One of my favorite ways to tell a story is from multiple perspectives. I did this in my first novel to mixed effectiveness, but with For Liberty… I think I found the right rhythm. Telling a story from multiple different stories present a few unique challenges.
- They need to be equal but different
- It’s a challenge for an author to not pick a favorite story when you’re writing multiple that intertwine. If you don’t care about all your stories then why should your reader?
- Each needs to develop it’s characters.
- This was one of the greatest lessons I learned with For Liberty… I had secret agents, politicians, journalists, military members, and old farmers. I had to take each of them on a journey and leave them changed by the end of the book. Because I was splitting 80k words between four stories I didn’t have a lot of words to do it in, and that made me purposeful in the story I told.
This is on my mind today because I’m nearing the end of …With Justice. It is the sequel to For Liberty… but it has a different feel. It’s less mystery and more thriller. It follows the same design on a basic level, four stories geographically diverse that combine to tell the overarching story. The biggest difference is that we already know these characters, and that leaves more room for the story to fill the pages rather than the characters development. I both love that because I get to play with plot twists and at the same time I miss getting to know these people. I’m loving the new stories that are here, and the emotional bonds that are forming.
It’s off to beta readers in two weeks. *fingers crossed*
-kurt
