Caroline Starr Rose

picture book and middle-grade author

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"Quilting" a Book: A Colorful Visual for a Dual-Voice Verse Novel

7 Comments

If you’ve been a reader here for any length of time, you might know I’m a bit obsessed with the “verse novel as quilt” metaphor I first made up when writing MAY B. For those of you interested, here are a few posts where I talk about the idea.

Quilting a Verse Novel, With Thanks to Darcy Pattison
Will Verse Work for Your Story?*

As soon as I realized my new verse novel, BLUE BIRDS, would be told in two voices, I knew it was time to “quilt” again, this time to see the balance (or imbalance) of points of view. Here are the first three quilts I created for BLUE BIRDS. Though it improved as time went on, the draft I sold pretty heavily leaned on Alis’s narration.

Guess what my editor said? We need to hear more from Kimi, especially in the beginning and the middle.

This is my quilt after first-round edits.

Alis is still the primary narrator, but Kimi’s portions have definitely increased. I’m curious how this draft will look compared to future edit rounds and the final book itself. Expect several more quilts in the months to come!

If you are a quilter, I’d love to chat. I have this crazy idea about commissioning a quilt once this book is done. It would be a great visual for school visits.

*The Amy mentioned in this post sold her own verse novel, RED BUTTERFLY, a few months ago. Look for it February 2015!

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Filed Under: Blue Birds, May B., the writing life

Comments

  1. Augusta Scattergood says

    October 16, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    Our minds must be communicating across the miles this morning. I just blogged about multiple POV writing. Not quite the same. And not always a verse novel, but something to think about as we open our computers today. Love your visual!
    Oh, and here’s the link should you be inclined to check it out! http://ascattergood.blogspot.com/2013/10/counting-by-7s-pov.html

    Reply
    • Caroline Starr Rose says

      October 16, 2013 at 1:48 pm

      Love this, Augusta. Is your new book a multiple POV? It’s been fun to learn little snippets about it over the months. You’ve got me thinking…

      Off to see your post!

      Reply
  2. Carrie Monroe says

    October 16, 2013 at 1:46 pm

    This is a really cool visual for your book and a helpful way to figure out the multiple POV thing. Well done.

    Reply
    • Caroline Starr Rose says

      October 16, 2013 at 1:49 pm

      Thanks! It’s been a quick, satisfying way to see the book all at once. Sometime I’d like to “quilt” with sub-plots in mind or maybe character interaction. We’ll see.

      Reply
  3. Marcia says

    October 17, 2013 at 9:27 pm

    I love the visual. And I *really* love the idea of you commissioning a quilt to bring to school visits. Imagine having a “final quilt” of each book…

    Reply
    • Caroline Starr Rose says

      October 17, 2013 at 10:46 pm

      Me, too! Know any quilters?

      Reply

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