Viewpoint

[rolanni]

"First person" narratives are sometimes called "I stories." This is because the story is told solely from the point of view of a single character, who refers to herhisoritself as "I."

A story told in "rotating first person" means that there are several characters involved in a work, each pursuing hisherorits own story, and each referring to themselves as "I."

"Third person" narratives are sometimes called "omniscient." This is because the narrator is someone other than the characters, who is nonetheless completely informed about the characters' world(s), past lives, current actions and present thoughts. Some people make the mistake of thinking that the omniscient narrative voice is the "actual" voice of the author of the book.

A subset of the third person viewpoint is "tight third" in which the all-knowing narrator chooses to stick with the perceptions/history/actions/thoughts of one character. It is easily distinguishable from a "first person" narrative in that the focal character is referred to by herhisorits name, rather than "I."

That is all.

Comments

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Needed to get that off your chest? .:g:.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Personally I mostly write in first person--I haven't tried rotating--or tight third, usually using the POV character's "voice" as the narrative voice. I can't seem to get the hang of omniscient third.

Might one ask why you posted this and whether it had anything to do with your grumpiness?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

And I feel ever so much better for it *g*

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Omniscient voice is way too easy for me; I oughta join Headhoppers Anonymous. First person just about kills me, but I can (she said, gritting her teeth and showing tough, do it if I have to).

Might one ask why you posted this and whether it had anything to do with your grumpiness?

One is in receipt of the information that Plan B is written in rotating first. Had the assertion come from a reader, one might be somewhat less frustrated; one does not demand technical expertise from one's readers. However, this "fact" was asserted in a review of the work, and one does hold reviewers to a Higher Standard. Silly, but there it is.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I tend to do "tight third" the most. Don't know why, but I find it easier to pick one person's viewpoint and stick with it all the way to the bitter end.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

All work so far has been multiple tight thirds. It's akin to a physical task to exit one head and enter another. At the point when I need to do it, I don't think I can. Once I'm there, it's like I've never left, and I have no idea how I'm going to settle into the next head.

It's parasitic, in a way. Maybe more symbiotic--they give me fun/catharsis/challenge, and I let them out to run about and move all the furniture.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

I generally write first or tight third, but I love playing with a strong authorial voice. Lately that's been where I have the most fun.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Sympathies.

"Voice/POV" is a pain, and we lavish a lot of attention on doing it right. To have a reviewer get it wrong (and of course, we can't say anything to said reviewer about this error...) is almost as bad as having an editor make a blatant error.

We can't do anything but grit and go on.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

We can't do anything but grit and go on.

...and offer bad-tempered tutorials in our Live Journals *g*

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I have to exercise strict discipline to stay with one character until it's time to change heads. The book just revised is told in alternating tight thirds -- just two main characters; where did we go wrong?

I really, really like playing with each character's perceptions -- the things in a room one notices that the other doesn't. The situation that for one character is business as usual and for the other is incomprehensible, strange, or just irritating. The difference in language and thought process.

Writing the mysteries in first person was tough -- I don't think I could have borne it for much more than 60,000 words.

The Nameless Novella I just wrote while I should have been doing Something Else is told in a third so tight that it should maybe have been first, except the character is so, um... strange... I felt that I needed the distance. And, wouldn't you know it, I had to forcibly keep myself from jumping into the consciousness of the second player, because weaving that viewpoint into the story would have been so interesting. Incomprehensible, but interesting *g*

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Well, **I** thought it was informative. *g*

Although you used slightly different names for one/some? of the forms, I understood your point and the voice.