Canadian Stories by Kathy McWilliam

It looks like The Burin Girl won’t make an appearance this summer after all. However, she is still growing and she’s changing by the day. She should be mature enough and maybe even polished enough to make her debut by Fall’s end. Just in Time for Christmas! If I were any kind of marketer at all, I’d work that like a pro….

When I introduced Johanna on this site, I included a sample chapter, written in vernacular first-person prose. I’ve had occasion to re-think that approach and I’ll tell you why: people have told me it would be a bit of a slog to get through. Frankly, irritation would probably set in long before their ‘mind’s ear’ could grow comfortable with the unfamiliar word usage and rhythms. The book and all it’s quirky, spunky, tragic characters would enter oblivion, never to be revisited.

Well, I don’t know about you, but that’s not why I write! So I’ve been spending time, re-thinking and re-writing. There is still a lovely lilt to the dialogue where appropriate and some uniquely Newfoundland expressions, also, I hope, where appropriate.

Except for those chapters where Johanna herself is the narrator, the story is carried by a third-person narrator, not written in the vernacular. All dialogue is written in the voice appropriate to the character, and I must say, there is a lot of dialogue! It is my preferred method of driving plot and exposing motivation. Or at least, hinting at it. The reader can decide….

This image of Johanna and step-son Nickie graces the cover of the book. It was generated by AI from my detailed description.