Solveig's journal

[pegkerr]

From work

I realized this weekend that Solveig keeps a journal, which she writes in each night about her day. No, I don't mean that the novel itself will be a journal (e.g., Bridget Jones Diary). What I have in mind is more like the use that E.B. White made of Sam's journal in The Trumpet of the Swan, where each journal entry can help close a chapter.

I realized this because I wonder who Solveig might make her confidante. She'll tell some things to her mother, because they're close, but not everything. I was wondering whether I should give her a girlfriend to tell things to, like Carla in War for the Oaks (you don't tell everything to your mother, after all, particularly about your sex life). But then I thought, Solveig's an introvert. And she's a single parent, and so it isn't easy for her to go out for drinks after work to hang out with the girls.

So, a journal. It'll have to be a thinking-oriented, rather than feeling-oriented journal, at least at first (I figure Solveig's a Meiers Briggs ISTJ). It might be technically interesting to really scale back any of Solveig's internal reactions in the narration to events, and then only when you see the journal entries do you understand what she thought/felt about them--a way to help her seem introverted. And gradually, perhaps, the journal entries become more personal/introspective as she "thaws out."

Peg

Comments

[rhiannon333.livejournal.com]

I think the journal idea is excellent, Peg. Recounting only events and then saving her reflections upon events until the journal would help the reader's sense of her as introverted, as also would her lack of overt reaction from the POV of other characters in the events. All the best with the continued thinking and planning!

[kishmish.livejournal.com]

Great idea! It fits with her character, and even introverted people need some kind of outlet. I think it would give the story an added dimension^_^ Hope you end up using it.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Interesting that she's the character type that journals. Not what I would have expected.

It's a good literary device, though. You could either use real entries in the book, or simply refer to it in the third person as you fill in her thoughts and motivations.

B

Solveig's journal

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I think, actually, that she both writes and sketches in it.

She would never keep a LiveJournal. Too public for her taste.

Re: Solveig's journal

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

That's interting. Is it a journal with the occasional sketch, or a sketchbook with the occasional written entry? I kind of like the latter, because it's an "accidental" journal.

B