This month the lovely people at Round Robin are having a conversation about POV. The question is which we prefer to read and write in, and boy do I have some things to say here!
Somewhere, some way, I grew into the belief that it wasn’t a professional book unless it was written in Third Person. Limited or Omniscient didn’t matter, but it had to be third person. I have no idea where this came from, I just know that it stuck and for a very long time I focused on Third Person exclusively.
I shied away from First Person Books even if they were on the NY Times Bestseller lists.
Except for Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, which I fell in love with. But I told myself it was a fluke and really, she broke the rules in book 2 of that series and sort of hopped between First Person and Third Person and it worked really well. So well that I might give that a try.
Most of my books are in Third Person Limited, and I do enjoy writing in it. Some of my favorite books are all in Third Person as well, The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare or Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo or His Majesties Dragon by Naomi Novik, just to name a few. I do have to admit that I prefer Limited to Omniscient. I do not enjoy hopping from one character to another in a scene, it feels like cheating and – at least to me – I feel like the real motivations/emotions get skimmed over for the characters.
I prefer when the author digs in like a tick and unearths those really big, core things about each character.
And then…
And then I read A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sara J Maas.
This is, for most of the series, First Person POV.
And I loved every second of that journey.
Suddenly my very shallow understanding of POV was challenged. I don’t know what teacher impressed upon me the need for Third Person, but it had to have been someone influential in my younger years to implant this in me for so long, and I must admit now that this is an entirely WRONG standpoint.
With that in mind, I approached Nora and the Werewolf Wedding from a First Person POV. This was my first real foray into that POV, and I loved writing in it.
As in, I blew through the first draft of Nora’s second book in three months. And the third book is looking like it’ll take just about the same amount of time. There is a flow to the narrative that I haven’t been able to catch with Third Person POV, and it limits what I’m writing to precisely what Nora feels/sees/tries. This adds a sense of immediacy to the story.
This isn’t to say that I am abandoning Third Person limited. Last Child of Winter was written in Third Person and I deeply love that story. What this does say is that POV is a tool, just like all the other tools at a writer’s disposal, and everything is going to come down to the story the author wants to tell. A good author can make any POV work for them to enhance the story.
Check out what my fellow authors have to say about POV!
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
A.J. Maguire https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/ ( YOU ARE HERE)
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
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