Novel Writing

When working on my novel, The Metamorph of Sao Joaquim, (still with my literary agent), I heard the main character's voice only in Portuguese. The setting of the novel is Brazil. So it makes sense that the story could be in Portuguese, but of course, I was writing the novel in English. Every other character I heard was in English. But the main character's voice was so strong in Portuguese that I was worried I'd be translating her dialogue into English. It would sound like that recent film adaptation of novel, Love in the Time of Cholera. Filmed in English, it felt false with the Spanish accents. I would have preferred the cadence of the Spanish language. (And I'm biased because I prefer the stories and style of Pedro Almodóvar films.)

So how did I get my character to express herself in English? Through cutting the first four chapters. The original first chapters were very cinematic. (Ocean at Santos beach, image begins in the water -- little did I know I'd end up liking scuba diving.) The reader at literary agency liked the cinematic opening, but Wayson Choy felt the book was stronger starting at chapter 4. And I felt he was right. This led to a lot of reorganizing and rewriting. And after so many years working on this novel (so many drafts), it was not unusual for me to suddenly cut 5000 words and write something completely new.

Starting the book at chapter 4 provided room for the main character to flourish. Suddenly she was far more integrated and her voice was in English. She became more like the Brazilians I knew when I lived in Brazil in 1983.

Previously I had used the main character as a device to move the story from A to B. I was also afraid to find out who the character really was. I didn't want bits of me in her. If I put myself in, my personality, my reactions would dictate the storyline versus letting the story unfold as it should. And this novel is not about my life in Brazil. It's a twenty year distillation of the red soil, the blue sky, and the desires of the people I knew and cared about in the town called Sao Joaquim.