I’ve started this book multiple times from different points of view and it has never seemed to work. I threw away my work, and started all over again because the voice was wrong and the writing sounded amateurish. But now I think I’ve finally found my narrative voice.

I started writing in the third person, but I had a hard time finding the tone of voice I wanted when I didn’t know who was telling the story. Then I switched and tried first-person present tense. That created a problem because much of the book takes place at different times in history and first person limits my visibility into those events. Then I tried first-person past tense, with third person for the chapters about historical events and characters, alternating between the two. Nothing ever sounded good. I simply could not find my authentic voice. 

Then one day I was discussing it with my wife, Suzanne, and telling her my frustrations when she said “Michael you are a great storyteller, why don’t you just tell the story? Stop worrying about this tense and that tense, just tell the story like you are talking to an old friend and telling him what happened over a drink in a bar.”

This got me thinking. What if I write it in first person past tense but break the fourth wall and talk directly to the reader? It sounds easy, but it’s not. I have to be able to write in a way that is somewhat informal, like a conversation, with a certain level of casual cynicism and personal insight, but without losing the reader by sounding like a self-possessed idiot.

I’ve written a prologue to the book that I think accomplishes this. Now I’m going to see if it works for the next couple of chapters.

Michael