Tight-third-person is currently one of the most common choices for viewpoint, particularly in genre fiction. It has a lot of advantages. It’s very character-focused, almost as much as first-person. It allows for more narrative flexibility than first person. It makes it easy to switch viewpoints without confusing
Read more →A few years back, I was discussing the importance of viewpoint choice with a young writer. We appeared to be in complete agreement on the subject, right up to the point where he commented that changing the viewpoint of “Snow White” to one of the dwarfs made
Read more →Just as “villain” and “antagonist” are frequently used as synonyms, “hero” and “protagonist” are also confused a lot. But there is an added factor for some people, namely, where “main character” and “viewpoint character” fit. So first, some definitions and examples. “Main character” is a somewhat broader
Read more →There’s a recurring writing argument that revolves around which type(s) of viewpoint are “too easy” or “too hard” or problematic in some other way, such that writers (especially beginners, but when you look a little closer, it sounds a lot like “all writers”) should be discouraged from
Read more →I have been listening to people talk about unreliable narrators for a long time, and it seems to me that the definition has broadened over the years. Back when I was still taking English classes, an unreliable narrator was one you couldn’t and shouldn’t trust at all.
Read more →In case anyone wondered, the interior pages got finished and turned in in good time. But today’s post is going to be more ranting about the WIP. Fair warning. Multiple viewpoint stories are inherently complicated. As a reader, I often find myself interested mainly in one specific
Read more →Reading involves a certain amount of mental inertia, simply because we are all humans and that’s part of how the basic brain setup works. By “mental inertia” I mean the underlying assumption that how things are, or how they have been for a while, is how things
Read more →The other day I ran across an article on writing scenes, and the very first tip in it was “stick to one viewpoint per scene.” Based on context, the writer meant “stick to one viewpoint character per scene,” because it is rare for a writer to switch
Read more →“How did you decide what viewpoint to use for your first novel?” I was more than a little bemused by the question, because that is one of many supposedly vital writing decisions that I don’t remember making, let alone angsting over the way the questioner obviously was.
Read more →Writing a multiple viewpoint story, novel, or series means that you are will be juggling many different viewpoint characters, each with their own story as well as their contributions to the main plotline. Choosing those characters takes a bit of care and attention, especially for writers who
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