The Point Of View you choose for your narrator is one of the most important decisions you make as a
writer, but there are choices.
You can use first person P.O.V. where everything is written from the
viewpoint of one character; second person P.O.V. – which is more unusual – where the main
character is referred to as you (‘You want scream, but you don’t...); the final, and most commononly used, option is the third
person (aka as omniscient) P.O.V. where the writer uses he or she in telling
the story.
I really admire those writers who can use first or second person as my preference is for the third person
P.O.V. It feels the most natural for me and I like that I can see both inside
characters’ heads and what is going on around them. But there are different ways of using this viewpoint.
1.
Complete
omniscience: your narrator knows everything about all the characters, events
and places in your story.
2.
Objective
third person: your narrator knows only what can be seen externally and recounts
it naturally.
3.
Limited
omniscience: your narrator knows everything about one particular character,
thoughts, feelings etc., but nothing about other characters other than what
your chosen character knows.
The last is my favourite and I’m using it in both
strands of my novel. Strand A is fairly straightforward as there is
only one main character whose journey I want to tell. However, in
strand B there are two characters, and I’m attempting to write about both their struggles.
The balance of focus between the two characters is around 60-40 with the centre of attention in one chapter being on one of them, and in the next on the other. This
becomes tricky when they’re together (which is naturally often...) but
I’m sticking to the advice I received about P.O.V. – be consistent. I won’t know till I’m
finished and and have some distance if I’ve succeeded.
Last week, after a several intensive rewrites, I won
that throw down wrestling match with my order of events and I have to admit it was very satisfying. It feels good to be making progress as I have only six chapters left before completing the
first major editing sweep of strand B, and at two chapters a week - if I keep it up - I’ll be on
schedule for finishing by the end of March. Yeah!
Today’s Haiku
COFFEE SHOP
HAIKU 1
She leans
forward; eyes
flash, hands wave, voice low, intense.
His eyes glaze
over.
Haikus Galore is on the back
burner but I have a plan – I just have to put it into action (like all
my other plans...).
Check out a book
of short stories called Roads Taken by M. Joaquim at the
Kindle Store, ebook only. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable little book.
Here are a
couple of websites about writing whose advice helps me in my writing;
And if you
haven’t read Stephen King’s book ‘On
Writing’, I would suggest you do.
For all book
lovers out there, I wish you good reading and for those of you who write, good
writing.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment