McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

1st vs 3rd

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LDWriter2:

--- Quote from: Serack on June 29, 2012, 08:23:01 PM ---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.

--- End quote ---

Has he added anything new there lately? Last half a dozen times I checked the last post was from months ago. But the last time I checked was about three months ago.

cenwolfgirl:
I checked a week ago nope
npothing new there since december
from what i can see
but might have mist omething
it dose happen

Winter_Knight:
Perspective is always a challenge, particularly for first time authors. I believe this is why many first time authors also have issues mastering compelling characterization: a lack of definitive perspective. Multiple POVs, while a driving force in their own right, can many times indicate a novice author's inability to determine the proper POV to begin with. Ironically, I detest first person POVs as far as my own writing goes, and little of anything I've written has ever had first person POV. I say it's ironic, because I absolutely love the Dresden Files; which, of course, is written all in first person. And written that way well, I might add. For me, third person offers way too much freedom to be denied (as far as my own writing goes, that is). I can't stand the idea of trying to craft a world where all happenings and information in that world must be obtained directly by association with the MC. Whereas with TP perspective, you can not only elaborate on happenings across galaxies and universes, you can switch to internal monologuing to obtain a sort of FP perspective from your MCs. I wrote one book, however, where I switched between first and third person perspective. I used the technique very sparingly in the book, and only when I absolutely had to show information happening outside of the MCs awareness. Which is why I guess Dresden has Bob, LOL

Ironically, though I meant to get to this discussion earlier, I have chosen today, and coming off of a critique I performed for another member on a forum that's sort of a writing group (as once I decided to e-publish my novel, I decided I needed all the help I could get, LOL). The work I critiqued has a POV shift I've never seen before and have never heard of anyone trying (which doesn't mean it hasn't been tried before, LOL). The author set up the story to shift from one FP MC to another. I gave her the best advice I could to deal with such a scenario (since all she had at this point was an introductory name simply preceding a section of text, which can really confuse the reader). The advice I gave her was when a new character was introduced as the FP to transition with the first sentence in TP, then do the next sentence in TP internal monolgue, then start the next sentence in FP. The point being that whenever you have a multiple TP story, the most critical thing to remember is transition, and to master it so that it's smooth and renders as little confusion to your audience as possible.

And by the way, I once read in a Writer's Digest book/mag (whatever it was, LOL) that even advanced authors have issues with the multiple POV technique, but that several have pulled it off skillfully. It's all part of honing your craft, as was mentioned by a previous poster. You live, you learn, you get Luv's. No... wait... that's not right.  XD Srsly though, if anyone ever masters this art so there's nothing more left to learn, let me know. And start a seminar. Because I guarantee you, well established New York Times Bestselling authors are gunning for shotgun. Writing is like Life; you don't stop learning until you die. (LOL I made a list of said authors, but it's rude to put words in people's mouths, so I generalized it.) XD

Edit: Reading Mr. Butcher's article on this subject (the one linked earlier) and realized that I erroneously merged TP and VOG POVs. Apologies to all. Thanks goes to Jim Butcher for educating me on this. (Y)

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Winter_Knight on July 02, 2012, 01:20:00 AM ---only when I absolutely had to show information happening outside of the MCs awareness.

--- End quote ---

I think part of my issue here is that I am having great difficulty coming up with a reason why, in a principally first-person story, such a piece of information could exist.  Would anyone care to offer me an example ?

OZ:
The only reason that I can think of to do this is to build tension. If you know something is happening that the main character doesn't, it can heighten the tension as you wait to see how he/she is going to deal with it when it surprises them. Maybe there are other reasons but I can't think what they would be.

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