Writing Dan

Almost always, I write in first person past tense.  There are a lot of reason for this which I won’t go into here (that’s another post).  But what it means is that, sometimes, I have trouble figuring out who the narrator is going to be.  Sometimes, I can see different scenes from both guys’ POVs, and I have to really sort down and decide on who is going to tell us the story, which one is better.

Other times, it’s obvious right from the start to me who is going to narrate.  And that was the case with Dan.  From the very beginning, way back when I was still writing Something Like Hope and he was nothing more than a side character with only the barest hint of possibility of him having his own story, he had an incredibly strong voice.  I knew him and how he would react to any given situation.  Well, I thought he was straight, but other than that… 😀

So it was obvious to me that Dan was going to be the POV character.  This would be his story of falling in love.  And through the many incarnations his story went through, that never changed.  And I tried to write all the bits about his character that I found the most appealing.  His strength and his caring and his compassion.  His sometimes silly and goofy moods.  His sometimes ability to get easily distracted.  His huge capacity to love.  He’s certainly not perfect, but he’s lovable, and I tried very hard to show it.

I hope you’ll give Dan a chance to tell you his story.  Something Like Peace releases December 13th!