Finding this very helpfulmelinda_goodinOctober 15 2015, 06:27:10 UTC
I don't know if you ever got to read my Shattered Kindred manuscript, but that was in mixed 1st/3rd POV depending on the chapter's narrator. I'm finding this fascinating and informative and smiling at the authors of the examples.
I think a lot of writers hit the wall of awkwardness by not realizing that there is always a narrator, who is not necessarily the author.
Of late I've been trying to tease out free indirect discourse, that is, when the narrator slides out of POV to convey info and stays in the same voice to furnish a fact that the character couldn't know, or wouldn't think.
Yes, I find that gets tricky, and is harder to hide (or easier to see) in 1stP than 3rdP.
My current WIP is 3rd person omni, somewhat intrusive narrator, and I'm finding it difficult, but fun to write since she (the narrator is female, I think) has a subtle sense of humor.
I'm still learning how to take advantage of that narrative POV to give info to the reader that the characters aren't thinking about. Mostly I try to keep it to a paragraph or two at most, use that sly humor to keep it interesting, and do it at scene changes rather than interrupting action.
Transparent 1stP is definitely common in urban fantasy, but also common in YA fantasy. That both these genres are generally read/written by women is an interesting coincidence that I discuss a bit more at length in Part III, which I'm posting tonight (I hope).
I'm actually shifting a book from that second kind of 1st person pov to third. It is crazy hard because I have to rewrite it completely, not just swap out pronouns.
Anyway. Interesting reading, thanks for the posts.
Ugh many reasons, but the main one is I've locked myself into a persona of YA writer, so alas if someone picks up a story of mine that begins in 1st person present with a narrator who is 18, than it is assumed that I am writing YA, no matter what I do within the story.
Which sounds a liiiitttle bitter, and I fully admit that it is, but the story is not YA, so my options were either to make it YA which i didn't want to do, or make it more acceptable adult fantasy, which has required this huge tonal shift plus another pov.
Ah, so the book is intended for an adult audience. I know you had problems with people thinking your "YA" novel seemed targeted young, when really you had intended it as a MG novel all along.
Wow, this, too, applies directly to what I'm going to post tonight.
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Of late I've been trying to tease out free indirect discourse, that is, when the narrator slides out of POV to convey info and stays in the same voice to furnish a fact that the character couldn't know, or wouldn't think.
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My current WIP is 3rd person omni, somewhat intrusive narrator, and I'm finding it difficult, but fun to write since she (the narrator is female, I think) has a subtle sense of humor.
I'm still learning how to take advantage of that narrative POV to give info to the reader that the characters aren't thinking about. Mostly I try to keep it to a paragraph or two at most, use that sly humor to keep it interesting, and do it at scene changes rather than interrupting action.
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I'm actually shifting a book from that second kind of 1st person pov to third. It is crazy hard because I have to rewrite it completely, not just swap out pronouns.
Anyway. Interesting reading, thanks for the posts.
Reply
Reply
Which sounds a liiiitttle bitter, and I fully admit that it is, but the story is not YA, so my options were either to make it YA which i didn't want to do, or make it more acceptable adult fantasy, which has required this huge tonal shift plus another pov.
Reply
Wow, this, too, applies directly to what I'm going to post tonight.
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