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
Read more →Multiple viewpoint stories, especially the sort that are occasionally termed “bestseller style,” have become increasingly popular over the past couple of decades – popular with would-be writers, at least. Some people hear the saying that “viewpoint solves everything” and assume that it means all they have to
Read more →For a lot of stories, the choice of viewpoint character seems obvious, either because the writer starts with a character and develops the plot later, or because they start with a plotline in which one particular character is at the center of the action. I said “seems
Read more →Who’s telling the story? Unless a story is in first-person, most people will answer “the writer;” if the story is first-person, some of them will say “the viewpoint character.” And they’re not exactly wrong … but they’re not exactly right, either. In both cases, the writer is
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