4. Being John Malkovich
Podcast Transcript:
“In my mind I wandered to the desk beneath the dining room window, the one that looked over the back yard with the big tree that begged for a swing. I saw myself open the drawer and pull out one of my hand-painted cards. I watched my fingers close around a pen and the message spill out beneath its nub, terse and honest: I’ve been taken. You’ll probably never see me again. Sorry about the carpet. I know how much you loved it. Aiya. No ‘Yours Truly’ or ‘Eternally Yours’ or even the divine gesture of ‘Love.’ Just Aiya.”
I am Alanna and this is Racing Home, the podcast where I unpack the journey of writing the first book in a series about the end of the world. Welcome.
Today I wanted to talk about point of view because even from the first moments of writing this novel I have struggled with this strange insecurity around how the story is presenting itself. So, for the most part it's coming out of me in third person. I have a huge cast of characters from different places in the world. It is a global story. So most of that is in third person and what that allows is permission for the narrator — me — to provide insight on all these characters. But there is one specific character —you heard a little clip of her right in that opening excerpt — she came out right off the hop in first person.
First person is an internalized narrative. The reader is only seeing the world through that character's eyes so it's very limiting, but it's also really rich because it can give access to a really kind of intense internal dialogue which you you just don't get in an omniscient narrator — in an omniscient style, which is third person.
I've been unsettled about hopping between the two. The majority, like I said, is in third person, but every time there's a scene with Aiya, it is first person, so you're switching from this wide lens to a really tight Focus. In many ways that's really special and adds a whole new element and dynamic to the entire narrative, but then I also have this insecurity that readers aren't smart enough to get it; which is, obviously so wrong and unfair. So I apologize in advance because it's not true. The problem happens if the writingisn't good. So my intention will be to write it … I'm going to write it really well so that, ultimately, when you're reading it you don't even notice something changes. There's a shift but you're so immersed in this world that you don't really recognize it.
I don't know if you remember that old movie Being John Malkovich. I feel like it was maybe in the 90s the early 2000s — but it would jump between scenes of the whole cast and then scenes from inside John Malkovich, looking through his eyes. Literally.
I don't want to create something cooky, but I mean I just think it's okay, but in my insecurity I posed the question on my Facebook author page just to get a read on the general response of people, I kind of explained my struggle: do you care if a book jumps point of view?
I'm going to share some of the responses because they were really great.
JT Maxwell who is actually an author I'm working with — very excited about his book that's coming out in 2024 — he just said “tell the story - you got to tell get it done get it down and go from there.” I love that. I mean that's really the only affirmation I needed to move forward, so thank you JT.
Jennifer Moffett — who's another author I've published — she says “I don't have a strong opinion about POV and I think it wouldn't bother me or I wouldn't even notice it to be honest. As long as it made sense for the story, a good book is a good book.” So my response to that as I've already said is the ultimate goal would be to make it unnoticeable. That is really the true measure of success. Your techniques and your approach is invisible. So though an author may have poured their whole heart and soul into this story, so much time and energy, so much overthinking happens behind the scenes, that hopefully when you pick up the finished book you have zero sense of that. Your response should just be wow, this is a great story told really well. How how did they do that? How do they make it look so easy? That is ultimately what I want.
Someone else, Brianne Lily, who has been kind of a longtime reader of mine, she says “it's absolutely fine to have a bit of bounce back. That actually keeps me more engaged in the story.”
So all this is to say that I feel a little more affirmed and secure in the way the character of Aiya is presenting and I've decided I'm not going to fight it. I'm going to allow her to keep speaking in her own voice and I guess I will have to re-evaluate once the whole manuscript is complete.
There was no one in that thread of comments — and I didn't read them all to you — but there was no one who said ‘absolutely not, do not do that, that ruins the story, it pulls me out, it changes the action.”
I did it in Black Bird so I don't know what I'm so hung on up on.
I think we all struggle with impostor syndrome no matter whether it's our first novel or our 10th novel and there's always little insecurities that are going to sneak in. And of course I am afraid that no one is going to buy this book no one is going to care. That's dumb and it's not fair and I don't think it's actually true. This is just the reality of pouring creative energy into something because though my goal is not to get rich, I do want to justify the time a little bit. I think that's okay. I will say though, that I am getting great joy out of exploring this story and unpacking it more and more. I'm also very pleased to let you know that I have maintained this new commitment to write first thing in the morning: to sit down and open Scrivener before I check email, before I I do any work, I do my work. I work on the thing that is feeding my own creative needs.
So as you know my goal is 70,000 words by December 31st and today I'm recording this on October 27th and my word count is sitting at 4,149, so that's just over 1,600 words. It's not a lot, but it is progress after years of letting this just stay stagnant and making excuses and putting it off and putting everyone else first I'm making progress.
