Much to my surprise, I started writing the fourth Phillip Gold novel the other day. And a good start I made of it, as well, completing a full seven pages. Wow.

I haven't arrived at a title for it yet, so I'm using "Luke" as a placeholder title, as in "I am your father, Luke," from Star Wars. That's because the book is all about the eight-year-old Phillip Gold's relationship with his abusive father. Not a great placeholder but better than nothing, I guess.

I'm experimenting with this new book, obviously, since my protagonist is just eight years old. That's fun but challenging to write. I keep having to go back over the dialogue to make sure his diction isn't too adult and his thoughts are no as well developed as an older person's might be.

The first seven pages are made up entirely of dialogue: not a single word of exposition. Another experiment. The idea is to alternate between dialogue-only scenes involving young Phil and the court-appointed psychiatrist and third-person narrative scenes that take the reader into the events of the novel. If it works, it should allow an exciting mix of insight into the character and straight-out action, with details of what occurred emerging slowly and with some amount of tension.

If it works. The jury is still out on that. Still, it's fun to write so far.

Tags: Phillip Gold