advice! I’ll definitely have to keep it in mind for my new character. I’ll need to map out the decisions she makes and be sure she isn’t just responding to stuff that’s happening, so thanks for reminding me!

 

[Anonymous]

@abigail-m

Haha yes! I’ve learned to copy before posting, ’cause of how often the forum eats my posts. XD

Thanks! I think I’m def gonna do it.

So I didn’t permanently stop working on TAS (I would never do that), but I had set it aside, intending not to work on it for several months. In the meantime I tried to come up with other story ideas because I wanted to write a different novel (or so I thought). I did come up with a novel idea for a fantasy recently but only worked on it for about two weeks before I realized I didn’t care enough about the characters or their story. Now I’ve realized that the real reason I couldn’t come up with anything is because God is telling me to work on TAS until it’s finished. And I write to serve God’s will, so if I don’t work on TAS it’s like defying His will. Long story short, I’m back to writing TAS!

[Abigail.M.]

@joy-caroline

Exactly! XD I’d say that happens to 75% of all my posts, (the other 25% percent are posts that are less than a paragraph long).

I can definitely relate to that. Thinking I wanted to work on another WIP aside from my main novel. I’ve sifted through many more than I can remember, but the characters from that main novel always drag me back to the keyboard. Ooh, a fantasy sounds interesting! Can I ask what the title was? But that’s the best thing to do, to stop writing if you don’t care about the characters. Judy Bridges once wrote, “It can take two to five years to write a novel. During that time, you will be intensely involved with the characters, living their traumas, seeing and feeling the world through their bodies and minds. That’s entirely too much time to spend to people you don’t like.”
So anyway, enough of my rambling, I’m just super glad to hear that your back to writing TAS!!! 😀 😀

And as a p.s… : I wasn’t able to fully respond to your post before on publishing since I was getting everything together to go to camp, but thank you so much for you compliment about my poetry:) Btw, how did NaNo go for y’all?

[Anonymous]

@abigail-m

XD yes

I feel like you’re the writer on this forum I can relate to most, tbh. Not that everyone else isn’t completely awesome! But you and I are in quite similar situations because we’ve both been working hard on the same novel for a long time and don’t have any other projects we’re equally as passionate about. If ya get what I mean.

The title of the fantasy was The Prophecy of Freedom, which I realize was a suuuuper boring title now that I’m looking back. And tbh I even thought that at the back of my mind when I was writing the first 10 pages. XD If even the title was boring to me, that should’ve been a red flag. In contrast, every time I hear the title The Apostle’s Sister, I’m just so excited and intrigued! lol

I’m so glad I’m back to writing TAS, too!!!! And this time I don’t intend to stop until it’s finished, because I love Paul and Temira and their story more than anything. I totally agree that two to five years is muuuch too long to spend with ppl you don’t really care about.

Oh, no worries! How was camp? As for NaNo, it’s going good for me since I’m back to writing the story I really care about. 😀

[Keilah H.]

The Apostle’s Sister sounds awesome! Where and how are you going to publish it? I’d like to read it once it’s done!

Where'd I get ya this time? The liver? The kidney? I'm runnin' outta places to put holes in ya.

[Anonymous]

@keilah-h

Aw, thanks!! I’m not sure how I’m gonna publish it yet – still weighing the pros and cons between traditional and self publishing. If I do traditional, I’d like to try to get published at Zondervan or maybe Mountain Brook Ink. I have other publishing houses I like too and when the time comes to decide, I’m planning to dig deep into them and the other books they’ve put out.

It’ll probably be a while until I publish, but I’d be more than happy to have you as a beta or alpha reader when I’m ready if you’re interested!:P

[Keilah H.]

@joy-caroline Awesome!

Where'd I get ya this time? The liver? The kidney? I'm runnin' outta places to put holes in ya.

[GodlyFantasy12]

@joy-caroline maybe make it her husband who was killed, or another family member (even a parent or someone) and that way it’s not a constant brother & sister brother & sister duo in ur story. But that’s up to u (:

#IfMarcelDiesIRiot
#ProtectMarcel
#ProtectSeb

[Abigail.M.]

@joy-caroline

Aw, well thank you; yes I totally get what you mean because yes, we are in very similar situations with our novels, and even though we take (or try to take) breaks from our novels, there’s just no way possible to forget about them. In fact, even when I take a short break now and then, the characters still follow me around and just start acting out scenes in my head during a ‘break’ making me homesick for the story… even though the story has a tendency to repeatedly drive me nuts. But yeah, I don’t take many ‘breaks’ anymore from my WIP unless I have another deadline; I love the novel too much. And I’m so glad to hear that you feel the same about TAS. I usually don’t read Biblical fiction, but I can’t wait to someday read this novel:)
I like the title, The Prophecy Of Freedom. But I get where you said that the title bored you; that’s happened to me plenty of times over the past few years. I started novels to take a break from TSW. The Time Traveler and The Keep Legends were a few I thought I’d just write, but I couldn’t get hyped about the characters. And investing energy into their life stories just made me miss the characters that I wanted to invest in and so, yeah, I’ve done the exact same things many times and I still don’t know if I’ve completely learned my lesson there yet.
It’s an amazing thing to become excited just to hear the name of a novel you care about, whether you or someone you know says it, it just has this beautiful ring that makes you want to dive into it. I’m super happy to hear that title The Apostle’s Sister intrigues you because that’s an amazing sign to keep going and hang onto that idea for dear life.

