ALJ. Welcome, Elan Barnehama. Your essay “ Showing Up” published inFRIENDS: Voices On The Gift of Companionship brings the opportunity to spotlight some craft issues. 'Showing Up' follows a chronological timeline. Before we focus on  other craft issues, let's look at chronology. Did you consciously choose this structure, or did it evolve out of the experience organically?

Spotlight on Joys of Finding the Story and Editing

BH. My writing tends to evolve during the revision process. I love editing. The re-vision. That’s when I find the unintended story. I like to shift paragraphs around and then rearrange sentences within each graph. And finally, I move words around within sentences to improve impact, rhythm, and meaning.

ALJ. I agree. I also love the editing phase. My first drafts are as ‘shitty’ as Anne Lamott describes in Bird by Bird. But I find a sort of magic can occur when rewriting and editing. We can add meaning and find surprise metaphors to advance and even hints of ideas we didn’t know we owned.  We find the voice of our narrator. You chose an adult narrator looking back, which allowed you to reflect and even use humor.  “If we couldn’t get them (girls) to like us, then we tried to get them to have sex with us.  Equally unsuccessful ventures.” And then in the next paragraph transitioned into “one evening,” easily moving from analysis to story.  Did you consciously decide to use an adult reflecting narrator and how does this compare to the narrative point of view you select for your fiction?

Spotlight on Point of View

EB. It was important to have the POV of looking back as these friendships are special because they have both depth and breadth.

My forthcoming novel, Escape Route, which takes place during the summer of 1969, the time I met these friends, echoes many of our experiences and has a similar first-person narrative voice. While Escape Route is not autobiographical, it has many biographical elements.

ALJ.  You write about yourself with a willingness to expose foibles that create a charming narrator character on the page.  Do you change your narrator voice for different first-person writing pieces and does this evolve from the writing or do you deliberately choose the voice?

EB. I try to create distinct narrative voices. My first novel is written in alternating chapters with third-person limited views of the two main characters who are women. Escape Route is a first-person narrative where I tried to capture the narrator’s age, high school, and the period, 1969, but also, and maybe more importantly, his POV. This meant that the voice evolved as the plot evolved.