In my current work in progress, I started with third person. By using third person, my central character did not have to be in every scene. Yes, when you write third person, you are in the heads of different people and may fell like you have a multiple personality disorder, but we are writers. We talk to ourselves, so people think we are crazy. Might as well embrace it.
As I said, I started with third person, but something did not feel right. Was it the point of view? Maybe. I did not want to rewrite pages and pages of scenarios that would not work with third person. Call it misfortune or something else, but my computer died and I lost everything. You would think I would have learned early on to back up everything, but I did not. I do now.
I found myself forced to start over and I am writing my story in first person, restrictions and all. Do you want to know something? I fell in love with my story. By using first person, I became my main character, saw her world through her eyes. This point of view works because my story is a historical mystery. How many of us have sat with our parents or grandparents and listened to their childhood or war stories. With my story being a first person mystery, the reader learns things when my main character does.
A few things to remember with first person. Can you trust what the person is saying is true? Agatha Christie's The Murder Roger Ackroyd, anyone? You can have more than one person talking. Robert Louis Stevenson did that with one of my childhood favorites, Treasure Island. Some contemporary examples would be Breaking Dawn, the last book of the Twilight Series (I see those eyes rolling.) and The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. Caution needs to be taken when switching characters. You may confuse your readers and risk losing them. Each voice needs to be different.
I'll leave you with a homework assignment. Take a scene and change the narration. Does the altered point of view change the feel of the scene or characters? How?
Melissa Robbins
5 comments:
Hi Melissa! Great post. Writing scenes from various points of view is a great exercise, especially when something feels off. I've also read suggestions to write a scene in first person to gain the immediacy, to really see, hear, feel, etc. what that character is experiencing and then change it to third person.
I haven't written any books in first person, but I have done at least one character bio that way. I have also written scenes from the hero's POV and then from the heroine's POV to see which one works best.
Thanks for joining us on the blog!
This is a great post on writing POV, and trying something you're maybe not comfortable with. Writing third person is by far the easiest way. Since I'm a lazy, but prolific writer, I almost always use this method. But I have written some first person short stories and enjoyed the challenge. And it is definitely a challenge.
Melissa, great post. I've often thought about writing a book in first person but have never tried. I've read authors who have multiple characters and each one will get their own chapter in first person. It's not confusing that way. One writer even used a different font for each character.
Melissa, great post. I've often thought about writing a book in first person but have never tried. I've read authors who have multiple characters and each one will get their own chapter in first person. It's not confusing that way. One writer even used a different font for each character.
Melissa, great post. I've often thought about writing a book in first person but have never tried. I've read authors who have multiple characters and each one will get their own chapter in first person. It's not confusing that way. One writer even used a different font for each character.
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