Aminah Iman's Blog - Posts Tagged "amwriting"
Great minds do NOT write alike...
Hello, Loves and welcome to another Inside the Nation. Seeing as our 8-series cross-over book, Order From Chaos, is just weeks away, I thought I’d talk about the experience I had when it came to writing another person’s character. Let me be clear, we all wrote for our own character in their individual chapters, but they had to interact with one another. So, if my character Sari and Omega’s character Liam were having a conversation I had to write for Liam if it was in my chapter… Get it? That happened more times than not and in the beginning, it was difficult. There was a lot of ‘Acaleus wouldn’t speak that way.’ Or, ‘Sari doesn’t dress like that.’ So, we had to change it. One good thing we did was go back and read all of the books included in this cross-over, it took a while, but we wanted all the main characters fresh in our minds as well as the villains they were facing. During this wonderful journey, I learned a few things.
One of the first things I learned was, although all of the ladies in Red Ink write about the supernatural, we all have very different writing styles. Let’s take my Sari, for example, she is crass and unpredictable, she has a big heart and a bigger mouth, and she is a great hunter, but she is vulnerable when it comes to her family. I write her extremely gritty and personable with a hint of insecurity. One the other hand Jacqueline’s Gabriel is an 18-year-old half demon and half angel with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He has a smart mouth and can be very aggravating, but his heart is golden. In my opinion, Jacqueline writes him perfect, me on the other hand, would probably write him too mature for his age, or too cocky. When it was my time to ‘speak’ for Gabriel, I had to do it in the manner in which Jacqueline would. You’re probably thinking that would be easy, but believe me, it isn’t. If you want to do it right, you have to write like the author.
Another thing I learned was every author has a signature style. Each and every one of us has something familiar in every one of our books. If you’ve read one of my books and turn around and read another, but my name isn’t on it, you’d think, ‘This reminds me of an Aminah Iman book’. With that being said, while writing this book, we had to stay true to each authors signature. I had to continuously remember that I had to write these characters the way their authors would, not how I would. It was challenging but well worth it.
We had so many obstacles in using 8 different series in this book. It was an idea that I was against in the beginning, but so glad I agreed to in the end. We clashed and complained, I probably yelled and screamed, but in the end, we came out Epic. I cannot wait for you all to read this on 10/31/17 but until then, as always, I wish you all Happy Reading.
One of the first things I learned was, although all of the ladies in Red Ink write about the supernatural, we all have very different writing styles. Let’s take my Sari, for example, she is crass and unpredictable, she has a big heart and a bigger mouth, and she is a great hunter, but she is vulnerable when it comes to her family. I write her extremely gritty and personable with a hint of insecurity. One the other hand Jacqueline’s Gabriel is an 18-year-old half demon and half angel with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He has a smart mouth and can be very aggravating, but his heart is golden. In my opinion, Jacqueline writes him perfect, me on the other hand, would probably write him too mature for his age, or too cocky. When it was my time to ‘speak’ for Gabriel, I had to do it in the manner in which Jacqueline would. You’re probably thinking that would be easy, but believe me, it isn’t. If you want to do it right, you have to write like the author.
Another thing I learned was every author has a signature style. Each and every one of us has something familiar in every one of our books. If you’ve read one of my books and turn around and read another, but my name isn’t on it, you’d think, ‘This reminds me of an Aminah Iman book’. With that being said, while writing this book, we had to stay true to each authors signature. I had to continuously remember that I had to write these characters the way their authors would, not how I would. It was challenging but well worth it.
We had so many obstacles in using 8 different series in this book. It was an idea that I was against in the beginning, but so glad I agreed to in the end. We clashed and complained, I probably yelled and screamed, but in the end, we came out Epic. I cannot wait for you all to read this on 10/31/17 but until then, as always, I wish you all Happy Reading.
