Friday 10 April 2015

Storifying my guest appearance on #UKMGchat: All About Dual Narratives

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By Candy Gourlay
On 9 April, I guested on the vociferous #UKMGchat, a twitter chat group devoted to middle grade in the United Kingdom. Here's a recap of our night of tweeting (you might have to wait for the embedded tweet images to show up):

I didn't spot this question so I will answer this here - a dual narrative only works if the reader wants to read both stories. I  have read dual books and skipped one voice because I didn't see the point of the other. There has to be a point to using the dual narrative structure.

Agents and editors had no problem about it. I have since talked to children who tell me how theyhad to get their heads around it.
There are many ways of structuring a dual narrative - you can alternate voices, places, time periods ... check out this blog post I wrote giving examples of dual narrative.
I liked how the minor historical narrative in Holes, paces itself so that every reveal adds to the frisson of the other story.
Although I don't think the independent stories that weave through Shine count as part of a multiple narrative because they are only small components of one storyline and do not carry on through out the book.

Screenshot of trending topics
View an unexpurgated Storify of the chat here

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