Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

So for today’s talk, I wanted to briefly consider point of view. I have heard many people talk about how they disliked first person pov, including some on the flist. That always surprises me since it’s such a prevalent pov, at least in books I read. As I put up my review for the fourth Percy Jackson book I saw one of the other reviews calling first person pov ‘cheaty.’ Really? Cheaty? If anything I would have put that label on third person omniscient as we flow from one person’s point of view and back again all within a few sentences.

That is another pov I know people actively dislike. I just started another mystery and it’s using third person omniscient and I’m thinking ‘people aren’t going to like this.’ (Then again each book in this series has won the Agatha Christie mystery award). If there were any pov I could be said to dislike is second and even that I’ll tolerate.

Honestly, I think all the various points of view have validity and don’t see any as a ‘cheat’ in telling a story. I usually pick my point of view subconsciously, whatever I feel fits the story better. Usually when I start ‘hearing’ character voices, they’ll tell me what pov it is or even if it’s mixed and alternating by chapter from first to third (like the Agatha Christie book I just finished).

They all have their challenges. First person, of course, limits us to only what the pov character knows and it’s only his/her opinion that we get intimately. If we need to know something from a third person either the pov character has to be told or we can do the alternating chapter thing (but I see that less often in published fiction). Third person omniscient is challenging in that it is easy to lose people while head hopping around. In first person I find I often have a great deal of trouble keeping the tenses correct and that is very annoying to me. I haven’t really attempted second person pov for anything longer than 1000 words and don’t really plan to.

Again, mostly I chose the pov before I begin to write. I do tend to do third person limited more often than most. It’s probably the easiest to write, up until the time you realize you shifted from one character to the other in the same paragraph and you’re not supposed to be in that other character’s pov yet. For the erotica, I prefer to not use first person pov because I tend to get a little too florid otherwise. Probably one of the harder fixes for me to do is to change pov once I’ve started. If I started in first person and realize it really needs to be third (or vice versa), it’s rough going back and converting it.

So how do you all perceive point of view? Do you care one way or the other when you pick up a book (I do not) or will you not read something if it has XYZ point of view? How do you tackle pov?

I’m waiting on a second run through for Demon Hunter Novella so I can resubmit it. I’m slowly trucking away on the vacation story. I still can’t decide which story to write for nano. Like I said, I know I have a built in audience/potential publisher if I do the demon hunter novel but on the other hand, I really have always wanted to do the living goddess story and this might force me to quit playing around. I think I will need to take a serious internet break when nano rolls around.


some helpful links.

Got this one off twitter and it's about using Facebook to promote you and your work. mistakes on Facebook

got this from a friend tor publishing Tor is a major publishing house and it is worth noting they DO look at unagented work which is quite unusual.


Yearly word count -

66706 / 125000 words. 53% done!

Vacation in Victoria-

2664 / 10000 words. 27% done!

FMA Big Bang (I think I’ll be sticking with my original idea just because I know I really want to see it illustrated) -

1907 / 15000 words. 13% done!

Comments

[bay115.livejournal.com]

I'm okay with whatever POV the author chooses, although I will point out some mistakes here and there if a story/scene that's meant for that character's POV suddenly shift to another charcter's POV. It depends on the context of the story. As for how I chose POV, I too decide on that before writing the story and it'll mostly deal with how I want the story to be delivered.

Oh, while I'm still here, got done looking over the first chapter of your Riding With Strangers story and will be emailing you my suggestions and thoughts in a few minutes!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah that's pretty much the same here. If you were reading Machiavelli moon you'd be smacking me for the tense issues but if there is a pov slip, I would want to know about it since yes i've done that more than once.

okay cool

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

Timely post. I've been struggling with POV ever since Camp NaNo, when I split up my protagonists after committing to third-person limited (Maru's POV). When we follow Toshiro on his business away from Maru, do I continue third-person limited, Toshiro's POV, and try to put the reader in Toshiro's head the way we've been in Maru's all along? Switch to third-person omniscient and stay out of Toshiro's head (which is probably a very dangerous place anyway)? Roll with Toshiro's personality and let the tone and writing style change when I'm in his POV? I'll probably end up doing the latter, since I really want my readers to "ride with" the characters and feel like they know them. I kind of wish I'd gone with third-person omniscient from the beginning, but somehow it just seemed too impersonal for a story in which the two heroes' personalities play such a big part.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

it is tricky, isn't it? I probably would have alternated btw the two men from chapter to chapter or something to get both of their personalities coming through. The ominscient pov isn't easy nor does it always sit well with readers but they often don't seem to mind 2 or 3 points of view so long as they are well defined

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

I'm staying out of Toshiro's POV because he's mostly oblivious to his own foibles. You only see him the way he really is from the outside--he's a one-man theater production. Plus, on a practical level, he figures things out too fast, and writing from his POV would tip off the solution to the mysteries too quickly. Maru is an ignorance filter, like Dr. Watson in the Holmes stories, who keeps the plot rolling while the genius does his thing.

