Writer's Grove

Switching Teams

Since I’m not a “trained” writer, but rather a self-taught novelist, I never took the class where the teacher made me write outside of my comfort zone. I always “wrote what I knew” and “wrote what I wanted to read,” because I figured doing that well would be challenging enough without adding any extra obstacles.

But now I’m outside the ol’ zone. There are no sports. What I’m wearing suddenly matters. My beer is wondering what the hell I’m doing with that wine cooler in my hand. For reasons my conscious mind does not want to explore too deeply, I’m writing a short story from the first-person point of view…of a woman.

Now, maybe it’s not that big a deal for you, but it’s undiscovered country for me. I have plenty of female characters in my books, but they’re all filtered through my main character’s POV, and he’s male. I’m comfortable inhabiting his headspace. But the head of this new character is really different. I feel challenged, horrified, ebullient, seductive, empowered, and depressed all at once. Thinking like a woman is hard. Has anyone else tried switching teams like this? Is there a trick to it? How did it go?

Not sure how this one is going to turn out yet. If it goes well, you’ll be able to see the results at the end of June. :)