Camp was awesome! It was a ton of fun, (tbh I couldn’t help but imagine my protagonist walking around the campground and imagine what she’d be doing if she were in my place). Thank you so much for asking 🙂 I’m glad to hear that NaNo’s going well and too true, too true, NaNo is a million times better when writing a novel you love. (I haven’t done one yet that wasn’t TSW, but I can imagine it being so much harder if it was not). 🙂 What’s your favorite thing you’ve written during NaNo so far? Like, what’s your favorite sentence that made you super excited to write it?

[Abigail.M.]

@joy-caroline

I just saw how long my post was after I posted it, (sorry about that).

[Anonymous]

@godlyfantasy12

Thanks for the input! The thing is, it’s kind of important that it be a brother who was killed, because the story would parallel Temira’s and point out that other women had to lose their brothers because of Paul. It’s important to the story’s themes. But I appreciate your thoughts and I’ll see what my beta readers say when they read it!

[Anonymous]

@abigail-m

Don’t worry about the long response! I love it; and everyone knows I’m the biggest rambler ever. XD

I totally get you. TAS kind of drives me nuts lol, cuz I don’t even know where to go after chapter four. *grins sheepishly* But I just love it so much and it won’t leave me alone, so I’m stuck. 😉 I’m honored that TAS can be one of your first Biblical fiction reads. (Cuz after that will come many more Biblical fiction novels, God willing!)

Right?? I think those two stories sound super cool, especially The Keep Legends, but if we aren’t passionate about what we’re writing, we can never expect that another person (the reader) would care. And again, I totally get ya. I keep drifting away from TAS to work on other stuff only to find that I can’t care about other characters while I’m supposed to be writing TAS and using that time to invest in those wonderful characters. (That was worded really confusingly, hope ya got it. XD) Yes, hang on to TAS for dear life is what I’ve finally decided I need to do, cuz the longer you wait to “get more experience” the more likely it will become that you never feel you have enough experience! Tbh I feel like that stems from insecurity, like I’m worried that because I’m a teenager it means I won’t be able to write meaningful Biblical fiction.

Ooh, cool! Imaging your character going camping sounds like a great writing prompt, haha. I’m glad you enjoyed camp! Yup, I thought I would do a different novel for NaNo 2021, but it looks like it will be TAS again just like it was last year. And I couldn’t be more satisfied!

*excited dancing* Well, I’ve been working on some character profiles for TAS, and Paul’s character arc is getting me SO pumped. (Which doesn’t come without the fear that I won’t be able to portray it in the actual draft the way that I do in the character profile, lol.) He’s the character I’m most interested to write – which isn’t a surprise. Haha. I’d say my favorite sentence from the character profile is this one – “His intense shame and trauma over his past as prime persecutor of the church keeps him from believing he truly has redemption, and without belief in his own redemption, he can’t convince others to believe in their own.” That’s when I knew things get real deep. *takes a deep breath in realizing I’ve got my work cut out for me*

[Abigail.M.]

@joy-caroline

Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re stuck with TAS because that is not a novel to ever consider giving up on! 😀

Ah, thank you! Yeah, The Keep Legends feel sorta ancient to me now, I may work on the novel again someday, but as you said, we can’t and really shouldn’t invest in novels that we the writers can’t get invested in.
That wasn’t worded confusingly at all! I totally relate, it’s like I have other cool novel ideas popping up, but once I get into the characters, none can really replace my TSW cast. I think that’s awesome that that’s how you feel about the TAS characters!!

“The longer you wait to “get more experience” the more likely it will become that you never feel you have enough experience.” Amen to that! Like that should even be a quote for all writers to read, JC!
From what I read, that holds a lot of writers back is just that: the feeling that you don’t have enough experience. I remember one writer who said that the way they once envisioned writing their novel was when they were like ninety-five; dictating their wise piece for the world. But the writer joked at his expectation since there’s always more to learn and never be at that ‘wise enough’ level because no writer will ever be at that level… not even Shakespeare or Dickens or Tolkien. All we can do is write and learn, from others and from ourselves. Wisdom like inspiration is something a writer can’t afford to wait for. I’ve known pastors who were old enough to be wise, but even they missed obvious things, overlooked important things, and messed up. Perfect wisdom, obviously, just is not human.
But with God’s guidance, I got all my confidence in you to write TAS:D 😀 😀 If anyone can write it, you can do it and every bit as meaningfully as any other writer out there. Even that sentence you shared, (thank you for sharing it btw:) was so meaningful… yup, you can do this. I can totally see how Paul would be your favorite to write, all this sounds fantastic!!! If you ever want to share some of TAS *raises hand* 🙂

[Anonymous]

@abigail-m

Thanks so much! <3

Yup, that’s so true. The great thing is you always have the freedom to set things aside, and if you want to come back to them later, you can.

Glad that wasn’t confusing. I relate to you so much, girl. XD

Aw, I’m honored that you think so! <3 #didiactuallysaysomethingwise XD

Yes, yes. You can’t just sit around and wait for inspiration. You have to actively pursue it, and that’s when you reach amazing heights. Oftentimes I’ve sat around feeling uninspired, then I force myself to write anyways and find myself really getting into it after a bit!

No one can be perfectly wise – so true dat. XD I guess that takes the pressure off us to know we aren’t expected to be! XD After all, it’s been wisely said that God doesn’t look for perfection, He looks for faith. So if we have faith in our writing, we’ll be able to achieve awesome things!

Aw, I appreciate that like you have no idea!!! You’re on the future beta readers list for sure!

Great chattin’ with ya!

[Author]

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