I’ve finished Ralph’s diary and have interspersed his entries between the heavier prophetic writings of my character Shea, the Hosea figure in my novel.
I think Ralph’s diary entries serve a dual purpose. They’ll help break up those denser sections and they’ll give another view of my narrator, Iz, and possibly make him less “static” as the agent said.
Ralph can ask the questions, how is it that Uncle Iz, a man I like and look up to, whose company I much prefer to that of my father’s, could cheat on my Aunt Shea? How is it that Juanita and Hank, two people who share my faith, can care about my Uncle Iz, knowing what he did to my Aunt Shea? Maybe in the answering of those questions, some readers will have the patience to stick with Iz until his later transformations.
Or not. But I think maybe I can’t just change Iz to to please the ideologies of people I like or want to impress.
Now there’s the question, can I write authentically in the voice of a gay biracial Mennonite teenage boy?
I really want to send this section to my readers, but I know I need to let it sit for a couple days before I do that. I’ll use the time to revise my timeline.
Social tagging: biracial > Hosea > Islam Goldberg-Jones > Mennonites > Shea