Mainly, though, I just don't like being in Toshiro's head :P. He isn't amusing from the inside, he isn't likeable, he's hard to relate to, and he's best tolerated in small doses.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

well i don't blame you there. Poor Maru, destined to be the slightly befuddled Watson.

And will Maru have to enter the ranks of characters we stare at and wonder about their love choices

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I have to go through my stack of rejections to see if I sent RoF to TOR yet...

I usually write in third-person with a single POV character at a time (alternating chapters or sections), but if the story calls for it I have written strong first-person. Usually it depends on how the story works best or how the character's voice sounds when they're handling their own narration.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

good luck.

right, again that's mostly how I do it too

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of characters who make good first-person narrators, but Sean Patrick is a rambler. He tends to go off on tangents (it's hard enough to keep him on point when I'm writing him third-person).

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i can definitely believe this. My females tend to be better first person narrators than my males

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Matt & Cody's adopted son Danny has turned out to have a very strong first-person voice. Della isn't too bad, although I've never written much.

I wonder if I should try a first-person Nano? {musing}

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

it would be something different

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

I've attempted first person several times but find it tough to make it work for me. I think I miss the ability to blend an authorial narrative voice with the POV character's, drop authorial asides, vary the distance from the POV character, etc.

As a reader I'll take anything done well. However, I think omniscient third person seems to be the most difficult to pull off. For me, if you've got multiple POV shifts within a scene, it has to be written skilfully for it not to be distracting.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

no argument. I think first person is tough to write. I do it. I enjoy it but it is much harder than third person for me


And yes, it's very easy to get distracted by the shifting povs in omniscient and sometimes the povs chosen are baffling

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

I don't have a preference (although I find second a little distracting, I guess just because it is so uncommon) as long as whatever is used is used consistently and kept in-character. I got an object lesson in the difficulties of first person in my first long fic, which I just started writing in first person (Gojyo's POV) without giving it a second thought. That was all well and good until I got to the first porn scene -- I realized to my horror that Gojyo would, realistically, only have two, or at most, maybe three words for the male genitalia (as fond as he is of his own) which makes writing a lengthy porn scene somewhat difficult. Using only his more earthy words, it was hard to keep it from sounding like a cheap porno flick (not that I wanted it to sound like a Regency romance, but hopefully you get my point.) I think first person, well-written, can be fun to read and very insightful - especially in fanfiction where the characters are ones we already know.

Third omniscient feels a little "cheaty" to me sometimes, depending on the story. For something more plot-driven, like an adventure or mystery, it can be wonderful. If it is a fic focusing on character dynamics (which most of mine are), I find third person limited the best artistic choice, because it's more like seeing the scenes through that one person's POV, and lacks the distraction of the head-hopping of the omniscient. But I constantly have to whack myself to keep the POV focused and not slip - it's something I have really been working on lately.

*LOL* It occurs to me I feel about POV like I do about dealing with kids - it almost doesn't matter as much WHAT you do as that you do it well and - more importantly - consistently.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

LOL* It occurs to me I feel about POV like I do about dealing with kids - it almost doesn't matter as much WHAT you do as that you do it well and - more importantly - consistently.


This, this is so very true. Well everything here is but this especially.

And yes, I find first person in the middle of a sex scene to be awkward. I try to avoid it and Gojyo would have all the crudest words for a penis

[hierath.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those "not a fan of first person" people. I will read books written in first person, and I respect people who can write them, because I'm darn sure I could never write a whole novel in first person! The closest I've come so far is Art of Forgetting, which was strictly first person limited, because it was very much Rhodri's story and his alone. "Spark" has three very distinct plot strands that draw together as the book goes on, so having three ditinct sections with different POV is easier. It's one of those "whatever you feel comfortable with is right" things!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

It is challenging to write in first person, IMO. I think third is easier and yes with something like you're describing for Spark, third person would definitely be better. You probably couldn't pull it off in first.

[enemytosleep]

I'm not a fan of reading first person POV. Even when it's done well it still feels a bit awkward to me (I find it awkward in movies/tv when a character narrates as well). I don't think I've written much or any first person myself, either. Give me third person limited any day.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

since that's very interesting since Ioften find third person more awkward and excluding but I don't mind it since so much is done in that format.

What I do not like however is breaking the fourth wall and having the narrator talk to the reader (or watcher in terms of TV/Movie)

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

It really depends. I like 1st POV but it's often abused in bad bad ways. Especially guilty is UF. But I've read overlly "voicy" 1st a lot and a lot of really distant 1st and I don't like either one.

limited 3rd is my fave. I write it most.

Omniscient is a tough sell. I think Terry Pratchett does it awesome! Lots of things, even trees have gotten a POV in his books and it's wonderful, but it's something I could ever maintain.

2nd person is so maligned I devoured Choose Your Own Adventure and D&D CYOA when I was a kid and I loved them! Now it's like super daring to write to write 2nd. That YA book YOU-everyone was all over like that guy INVENTED it or something... So I was annoyed by that.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

there are definite abuses on first person in UF, no doubt of that.

I think most of us feel more comfortable in third person.

Ominiscient is a very tough sell

I used to love the pick your own adventure things but outside of that I don't much care for 2nd person. I've never even heard of YOU