How Do You Find Your Writing Voice?

anonymous asked:

Hello Rosy I'm having trouble deciding whether I should reveal something to my readers early on in the story or in the middle. Basically, my FMC used to be very affluent but lost all her power to her enemy. The MMC is working for this enemy but is pretending to help FMC. I can't decide what will cause the most tension: the readers knowing he works for the villain the entire time, or having it revealed in clues to the reader with a bombshell drop in the middle just as the MCs are becoming friends

sometimesrosy answered:

That is a very hard question to answer because it’s a narrative choice. You can definitely do it both ways. I think POV might be the most important consideration. Do you want the reader to stay with the FMC and what she knows? Or is it omniscient POV and the audience has a wider view point? 

I think if you’re doing omniscient third person, then it makes sense to tell the secret plot. The story will be more about the political machinations and the net drawing closer around the FMC. 

I tend to write in close third right now, so it’s important for me to stick with only what my POV characters know. If I stuck with the FMC’s POV it’s going to be more about her reactions to what she knows to be true. I couldn’t reveal the plot because she wouldn’t know of it. But she would be reacting to suspicious clues and perhaps tracking them down. This would be more of a mystery. Or if we’re talking about emotions, that would make it pretty dramatic, betrayal, pain, lies. Maybe verging into melodrama, so you have to be careful there.

Sometimes I do alternating POV third, so that would allow the secret from the MMC and HIS struggle to reconcile his plot with his developing relationship. Which is an interesting story. We’d get her growing suspicion AND his growing internal conflict and perhaps his changing loyalties if that’s where you’re going.

HOWEVER, you COULD reveal that tension without telling the whole plot through the MMC behavior. Which could be REALLY interesting and would cause a lot of uncertainty for the reader as they and the FMC try to figure out what the deal is with the MMC. 

I probably wouldn’t reveal it. Although I like the one where the MMC is conflicted and we see his struggle with the plot. It really depends on what you want your story to be about, I think, and that’s where the authorial choice comes in. 

These are the hard choices that decide the path of your book. And sometimes they are the wrong choice and you have to go back and switch it in revision. That’s hard, but not the end of the world. You could conceivably write the MMC pov in a way that it can be removed from the story at any point and still be coherent. Or a separate story all on his own. If it’s not omniscient, I think. It would be harder if you wrote with an omniscient third person POV.