As writers, we already know that the stories we write aren't really ours- they belong to our characters. We're just the vehicle chosen to tell it. Being chosen, well, that can increase the size of your ego tremendously. You start to feel like Jack Dawson leaning off the edge of the Titanic, like a BAWSE, and feel you can do no wrong. You got this! You're ready to tell the f*ck out of this story.Well slow down, crazy, and remember that it's not your story to tell. Remember that you have to let the character dictate how best to relay the details. You are not king boss, the protagonist is (unless of course you're writing a memoir in which case, carry on you nutty megalomaniac you!). If the two of you work together the results are immeasurably sweet--you BOTH get to have your voices heard!
I say this because in 1997, during the height of my full-on, 110%, DON'T-BOTHER-ME-WHILE-MY-SHOW-IS-ON obsession with the NBC crime drama "Law & Order," a story was born in my head of a young woman who committed a murder and got away with it. I wrote out scenes and outlines and bits of dialogue to steer the story down the path I wanted. I dreamed up clever scenarios and how my protagonist would react to each one. This was about to be one helluva novel!
Then it wasn't.
Something refused to mesh in the way I was telling the story, but of course I was too power-mad to notice and kept shoving my POV on the characters. But in January of this year I was hit with a mega light bulb- "Let this girl tell her story, Raquel!"
And so I gave my heroin her voice, which in turn gave ME a voice. Because yes, it is her story, but a friend reminded me this weekend: I'm the only one who can tell it:
Happy Creating!
xoxo,
Raquel Ivelisse
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*painting: "To the Unknown Voice" by Wassily Kandinsky
