It’s been a while since I’ve talked about viewpoint, and first-person has been on my mind lately. First person seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it viewpoint. I’ve heard folks say that it’s the easiest viewpoint for a beginner to use, that no one should ever use it, that it allows for more believability, that it’s always [...]
December 1, 2010 – 6:08 am
Back in the late 1960s or early 1970s, Algis Budrys wrote an excellent series of columns for LOCUS magazine on what he called “cinematic prose,” using his Hugo-nominated novel Rogue Moon as an example. Alas, my copies have long since vanished into wherever things go when one has moved house multiple times over that many [...]
November 28, 2010 – 12:24 pm
I wrote my first novel, Shadow Magic, in what I now call “sloppy omniscient viewpoint.” Most of the time, a given scene would have a “viewpoint character,” but whenever I thought someone else’s thoughts or feelings were more interesting, I just jumped into that character’s head for a few lines. I also backed off every [...]
November 24, 2010 – 6:30 am
As I’ve said before, the terms “viewpoint” and “point of view” can mean two different things: either the viewpoint character or the type of viewpoint (first, second, or third-person). I’m using it in the second sense today. Third person viewpoint, taken as a whole, is probably the most commonly used viewpoint in fiction. There are [...]
August 18, 2010 – 7:32 am
From the mailbag:: I know some people who feel quite strongly about keeping to the main character’s POV except when it’s absolutely necessary to go to someone else, but I’ve also seen that rule (like so many others!)broken successfully. It can be so useful to show someone else reacting to the MC. Any guidelines on [...]
Last week, I suggested that people find books that have been reedited by their authors for a years-later reprint, and compare before-and-after versions. To show you what I mean, I’m going to post the first chapter of my first novel, Shadow Magic, which came out in 1982 and which I revised ten years later for an omnibus edition. It’s going [...]
January 27, 2010 – 3:35 pm
Another thing that it is really important to pay attention to in first-person writing is what that character knows. Not what he/she knows about the plot; that should be obvious. About everything else. When your first-person narrator looks at the street outside his house, does he see Fords and Chryslers and Saturns? Or does he see red [...]
January 25, 2010 – 2:00 pm
As I’ve said before, the term “viewpoint” gets used to mean both the person who is seeing the action (viewpoint character) and the way in which everything is written (viewpoint type). This is going to be about the latter sort of viewpoint. Specifically, it’s about first-person. First-person viewpoint is the “I” viewpoint: “I hate pickled [...]
January 15, 2010 – 9:06 am
One of the problems with talking about writing is that the terminology isn’t standardized. Even when everybody agrees what something is called, the same word gets used to mean other things, which can lead to confusion. Take the term “viewpoint.” It can mean either the person through whose eyes the story is told, as in [...]
December 15, 2009 – 11:13 am
When a writer sets out to tell a story, she has a lot of choices to make, and every time she makes one, it influences what options are still available for the other choices. In some cases, one decision can completely eliminate all other options. Take the matter of narrative voice (which I define as [...]
August 30, 2009 – 11:11 am
In the comments on the last post, S.A. Cox said “Historically, however, with both writing and teaching, one of the main keys to my development has been trusting my instincts about what is working and what isn’t, and then working like a dog at what isn’t.” My experience with trusting my instincts has been good; [...]