Midafternoon, Wednesday, October 11, 2023, Lithia, Florida
Hi, there. (Again.)
I’m 95 minutes into my scheduled “novel-writing” time, and I’m wondering what narrative style to use for Chapter 12. Presently, I have two options, both of which would work – if I do my job right – but have different styles and challenges.
Option No. 1, which I think of as the Path of Least Resistance, is to write Chapter 12 in the same way I wrote Chapter 10 – and, by extension, every other Jim-and-Maddie chapter. Straightforward prose narration, like most of the novel.
Option No. 2, or The Epistolary Chapter, will show Jim and Maddie’s email correspondence as they strive to keep in touch with each other whilst Maddie is away on business in her native city of London. I have never done an epistolary story before, but I did use email – which was still a newish form of communication – at least for me – back in 1998 when I wrote the first version of Reunion: A Story.
Of the two styles, “Epistolary” will be the tougher to do since this will be the first time that I use it in a story. Epistolary stories and novels exist – I have one, e: A Novel, by Matt Beaumont, in my Kindle queue – so doing a chapter this way is not groundbreaking. I just have never done anything like this before, but I’m willing to give it a go.
And, look, I even have an email handle for Maddie! Here it is – Maddie_Musica97@hotmail.
(I don’t want to add the suffix “com” at the end because Word adds a hyperlink whenever I leave it there.)
Anyway, feel free to share your opinions about the possibility of Chapter 12 being told as a series of emails or Maddie’s email handle.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
Comments
4 responses to “On Writing & Storytelling: Settling on a Distinctive Style for Chapter 12 is No Easy Task”
I think the email angle could be good, but I think it would work not just to have the communication, but also what each of them is thinking about before they send it and after they receive the missive from the other person.
Ex: Jim gets Maddie’s email from somewhere. He debates what he is going to do, then decides to write. We get into his head and see all the misgivings he has writing it and then the tension after he sends it waiting for the reply (we do see the email as well). Then we switch to Maddie receiving the email, what she thinks, what goes on in her head, then when she responds we see that…. and on we go for a while
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I dunno. That would be so time-consuming for me. The epistolary novel I’m reading now, e: A Novel, is a good example of a true epistolary novel: it tells the story through emails only. (It’s hilarious, too. I’ve only read a few pages and it’s very reminiscent of “The Office.”) If I did what you suggest, I might as well go all in for a straightforward narrative. I’m a decent writer, but I’m not so adept at it that I could do a hybrid of epistolary and prose.
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i think the emails could work for you.
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We’ll see. Right now, though, I’m leaning toward a more conventional approach.
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