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- Feb 9, 2013
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So I wrote the first chapter on my WIP from the perspective of a 200 year old Dutch vampire with a somewhat quirky grasp of the English language. Now I'm told by friends that it's a really bad idea, that this is why Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot was never the narrator in her stories. Because anyone reading his quirky manner of speech will think that is my manner of writing and reject the MS.
I posted the first three sentences on a different thread and it got called awkward. I'm wondering if I should scrap the idea of using his voice as the narration. I also posted the first chapter on SYW but got no bites. This is the link:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=264222
I did some research into how people used to write way back and his strange grammar seems to fit. When you write vampires who have been out of circulation for a couple centuries, do you just update their manner of speech to conform to modern expectations? I felt that I was adding to the character's appeal by adding to the characterization but it's looking more and more like a mistake. :-/
I'd love to hear from y'all on this.
I posted the first three sentences on a different thread and it got called awkward. I'm wondering if I should scrap the idea of using his voice as the narration. I also posted the first chapter on SYW but got no bites. This is the link:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=264222
I did some research into how people used to write way back and his strange grammar seems to fit. When you write vampires who have been out of circulation for a couple centuries, do you just update their manner of speech to conform to modern expectations? I felt that I was adding to the character's appeal by adding to the characterization but it's looking more and more like a mistake. :-/
I'd love to hear from y'all on this.