When I set out to write this book, I originally started my story with Nathaniel as an eight-year old boy and quickly moved him through the years to the age of twelve going on thirteen. I liked how I did that and I thought at the time that I was a genius. I wanted to show off so I signed up for a critique with a literary agent at one of the SCBWI conferences around 2012. He made me so furious. When I left that meeting I knew my story more than he did. Who is he to say what he said?
What did he say you ask that made you so mad?
He said, “I’m a little confused. He is eight years old on this page and two pages later he is twelve going on thirteen? Why not just start his story when he turns thirteen and skip those five years where nothing happens.”
It was a blow to my ego, a blow to my creative self and a big blow to my art. And you know what – he was right. Here is what I learned. Our ability to write or even to do something great in this world, no matter what it is, depends on our ability to take constructive criticism. This literary agent gave me an important thought-provoking insight and it was up to me to shelve it or to listen.
If I listened that meant I had to change a lot of paragraphs around and revise the first half of Chapter One. That also meant part of Chapter Two had to be revised. Do you know how hard it was to revise entire sections? It is not that hard any more but thirteen years ago it felt monumental.
A little later in that same critique at the conference he made another profound statement. He said, “You don’t really know your main character’s voice yet do you?”
How did this man, who I didn’t know from Adam, know so much about me and my insecurity? Of course I don’t know his voice, I don’t even know my voice! I want to be a writer but who do I think I am? No one will want to read what I wrote. Do I think I am a fantasy writer in the same caliber as Tolkien or Rowling or L’Engle or Barrie or Lewis… those giants of the literary world, those masters of words and worlds and storytelling! I knew I wanted to be. I knew I had something special in my story – maybe not as epic as the others, but big enough for the average reader to sink their teeth in and have a good time reading multiple books.
That is what I needed. I needed to know my own voice before I begin writing my final draft (the draft that goes to the editor). I did not find my voice until January of 2020, eleven years after I started writing my first book, The Boy with a Magical Pen.
In that elven years from 2009 to 2020 I wrote the first book, most of the second book, part of the third book, some of the fourth book, some of the fifth and I had ideas on how the story would end. But still I did not have my own voice. I read multiple books on writing, I finished the course at The Institute for Children’s Literature, I read the great novels to learn writing style and at the end of the day I still did not have my voice.
What would it take?
Let me go down a small rabbit hole to explain. When I was twenty-three I started my own lawn care company. At that time I read well over fifty books on business. I cut grass when I was a kid growing up. I knew how to cut grass and I had all the information on how to build and run a business. I had a whole book shelf full of books in case I got into any trouble. All I started my business with was an intuition and the basic skills of lawn mowing. The rest would have to come over time and I was cool with that.
That is what I did in January of 2020. I said to myself, I have the basic skills as a writer, I have books on writing sitting on my bookshelves in case I get into any trouble and I have an intuition. I think this story is good enough to be on someone’s book shelf and I think the story itself is generational which means I think it will hold up over time.
Then I thought, I will write the best story I can write for me, for no one else and I will play around with words and I will give myself the freedom to do whatever I want to do in the story. I will rely on my imagination but instead of it being my imagination I will give it to my main character Nathaniel and I will see what he does with it. It will be his imagination, his personality, his voice, his trials and troubles, his victories and losses. I will stop trying to insert myself into the story and it will be his story and his story alone I will simply narrate it. I will make his voice strong and he will be the hero of his story and me, well I will become invisible. I will make myself invisible. This story will be about him and not me. My whole life has been about me. For once I want to make it about someone else. I want to write Nathaniel’s story, not mine.
That was it! I wanted to write Nathaniel’s story, not mine.
That revelation set me free. I will write his story not mine.
There is a teaching in the writing community that goes something like this: write what you know. I would like to clarify that statement just a little bit. I say start writing with what you know and then be willing to let go of what you know, when you know the timing is right. Sorry I couldn’t resist – the play on words was just too tempting. In all seriousness, writing what you know will only take you so far. You have to stretch the imagination, stretch your ability and stretch your understanding if you really want to write something good.
The voice of the main character, at least for me in this story had to be strong. It had to stand out. I couldn’t be the author who second guessed himself. I had to know my story through and through. I finally found my voice (as a narrator) and I found his voice too. It is the reason why I wrote this prologue the way I did:
Many people throughout the world have heard the name Nathaniel Hancock, but not everyone knows the whole story; the details, the little things and the history that has led up to his coming and his ascent into greatness. Those things have gone unnoticed, and for a time, unappreciated. What you are about to read is the full narrative of his life and the events that have come to shape the Inkworlds, and the New Renaissance as you know them today.
His story was set in motion somewhere southwest of Boston, Massachusetts…
I knew his full narrative. I knew all the ins and outs. It was time to go back and re-craft the opening paragraph. It was now time to begin. And where else to begin his story except to begin with his imagination.
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