I'm writing a novella at the moment called THE BOOK, set in the late 70s, early 80s. The book is a journal. And the whole story revolves around the relationship each of its characters have with 'the book'.
The mother, Penny, who always writes in it because she wants her daughter, Bonnie, to have it when she's older. The father, John, who wants to continue writing in it, but because he no longer lives with them, it makes things difficult. And Bonnie, who thinks the book is full of sadness because it always makes her mum cry, and the step dad, Ted, turn violent from jealousy. Bonnie wants to get rid of the book to protect her mum from its demons. But the book will end up bringing Bonnie's parents back together. That's the plan anyway. Who knows where it will take me as I write.
But there's a catch.
Penny and John's points of view are written in the form of their entries in the book only. And because they're separated, they've promised not to read each other's entries. The point of view of Bonnie is 1st person, present tense. So I'm writing like a 5-year-old girl would speak.
You know what is really interesting about this? The setup means I'm defying all the rules of the craft.
The journal entries are all just 'telling'. Bonnie's POV is young, so it's full of awkward grammar, repetition, plenty of redundancies, and words you couldn't even find in a mad hatter's dictionary. But it's how she speaks. And it's real.
And before you tell me a book like this isn't going to work, I'm going to tell you it is. It will be a project I will self-publish, so I don't need any agent/editor approval. And it will rip your little hearts out, folks. That's a promise.
Sometimes, we have to sacrifice the rules to make something real. This is one such case, and I'm damned excited.
Have you ever written anything that was 'technically wrong' on so many levels, but just knew it was right?
