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!