Guest Blog: Melissa Olson on Multiple First-Person Voices

Today my friend, author Melissa Olson, stops by to talk about her new book and the issues of writing more than one first-person series. You can also find Melissa (and me) at her online release party for The Big Keep later today, starting at 5:30 CT.

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I’d like to thank Alex for hosting me today, especially considering my topic is inspired by a blog that he wrote back in September called “Hearing Voices.” When I first read that post, I was already a published author with two urban fantasy books under my belt, both starring the same main character, Scarlett Bernard. Since then, however, I’ve written a new urban fantasy with a new protagonist, and I’ve also re-written a detective novel called The Big Keep (which, like many of Alex’s books, was heavily influenced by hardboiled authors like Robert B. Parker and Raymond Chandler).

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Each one of these series is written in first person, which means that there was a point this year when I was writing one protagonist, editing another protagonist, and promoting a third protagonist – all from inside their heads. Talk about hearing voices. I credit Alex’s blog as helping me think hard about how I wanted these characters to be alike and different. Since he already explained things so well – and since I’m a big fan of Entertainment Weekly’s often-hilarious use of graphics to explain things – I thought it’d be fun to make a little chart to show you how that comparison breaks down.

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If any of this sounds interesting, please check out the appropriate series (or hey, all of them – my kids want to go to college, too), and don’t forget to join me, Alex, and a whole bunch of other fantastic authors tonight at my Big Keep Facebook Release Party.

 

 

2 Comments on “Guest Blog: Melissa Olson on Multiple First-Person Voices”

  1. It does sound interesting so I did buy the entire series just now for Kindle and I am pretty excited to start reading.

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