One of the really great things that Scrivener does is it allows you to set a word count goal and an end date, so I have inputed 70,000 words, December 31st, 2023 and it actually breaks down a daily word count goal so I know exactly if I show up every day this is how many words I need to write and I believe when I opened it this morning it said 219 words a day. So every day I write more than that that numer’s down the next day and, you know, back and forth — so that is a great little bonus, this tool that comes with it that really is helping me stay on track and understand how far I have to go. It's also great because it makes something that feels huge and unattainable really palatable.
So 219 words can happen so so quickly.
Because I've made it a priority to do this first thing in the morning and often there's just a burden of all this “to do” but I know if I sit down I write my 200 words that takes me 15 minutes - 20 minutes… like this morning. I brought my coffee down, sat at my desk, opened my computer, and by like 8:24 I think I was done. Like, I was in here at just after 8:00, so it makes it so attainable and intentional and I really like that like a bite-sized chunk of writing. It's so minuscule but it's making a really big difference in my own confidence and belief in this project and knowing that that's the first thing I check off every day is really affirming and actually really powerful and allows me to say with confidence I will complete this manuscript, my draft will be done, and I'm so excited for the next stage because the editing stage after the first draft is done is actually my most favourite part of my own work. I don't like it so much on other projects by other people but for my own it's really fun to see things really come together.
This weekend I am facilitating a little write-in at my local library branch where it's just 3 hours where writers are invited to come in and sit together and just quietly work on our projects and just be in gentle support of one another. I anticipate a good little chunk of words happening there. And then the next weekend I am hosting a 12-hour intensive at the art gallery which is 12 hours of writing in a gallery surrounded by art and other creatives. It's my most favourite writing event to host. I do it twice a year and that yields thousands of words in that time. Every time I've done it it's been so helpful and it pushes my story so far, because surrounding yourself with others who have similar goals and in this case that goal is just to get words down, you feed off the energy of others who are dug in. So just being in a space, looking up from my own screen to see others intently working on their own projects is really really powerful and I feel really lucky that I actually get to create a space and host the those writers. I'm really excited about it. Obviously this podcast is airing well after that event so you're going to have to wait a little bit for me to report back on how that went but anticipate some big jumps in my word count and hopefully some exciting new discoveries along the way.
I'm going to keep on letting Aiya tell her story while I tell the rest, and we'll just wrap things up here with a continuation from that little excerpt I opened with. I’m glad you're here.
“I’d been Just Aiya for a long time now. I had thought the pregnancy might spark a bit of what we once had at the very beginning. It didn’t. It only served to pull us farther apart. I was North and he was South. The equator was a pipe dream set in a secret place with damp sweet air; a womb without room for regret. We would never regain entry. Better to be Just Aiya than turned away at the door of my hopes.
My ankle slammed against the frame as they hoisted me through the door and I cried out. I wanted my shoes. The white ones with the hemp laces. I felt foolish being outdoors in slippers. Their boots crunched on broken glass, grinding it into the welcome mat. I imagined Ryan coming home, stepping on the glass, swearing, calling my name. I imagined how his voice would echo through the empty house and how he’d pick shards of glass from the sole of his foot and toss them in the ficus plant. Aiya isn’t here, asshole. The lions ate her!
They carried me down the front steps. I could smell the begonias my mother had planted in the front garden a week earlier, their sweet scent wafted over my kidnapping in a nodding gesture of farewell.
My mother’s voice reached me through the wind. This is the last good thing you’ll know, love. Don’t let it go. It might save you.
I tried to struggle. Of course I did, but I was so confused and dumb with shock I didn’t find the fight that should have exploded out of me. I thrashed about in their arms, weak, like a fish on a hook already conceded to its fate. I arched my back and reached out to grab one of the blossoms, crushing it in my fist and holding onto it like gold. There, there, child, calm yourself…What would the neighbours think?
The sky was so blue, rich and azure, like the eyes of the boy I’d loved as a child. Everything slowed and I twisted my head to let it all soak into my memory, a jumble of confusing images lacking any shred of empathy towards me—though, in all fairness, I hadn’t even thought to scream in my panic.”
Chin up, Bright Eyes. We'll chat again next week.
Racing Home is a Chicken House Press production; theme music by Alex Grohl and Alanna Rusnak
If you would like to support my writing journey with a small financial donation you may do so by visiting bio.site/alannarusnak That link is available in the show notes. You can make a donation of any size of your choosing and it will go towards funding the production of this book. Writing takes a lot of time, a lot of energy, it requires a lot of coffee and chocolate. So if you want to help out that's one way you can do it. Donations over $50 will be automatically signed up to receive a signed copy of When the Trees All Burned at least one week before official launch.
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