Darragh Ó Bradáin

As I’ve written the first two chapters of my new story “When Sunday Ended”, I started thinking about the fact that both novels that I’m currently working on contain a male protagonist. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. What I’m getting at is that I’ve encountered a new challenge in my writing. I need to be aware of how both characters are different, otherwise I’ll end up writing them as the same extension of myself.

Both characters have very different backgrounds. One’s from Cork, the other’s from Dublin. One’s the nervous sort, the other not so much. One struggles to make connections, the other is learning how to make connections in an unfamiliar setting. Not an exhaustive list, obviously. The problem for me is that I write dialogue a lot like I’d imagine myself speaking in a fictional setting. As I develop my skills as a writer, I’ll need to check myself more often. Each protagonist needs their own voice, not mine. If I were to put both finished stories (I wish!) side by side and asked a reviewer to read both, I would hope that they wouldn’t come back to me and say that it’s the same guy, just a different book.

Rambling aside, Seán and Jack inhabit two different spaces and serve very different purposes to their respective worlds. Let’s keep it that way!

And finally, I got my second rejection today! This time from a UK-based agency. It only took six days before I received my response, so on the bright side, I didn’t have to wait between eight and twelve weeks, which is the industry standard. Yay for me, I guess?

I will persevere, now I’m writing roughly 1,000 words a day instead of 500, so I’ll get to those rejections (or acceptances!) that bit quicker.