McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

1st vs 3rd

<< < (3/7) > >>

Quantus:

--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on June 28, 2012, 02:54:10 AM ---It's hard for me to see an icon like that, or a POV name given at the start of a chapter, and not think "this writer has given up on being good enough to make character voices distinct by themselves".

--- End quote ---
Judging by the fact that his whole world had 2.5 female characters, just with different names and ages, Id say yes, probably so.

Honestly it most helpful because it made skipping through the books to the story-lines I cared about much easier  :P

The Deposed King:

--- Quote from: Sir Huron Stone on June 27, 2012, 01:45:11 AM ---I'm having trouble deciding how to write my story. It's easier for me to write in first person, but I like being able to bounce around in 3rd person. Any way to combine the two?

--- End quote ---

In Admiral Who?  The MC was 1st person.  The limited number of main secondary character were 3rd person close.  Kind of like how C.J. Cherryh did with Bren Cameron, about half a step back 1st person.  We were totally inside the MC's head, slightly less so in the 2nd Characters and they gave some interesting perspective.  Thing was I didn't force overarching views and over analysis of the MC from the secondaries perspective.  They were the hero's of their own little piece of the pie and only as the MC impacted them or in some cases was confronted by them, did perspective on the MC from them flow.

It really all depends.  Whatever you do you need to do well.  My advice just do it, and start honing your craft.  I stared out my book jumping around from 1st to 3rd on the MC.  Settled on 3rd most of the way through the book, but when I sat down to edit, decided 1st person was the only way to go.  Had to nuke some cool discriptors of the MC when I converted from 'the battle scared young Admiral said' to 'I said' but on the whole, being that extra half step inside his head came out much cooler IMO.

I'm sure others have much better advice for you.  But you can see what I did, and decide if it has any bearing on what you're planning.

have a blast,

The Deposed King

Nicodemus Carpenter:
People have been telling stories for a long time, and more importantly, people have been listening/reading/watching stories for a long time.  Audiences tend toward specific structures/devices/methods for a reason, and while the "why" of such tendencies are certainly open to interpretation and debate, "what" they are is a bit more concrete.  You can try to "mix things up" by switching tenses, point of view, etc. Lots of authors have done so, with varying degrees of success. Thing is, if you play with conventions, it's going to be jarring to audience immersion.  Shaking things up can be a good thing, but it must be handled delicately for it to have its intended effect. 

It's your book, and you can do anything you want with it.  The stories most often touted as "brilliant" often flout convention, but the reason there's so few of them is because it's very difficult to flout convention and still keep your audience at the same time.

I personally dislike books that switch between first and third PoV's, and I've yet to find an example where the same effect couldn't be achieved, and better, without resorting to that particular conceit, but that's only one person's opinion.

cenwolfgirl:
its a very personal thing
but for me i hate writing 3rd person
so always now do 1st person
i can still do POV changes
actualy it can be easia
it depends on your style and your story

good luck

Serack:
If you haven't you probably should read Jim's live journal post on first vs 3rd person
http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/1262.html

The other thing I wanted to say is that I remember recently reading about an important literary workwhere the author split the book up into 3 or 4 sections that were each had a different perspective.

Dangit, I'm trying really hard to remember what the book was, but the best I can do is that one of the perspectives was from a mentaly defficient character.  It might have been set in the great depression but I'm not sure.  I hadn't read it, just the wikipedia article.  The point is there is an important literary book from the 20th centry that switched, but only as seperate sections of the book.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page