I had a great story to tell which became It All Started in Mandalay, a love story about an expat teacher in Myanmar who was very happily married in her home country but came to Burma to make enough money to enable her children to go to school. Like most expats living and working in a foreign country, she discovered so much more than money. She found a beautiful Myanmar man and they had a baby together which led to so many complications. She could not marry the man because she was already married and in love with her husband. She could not have an abortion for a variety of reasons and the child could not stay in Myanmar. To find out what happened you have to read the book and I hope you will to find out the answer to all of the unanswered questions you may have.
I knew I had a great story that is repeated throughout the world more times than you can imagine and I was passionate about telling it. It had great characters, a wonderful plot and many powerful themes, but i was left with a rather important question. Who was going to tell this story?
In the first draft, I wrote from the point the point of view of the expat teacher, the new mother. It was complicated because I had so many characters and it was hard to bring out their character in her talking voice. When I gave the first draft to a few people like my brother, he said the book sounded like a North American male writing. Since the first person was an Asian and a woman, I figured I needed a major rewrite.
What next? I used the third person throughout except the end which I put it in italics and used the voice of the grown up daughter telling her side of the story which brought all of the lose ends together.
Since the book was written, I have learned that there was another way of doing this. I just put down JodiPicoult's new book, " Leaving Time" which is quite insightful, by the way, especially if you like elephants.
She has about four main characters and she simply labels the chapters with their names and talks in their voice, first person. This works amazingly well and I wish I had done it. I think my book would be more powerful and "real"
I know by looking at the sales records, I have sold my book in Europe, India, all over Canada and United States. If you are one of the readers, can you write me please and let me know if you think what I did works and if you think it would be more powerful to use the first person for each of the characters so that they could tell their own story.
If you have not read the book yet, please do so and keep sending me feedback. It is a great benefit for what I am writing now which I cannot wait to tell you about by it will have to wait for another blog article.
What next? I used the third person throughout except the end which I put it in italics and used the voice of the grown up daughter telling her side of the story which brought all of the lose ends together.
Since the book was written, I have learned that there was another way of doing this. I just put down JodiPicoult's new book, " Leaving Time" which is quite insightful, by the way, especially if you like elephants.
She has about four main characters and she simply labels the chapters with their names and talks in their voice, first person. This works amazingly well and I wish I had done it. I think my book would be more powerful and "real"
I know by looking at the sales records, I have sold my book in Europe, India, all over Canada and United States. If you are one of the readers, can you write me please and let me know if you think what I did works and if you think it would be more powerful to use the first person for each of the characters so that they could tell their own story.
If you have not read the book yet, please do so and keep sending me feedback. It is a great benefit for what I am writing now which I cannot wait to tell you about by it will have to wait for another blog article.
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