Tag Archives: viewpoint

First person, part the second

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 vans [...]

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First person, part the first

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 beets. [...]

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A Different View

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 “Who [...]

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Who says?

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 the [...]

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Working at what isn’t free

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; maybe [...]

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