Young Writers Society

My Story has my main character exploring a haunted house, I would like her to go in by herself but she needs to be speaking or she wouldn't talk with no one around. First draft had her talking into a recorder, the net one had her connected to a friend via radio. I really hate the last idea, and the Recorder is annoying me. Should I make her:

1) Tape-record, mainly because it sets up the sequel
2) Friend, but halfway through she loses contact with him and he calls the police, which kills the story.
3) Give her a voice in her head.
4) just let her talk to herself.
5) let her go silent until she meets up with someone.

Feedback please thankyou!

Hi!

This is a difficult choice ... partly because all of the options have their fallbacks in a way, but also because each one of them would actually work.

The tape-recorder one seems the most useful if it sets up a sequel, but you'd need to have a definite reason for her going in there with a tape-recorder rather than a "Oh, gosh! A tape-recorder ... I shall use this!" moment.

Friend works as well. If you did this, maybe the first part of the story could be 3 or 4 - her talking/thinking alone - and then her phone rings? So she's intending to go at it alone but ends up talking to him in the middle of a really tense part. It doesn't necessarily have to kill the story if you play it right.

3/4 could get a bit ... boring if used for an entire story so they would work with either friend or meeting up with someone, just not on their own.

Personally, my choice would be for talking/thinking alone followed by talking with friend, but the tape-recorder would also work well if you make sure it isn't just by chance!

Hope this helps, send me a PM if you want more help.

Amy

Well, does she have to speak out loud?

Every day, we all have our own internal dialogue going. We have thoughts about the things going on directly around us, and we think things that we might not necessarily say. It would work just fine to have her thinking to herself what you want to have her say out loud. Just make it clear that what she's "saying" is thoughts and not her talking out loud.

If she absolutely must be speaking out loud, I think the tape recorder way, or the radio way would work just as well too. Of course, they could alter the tone of the story depending on what you're going for. Or maybe you could blend a few of these to make it all believable?

Hope that helps! Feel free to PM me if you'd like to talk more about it.

-Lauren-