When Writing Feels More Like Acting

We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Kent is writing epigraphs for the third Science novel. As with book one of that series, the epigraphs are excerpts from the in-world science fiction novels written by one of the characters.

We need these snippets to have a voice that’s distinct from the Rune Skelley voice. They need to feel like they’re from a different era. So, to create them entails getting inside the mind of their fictitious author.

All fiction entails getting inside the minds of your characters, but this is something verging on stunt fiction. Get inside this character’s head, while she’s getting inside her characters’ heads. Write like she would write, and then rewrite like she would rewrite. Thank goodness these things are brief!

For the middle book, we gave this fictitious author a break and excerpted a story told by someone else. The process bore much similarity, even though the resulting epigraphs that time were quite a bit shorter and more interconnected.

Now we’re back to how we started, except that our in-world author has been through new experiences, some of which shook her. How does that color her writing? How does she cope with other constraints (which would be gigantic spoilers if we told you about them)? We don’t want to just serve up another batch of the exact same stuff, but we do want to do more of what’s good. It’s a tricky balance. Kent had some initial ideas that Jen had to nix. Those mystery constraints clamped down hard. Fortunately, Kent believes that constraints fuel creativity, even if they also prompt the occasional tantrum.

Having a writing partner means you have someone to run lines with you and help you get into character.