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As I explained in my first and second posts, I decided to write my memoir from a child's perspective. But since the book covers a period of my life from age nine, when I was diagnosed with cancer, to age twenty-one, when I competed in the Paralympics, I also felt that the voice needed to mature along with me as the story progressed.

So I divided the book into four different voices, four different maturity levels. The differences between them are subtle, and deliberately so because I wanted the changes to happen slowly enough that you only notice them in retrospect, like when you look at a photo of yourself from a few years ago and realize that you've aged. But behind what I hope is a smooth progression in narration style is a carefully planned set of rules for each voice. Here are the four stages as I outlined them before writing the book:

Voice One: Early childhood
(Age six to ten)
Plot events: Cancer diagnosis, leg amputation, chemotherapy treatments
Characteristics of voice:

• Limited vocabulary. Avoid medical terminology like "diagnose" and "amputate." Instead, use childlike phrases such as "found the cancer" and "cut off my leg."
• Awkward, run-on sentence structure that sounds like a child's thoughts. For example, here is a passage from the preface, where I am describing a foot rub my Mom gave me in the hospital:

She rubs my toes and then moves up to the middle where the arch is and then down to my heel, kneading my foot like pizza dough, the kind with the dark brown whole wheat crust and spinach on top that she always makes--the kind that tastes terrible. We always ask her to make pizza with white crust and pepperonis because we don't mind about eating lots of fat and cholesterol and having heart attacks when we grow up, but she still makes her whole wheat crust and spinach-on-top pizza every week.

• Write with limited perspective to allow the reader to read between the lines. For example, see the passage I quoted in my second post for this series.
• Attribute dialogue as "Dad says" rather than the more formal "says Dad." (i.e., "'Joshua, it's time for dinner,' Dad says.")
• Connect lists with conjunctions rather than commas whenever possible. For example, use "the hospital is full of doctors and needles and medicine" instead of "the hospital is full of doctors, needles, and medicine."
• Refer to prosthesis as "fake leg."

Voice Two: Late childhood
(Age eleven to thirteen)
Major plot events: Cancer relapse scare
Characteristics of voice:

• Attribute dialogue with the more formal "says Dad" instead of "Dad says."
• Use more commas in lists.

Voice Three: Teenager
(Age fourteen to seventeen)
Major plot events: Start training for the Paralympics, transition from homeschool to public school

• Refer to prosthesis as "artificial leg."
• Increase vocabulary, reduce awkwardness in sentence structure.
• Introduce colloquiums and conversational expressions like "pretty much," as in "it happens pretty much all the time now."

Voice Four: College/adult
(Age eighteen to twenty-one)
Major plot events: Making the Paralympic Team

• Refer to prosthesis as "prosthesis."
• Use full adult vocabulary.
• Provide occasional insights and reflections.
• Let writing flow naturally. For example, compare the child's voice sample above to this passage near the end of the book:

Riding the lift silently through the trees I listen to the peculiar quiet that you can hear when you're surrounded by snow, a quiet that you can actually feel in your ears, like sonar. All skiers know this sound. It's as if the snow absorbs the faint white noise and reverb of everyday life.

That's the rubric I used when I was writing the book. As I said, I hope the changes are more subtle than the list format would imply, but this is the structure behind the story.

That concludes my series of posts for the Penguin blog. It's been a pleasure sharing some of my thoughts about the writing process with you. Please feel free to drop me an email anytime or to keep in touch on Twitter, Facebook, or my website.

For more information on Josh Sundquist, visit his website: www.JoshSundquist.com

Josh Sundquist, Just Don't Fall, Paralympics, athletics, skiing, Penguin Books