SNIDE has multiple viewpoint characters. If you’ve read Diplomancer, you’ll know this is not something I am unfamiliar with – and when you get to read Light Touch, you’ll see it a lot there – but I am tweaking it a little this time around.

Diplomancer’s switching viewpoint came in handy because, having two main protagonists, it let me change the scene when one was about to do something uninteresting – like travelling or sleeping or something – and it meant I could keep the story flowing. The switch was a tool, and while I’m still very proud of how I used it, it was a little limiting. I had two protagonists, and very rarely did I allow someone else a say in the grand scheme.

I hadn’t intended to do this at all in SNIDE, seeing it originally as a single protagonist only, but this is where writing gets fun. I can’t work to a rigid outline because I need the magic of the story almost telling itself as I write, and in turn this has meant that SNIDE has presented its own view points for me. Some of which are the baddies.

Writing the bad guys – which I’ll probably talk about tomorrow – has had the added bonus of letting me flesh out the world I’m building. The audience is allowed to know more than any of the characters, which is a thing I’ve not done too often in the past, and therefore I can use that to trick them just as easily.

With each change comes a different set of motivations and voice, which can be a tricky thing to maintain but is oh so rewarding when I manage it. I think it’s made SNIDE a much better book, purely because it has let the characters expand themselves at their own pace.

And I’m not even halfway through yet.